My car would shake a good amount on the freeway, enough to shake my rear view mirror to where I couldn't see how far cars where behind me. Got new tires and struts and it helped a lot. My mirror shakes very very little now and I can see out of it. I still feel like the ride isn't as smooth as I thought it would be. I still feel bumps a lot. I have sport shocks and the ls has a sport tune suspension and I know they are stiffer than normal shocks but I dont know if what I feel is how stiff they are suppose to be. Or maybe my my shocks are worn. I have a 04 v8 ls with 111,000 miles. I read a lot of posts about ball joints going bad and people chaning sway bars, control arms... sway bars are for when you turn and I dont know what the other parts do. What else affects the ride quality of the car and how much of the bad road you feel?
Suspension and ride quality question
- Thread starter Alax7
- Start date
LeaSr77
Dedicated LVC Member
Are you running factory wheels or aftermarket? That plays a big part in it too.
Rich88LSC
Dedicated LVC Member
I have a Sport and don't think the ride isn't hard at all. I have gotten a couple comments about how nice the car rides. I have a little shake in the rear view but I can still see the cars behind me and that is it well over the speed limit.
If you have new tires and struts I would have the front end checked for wear. And when was the last time an alignment was done?
If you have new tires and struts I would have the front end checked for wear. And when was the last time an alignment was done?
Stock rims with 235/50/17 tires with about 1500 miles on them. I got new struts with the tires and were alinged when the tires were put in. My dad would even tell me how comfortable his mark was, he had it like 15 years ago, I dont think the ride went down since then. I might get the front checked again like you said. It just feels likes in rides on the road solid and you feel a lot of the road. How long do shocks last on average?
NYC LS8
Dedicated LVC Member
If you haven't changed them at 110k, you're pretty much overdue. I believe, IIRC, that the interval is every 60k or something like that.
Oh....Yup, I think I'll check that out then.
What do you mean by "struts"? You mention the shocks later; do you mean that you replaced the front shocks but not the rear shocks, or are you referring to something else? (FWIW, the LS has coil-over shocks on all four corners; the only struts is has are the ones that keep the hood open, the incorrect terminology in the Ford parts catalog be damned.)
Vibrations at speed in the LS are usually caused by wheel balance issues--the LS's suspension is very sensitive to balance issues. Take your car to a shop with a Hunter Road Force balancer (see http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm to find one) and have them re-balance the wheels and tires.
As for your dad's Mark, that's apples and oranges. There's almost no similarity between the suspensions on those two cars, other than the fact that both have independent rear suspensions. The LS has more in common with an F1 race car than it does with anything else Lincoln has ever built.
I was just saying how he said way back then the lincoln rode really nice and I didn't think the suspension quality went down from then to now. About the strut thing. Thats what they called them so thats what I call them. So coil over shocks, so there is a coil around the shocks of the ls or this piece is just called coil over shocks and has shocks as well? They said they changed the struts and it made the car a lot more stable. And whatever they change, what they called "struts" were changed on all four corners
What about these. Are these just the shocks but have the struts in them as one piece? Are they the same as the ones that lsk sells? Or is it all just a typo and misinformed people putting up info.
http://www.car-stuff.com/mmparts/lincoln-ls/strut_assembly.html
http://www.car-stuff.com/mmparts/lincoln-ls/strut_assembly.html
Shows what they know. For some reason Ford calls the shocks a strut; though the strut and shock are more like cousins than siblings. The spring goes around the top of the shock, sitting on that perch. Like this:
I would stick with the OE shocks. They are actually the best until someone other than Monroe can better the OEM.
The suspension quality didn't go down, the two cars simply ride differently because they're set up with different objectives, just like a live-axle Mustang GT500 rides differently than a live-axle Town Car. There are trade-offs in every design; the LS's suspension traded some "comfort" for better handling.
The LS's springs coil around the shocks, and I believe the lower spring perch is on the shock body. If you don't look at them carefully, they could easily be mistaken for struts, and the incorrect terminology in the Ford parts catalog doesn't help.
FWIW, the difference between shocks and struts is that struts are structural (at least suspension struts are
). If you remove the struts, the car can't go anywhere because you've removed a load-bearing part of the suspension, whereas removing the shocks will primarily affect ride quality--ie, the car can still go, but the ride will be crappy. In the case of the LS, it will be really crappy, because you'll also be removing the springs, leaving the suspension completely bottomed out, but you could still go somewhere in an emergency (at least in theory; when it's completely bottomed out, the LS's tires may rub).That's what I was trying to get at; from what you said, it wasn't clear if they'd hit all four or if they'd just changed the fronts (which are the ones, IIRC, the Ford parts catalog calls struts).
At any rate, if you're still getting a vibration at speed, get the wheels rebalanced. I'd suggest going to the shop your local street-rodders use; they're usually pretty good judges of quality work.
The car doesn't vibrate that much it it just feels like i feel it hit the road hard like when you hit a little dip or where there are holes in the road, not the big pot holes but when the road is damaged. I wish I could drive another ls and see if its normal or something is up with mine. Oh and I went to a ford dealer to pick up a part and asked them about the "struts" and they said it has struts on all four corners and then i told them of they were shock, struts, or coil over shocks, and he said they called them struts but are coil over schock and are also sometimes just called shocks. I was under the impression that the ls had struts and shock separate and I only got the struts changed ot and now needed the shocks replaced. So the shocks from lsk are the oem shocks right? The same as the original shocks not oem replacement/ compatible.
Nope, when they replaced the "struts," they replaced the shocks, so you're good to go on that front, and the springs are most likely OK. The next logical step would be to replace the bushings and check the ball joints, but it's possible that you're running into one of the design limitations of the LS's suspension.
Yep, the shocks Ken sells are OEM; they'd be the same as what came on your car from the factory, except they're probably revised parts.
Yeah that was one of my questions in the first post.If ball joints or bushings had to do with the ride quality.