Lowering your car by cutting springs


Garwin Beukes - ​“Stance” and vehicle customizing has become a leading form of motor sport in Namibia. A major part of the motor sport is having your car lowered.

Essentially to lower your vehicle, you'll need to buy and install a lowering kit. The cheapest form of lowering kits are aftermarket shortened shock springs also referred to as dropped springs.

Even these are at times too expensive for car enthusiasts and that has prompted many to resort to literally cutting or grinding off rings from your original coil springs and refitting them.

Before we start I would like to mention that by no possible means do we support this notion and that by doing this, you potentially endanger your life!

The first thing you need to know is that cutting a coil spring will not only lower the vehicle, but depending on how much you cut, it will give you a harder, more bumpy ride and can possibly limit the amount of people (and weight) you can fit into your car.

I know a lot will reason that buying drop springs will do the same, to some extent that might be true - just think of cutting as the negative effects multiplied by two.

However what some do not know is that cutting will also stiffen the spring making the ride and handling a bit firmer; this is a good thing because lowering a vehicle reduces the amount of suspension travel.

Suspension travel however is also vital and with reduced amounts you can experience hard bumps and shakes every time you hit a little object in the road.

So although you didn't spend a penny and now have a cool lowered look on your car, you should keep in mind that this notions wears your shocks a lot faster and may give you serious suspension headaches.

Your best bet is to do it the right way!