paimon.soror

iTrader: (15)

Take a zip tie, and tie it under the bump stop on the coilover piston shaft. Push the zip tie all the way down to where it meets the coilover body, and push the bumpstop all the way up to the top. Go for a drive and hit some good bumps. Come back, and take a look at the zip tie. If it worked its way up and is hugging the bumpstop (bumpstop is as high as it can go), then either your shocks are blown, your springs are too short, or your rates are too low.

175mm is fine for the front since you will run a high rate (im running 200mm), but you want 200mm for the rear.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

Bump. So how many more people have checked their bushings?

BountyHunter

Wow I can't believe I just saw this. I bought/installed my Powertrix coilovers in June 2013 and I haven't looked at them since. I wonder why I never got an email from them. I contacted Charles directly through email about questions before I bought these so I should've been on the email list.

I definitely need to check the bushings this weekend! Thank you 9k!

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

I bet you lunch that your bushings are f#$ked.

BountyHunter

Judging from when you first posted about the coilovers I'm going to guess mine were manufactured in the same lot as yours.

Looks like I won't be driving the 8 until I can check on them this weekend

Charles@POWERTRIX

iTrader: (2)

Hello,

We've sent out 3 different group emails to proactively contact our customers.
Unfortunately we must have missed your email.
Did you purchase them via Group Buy or directly?

Regardless, and even if you acquired the coilovers second hand, please email me your full name and shipping address to cpark@powertrix.com and I'll have the replacements shipped out today and you will have them tomorrow.

Thanks.

BountyHunter

Thank you Charles! I have sent you an email.

Good thing I didn't take that bet 9K. I decided to take a look at them when I got back from work and they look bad even without taking them off.

BountyHunter

Charles sent me the replacements and they were at my door in less than 24 hours from initial communication. I will give it to them, Powertrix has amazing customer service! Thank you Charles!

rx8inator

iTrader: (3)

bump

I'm in the market for new coilovers as my d2 isn't just cutting it for me. anybody know if these coils have been fixed? meaning, do i have to keep an eye out for the bushings like every 6 months and replace them each time? (both powertrix and stance)

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

Just save yourself the trouble and get some Bilstein PSS9's or KW variants. The bushings were supposedly upgraded but mine were replaced and are starting to show signs of dry rot, it won't be long before they bust again. And my car is not a daily driver. Mine will be replaced after I get my new MS rear and spoiler painted and installed.

rx8inator

iTrader: (3)

Ah damn it. Off the top of your head do you happen to know the max drop for front and rear on the bilsteins?

04Green

iTrader: (1)

On the Stance / PowerTrix topic. I have the PowerTrix variant. What suggestions are out there for routing the rear cables? I went through the oval hole to the rear and put cable bundle around the outside to make it easier to turn. Any better ideas? The cable in a cable on my D-Specs was much easier to use.

On the review side, I like them. I really did not think I would like the 9K / 6K setup. I thought it would be too stiff, but the ride nice at anything above about 30 mph and not bad below. It rides nicer than my wife's SUV. It is firm, but the car does not bob and weave. Over the past few days I have been seeking out construction zones for test areas. I did 15 miles of I-95 in a construction area and was impressed. The car was not a silky smooth, that is not going to happen, but it was not unpleasant. Fronts were set on 2, rears on 1. Today I did a lot of back roads and noticed a bit of a bounce, I moved front to 3, and rear to 2. I am evaluating that one. I also screwed up and managed to set the rears on 6. Not good, I left the seat on one particularly harsh bump.

Installation is much better with 2 people. I used the spring install DIY from this site. The only addition is to disconnect the front ABS sensor as well. Also, the front ride height adjustment, is less than obvious. As near as I can tell, the car moves about 1.5 times as far as you adjust the spring. The back is much more linear.

I will have more data after I hit the track, but so far things seem good. I find myself a lot more confident and noticing that I am slowing down less and less for corners. My biggest complaint is that I sold my factory sway bars. There is a good possibility that my progress tech ones are too stiff, even on the lightest setting. On the bright side, I no longer worry about overloading the car or putting too much in the trunk.

For the discussion above, when I talk about a harsh bump, it is usually a dip in the road followed by a rise that has scratches carved into the surface from parts of vehicles hitting it. There will usually be oil on the surface as well because any drops ready to leak from cars are definitely shaken loose.

ShellDude

iTrader: (12)

my driver's side was MUCH worse than the passenger side. Will post pictures once I have things squared away.... Replaced mine as part of a slightly bigger project.

Mine were from the very first production run and Charles contacted me the moment he knew there was a problem.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

People were only contacted after a stink was made here first IIRC on the Powertrix but maybe you are a special circumstance. Stance was not proactive about it at all but they did replace them. And the "updated" ones have failed as well so nothing was fixed. I will post pics of my updated ones, they probably don't have 10,000 miles on them and they are already cracking. It's pretty sad since my car lives in a great environment, is garaged, and not even daily driven. But it is what it is, these are cheap coilovers. Mine are getting replaced, i likely won't bother with another set of bushings.

ShellDude

iTrader: (12)

yeah... contacted me the moment he knew that we knew they had a problem. but I'll take what I can get... far better than others.

ShellDude

iTrader: (12)

Here's what mine looked like:

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

How many miles on these? I will post the condition of my "upgraded" bushings with only about 10,000 miles on them when the coilovers get replaced soon. Thanks for sharing.

ShellDude

iTrader: (12)

hmm. i'm going to wager 10k or so but that's a SWAG

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

That is about what I have on the replacement bushings Stance sent me. Maybe more, but not much more, I hardly put any miles on her since I have a daily and she is garaged.

ShellDude

iTrader: (12)

given my recent reinvestment i'm seriously considering no longer using it as my DD

Charles@POWERTRIX

iTrader: (2)

Yes, it’s a big miss-understanding that our coilovers got included with the STANCE branded coilovers bushings problems.

I can understand why it's confusing and coupled with their bushings problems since it all seemed to happen at the same time as a defective bushing run of our own happened. The OP on of this particular post has STANCE coilovers and STANCE replacements. And that is why he is still seeing problems as the replacements he received are the exact same quality and would expect to fail in the exact same way. He omits to provide the proper info that he does not have POWERTRIX products but now has a bias against both companies especially went we interjected to correct his improper allegations that our product was the same. For us, this was an isolated incident that was quickly rectified however the OP of the post on RX8club.com seems to have a disliking against both our company and STANCE due to being challenged on his opinion and knowledge and now take any chance to speak unfavorably about STANCE and include POWERTRIX.

The difference is that we/POWERTRIX found out what the defect was and did not send out replacements that were equally as defective.
We/POWERTRIX correct the found defect and rectified the issue with the correct specifications we have always had.
Also a fact that the OP conveniently decides to omit from his posted info and opinions.

Here are the facts:

Yes, we had a run of bushings that were produced by mistake that were out of our normal specifications.
Once we realized that the premature failure of the bushings was not normal for our product (as we have been producing coilovers for over 13 years since 2002), We researched our that particular production process, more specifically our bushing mold blend, compared it with our previous production runs and found out on this particular run, had abnormalities and did not result in the intended durameter (stiffness/strenghth) of bushings material.

The abnormalities were corrected to our normal standard and we produced replacements and proactively contacted our customers to inform them that we would be sending them replacements for the defective parts and the parts that they would be receiving would be what was and always has been intended on all of our coilover systems.

In conclusion, you will not find anyone of our customers having any issues in regards to premature bushings failure replacement wise or pre and post defectives time frame wise.

I guarantee you'll be more than happy with the quality of the product, performance and ride. Rest assured you will be purchasing a product with plenty of backing, history, and customer support like no other coilover company supporting the RX8/SE3P chassis.

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any further questions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello 9krpmrx8 (OP)

I'm really sorry that you are experiencing the issues you are having with your STANCE coilovers bushings. I can understand why you feel the way you do due to your bushings (not POWERTRIX) that continually fail. I would be happy to send you a set of our bushing mounts in hopes that you will try them out and see that the issue with our product was an isolated incident and that you will not have to continue replacing them. As those pre (since 2002) and post defects that has been rectified over 2 years ago have either never had to be replaced or those we have replaced due to the isolated defect with the correct and intended durameter bushings that have always been our standard, now have zero issues.

I realize that you do not own our product but would like a chance to 1. help you out with your coilovers problems and 2. Hopefully change your opinion and that you will realize that including us POWERTRIX continuously in the STANCE issue is a bit unfair.

Please PM me with your address and I'll gladly send out a set of our bushings mounts to you.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

Since we are posting in two threads.

Charles@POWERTRIX

iTrader: (2)

We never hear from this customer and if we sent out replacements of the same defective quality, it was primarily to help keep the customer on the road until we received the corrected replacements and those customers we did that for were informed and understood that. With over a decade with only this one defect that has been corrected I would expect if there was an underlying continued issue that more than this one customer out of the hundreds of customers just in the SE3P market may have had a so called repeat problem would have contacted us. We have never had a report of our corrected bushings ever having problems and it seems odd that it is just the local customer to you and that we have never been contacted by them.

I realize you have a right to your Biased OPINION and though you are trying to make it popular on this board it is exactly what it is biased. Those with closed minds, you can never change and will never admit to being inaccurate and incorrect. In this industry it is a common thing. Opinions without substantial data to have no validity and we have clearly stated the facts and have over 13 years of experience with customers ranging from many import makes and models. I am sorry we could not open your mind.


9krpmrx8 has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - Powertrix coilovers - in the Series I Wheels, Tires, Brakes & Suspension forum of RX8Club.com.

Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
I guess you missed where your replacement bushings failed?

I guess you missed the fact that the issue for us was an isolated defect that was rectified over 2 years ago.
With your Ideology, you are basically saying that the car you drive as does everyone else on this forum board does "Sucks" (with its recalls / defects) regardless if Mazda fixed / rectified the issue or defect.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

You are trying to sell a product, I understand your position on the matter.

I can only speak of what I have seen on EVERY Powertrix setup I have worked on in addition to the guys here who all had issues (some of which didn't even know until I brought it up) and posted about it. And judging by what we saw locally with all of them suffering bushings failures with very little mileage on them I can assume all of the coilovers were affected. Now which bushings were fixed and which ones were not, I have no clue, I just know that a replacement set was received and that replacement set also failed.

The owner couldn't be bothered (understandably) to try another set, the coilovers were junked for a custom setup. The others no longer own RX-8's and the one last guy I know who bought them just has car sitting at the moment and his bushings are blown out with less than a year on them. He may contact you for a replacement set but he doesn't log on here anymore so I don't know what his plans are, he was pretty annoyed by the whole situation.

And if I understand Shelldude's replacement bushings also failed I think, unless I misunderstood him. But maybe those pics are how they looked on the first set, it's unclear to me.

Either way people should know and if it is no longer a problem then that will be proven in time.

Charles@POWERTRIX

iTrader: (2)

Hello R9krpmrx8,

We do not blame you and we too understand how you feel and how it must have left a bad taste do to your experience. I know you probably have helped over 4-5 guys (may be even more) in your area either discover or replace the defective bushings. This can be explained in that in the one Production run consisting of over 80-100 sets of SE3P coilovers that could have been effected by this one time isolated defect so it would be natural to hear of the issue. On the large scale of things, I understand how "ALL" the sets you encountered would some what warrant the type of ridicule posted as they were part of those 80-100 sets that where affected.

But in all fairness, All 80-100 of these customers were documented, proactively contacted and over time as they replied, we replace their bushing mounts. Since we became aware of the defect 2 years ago with the bulk of the replacements already received and on cars with zero issues since then, this is the "time will tell" proof based on the dates in this thread.

Timewise, ever so often we get a customer that trickles in that had not gotten back to us after our original contact emails about the issue and had never gotten their defective bushings replaced contacts us and it surfaces and seems like an on going problem. For this I can understand the confusion however was still an original defect from over 2 years ago that was not taken care of until that customer decided to contact us.

We have NEVER sent out a second set of Bushings to any of our customers that have had the correct replacements sent to them. Therefore unequivocally, without a doubt we know for sure that we have never had bushings prematurely wear before the defects accidentally hit the market and after the majority of the replacements were sent, installed and used over the past 2 years.

Yes, We too also agree that those in the RX8 community should know of the issue but also they have a right to know with the past 2 years being proof and with several coilovers purchased since then that it was rectified and that it is no longer an issue.

The Ideology reference was to direct the view point of the average every day reader doing his/her own research to see that a small defect that has been absolutely solved over 2 years ago does not define the over all quality and longevity of any product/car. Our years in business and numerous customers and their experiences speak for itself and to take one person's opinion on one small rectified/solved issue with skepticism and to continue researching as this particular topic/component is the only negative comment from only one point of view as there is not one other negative comment about our Coilover Systems based on performance, ride quality, build quality, damper efficiency etc. as a whole on the RX8 boards from the plethora of owners that do have them that we know of.

Thank you for yout contribution and I hope this will help clear up any misunderstanding in regards to the product, its time line of the defects that have been rectified and the quality.

If there are any questions I am happy to discuss optimum setup and suspension dynamics with any and all interested parties and can be reached by email or the contact numbers below. Thank you to all that have contacted us directly on this matter and have chosen POWERTRIX to provide for you.