bottomed out today on my stock suspension ... so I guess that means I need the eibach pro-kit to lower my car to make sure nobody ever sees the minor paint damage on the bottom of the front bumper! brilliant way to solve the problem IMO haha ... hopefully I will have the springs on as soon as school is over this semester and I'm back in vegas ... any problems to look for when lowering a 7th gen max on 20x8.5s with the eibach kit?

 

LOL Nice

 

Just avoid spped bumps entirely. The stock suspension on the 7th gen Maxima gives the lowest ground clearance (4.5 inches) of any Maxima generation. I am often dragging the bottom on speed bumps with my stock suspension.

 

Being lower is only going to make you scrape harder and more often. Other than avoiding situations where you bottom, the only mechanical "fix" is stiffer springs that leave the car at stock ride height (I won't suggest "lifting" the car like you might do to a 4x4) and more compression damping in the shocks/struts. Expect ride quality to take a hit.


Norm

 

24" wheels!

 

Perfect time to start looking into a lift kit

 

i have the lowering springs on my car and welcome to the bottoming out club lol...Living in nyc its tough with all these potholes

 

haha good call! lambo status right there

 

I don't get all the hype on lowering a daily driver, only to receive damage on regular streets all the time. Sure, a lowered car looks good, and handles a bit better, but in the end it's hundreds if not thousands down the drain just so other people can say "nice drop". I don't really get it, I'd rather make extra mortgage payments or get a new drumset then lower the car...

 

+1, I have had enough issues throughout the years at stock height with these bad roads.

 

thats what its all about my friend

 

Welcome to the bottom out club. I bottomed out last week as a result of a local repaving project... gouged the bottom of the front bumper nastily. My solution? Ordered the Stillen front lip spoiler. Gonna make the front end even lower (LOL) but atleast it'll hide the gouges (and make the beast look even meaner) until I bottom out again.

 

I had my '04 dropped on Progress. The bottom of the poor thing was all scraped up. Tore the flex piping on my Cattman y-pipe too, but at least it was never to the point of it leaking. heh

Everyone is already asking me when I'm going to drop my G37. I just say "Never." and they ride me about it. Silly people.

 

The trick to lowering is doing it carefully and thoughtfully. Coping with ground clearance and tire clearance issues is only the beginning.

Appearance considerations aside - it's damn near impossible to change anybody's mind on that anyway - being lowered has not automatically meant that handling gets improved ever since cars stopped having stick axles at both ends. The potential for better cornering or handling (two distinctly separate things, actually) is there, but if the lowering botches the geometry badly enough the performance delivered won't be up to the level suggested by the appearance. It can even be poorer than OE (assuming the same wheels/tires).


I've lowered a few cars, all daily-drivers, but none to the point where original body or chassis pieces were at risk when I'd got done with them. Yes, I've had to tinker with too-low initial ride heights here and there, well over an inch in some cases. But if you're going to play around with the suspension you should probably consider the swapping of springs just the beginning of the process. Not as a "set it and forget it, now I'm all done" kind of mod.


Norm

 

Yeah the Maxima is low already and you have to be very mindful of the concrete stops in front of parking spaces. True story, just yesterday at Steak N Shake my wife hit one of those and it hit the underside of the front bumper so hard that it sheared the connection to the bracket near the wheelwell. I used some automotive grade clear epoxy to reattach it, but ultimately I need a whole new front bumper.

 

if you lower your car, u need to know your road very well

 

no **** these guys complaining lol

 

My wife and I take turns driving, and when we are parking face-up to one of those darn high parking blocks, whichever one is riding shotgun steps out and lets the driver know when the bumper will not clear. This is easily the lowest front bumper I have had on a car.

 

I just reverse in when parking... backup camera does all the work & no worries about front bumper clearance

 

Apparently I had to browse away from the 5th gen forum to find some rational opinions about this "drop your ride" nonsense. I have enough problems getting up my driveway without scraping the front bumper; realities which make it easy to dismiss the opinions of ricers with more money than sense.

Thanks, guys.