Tein Flex A/ Flex Z Durability
 

I have looked around the forum and found reviews but haven't seen anybody actually talking about how many miles they have accumulated for these coilovers.

So for the Flex A and Flex Z owners, how many miles have you driven since you installed? Was the suspension put through multiple track days a year or mostly street? How many clicks from full stiffness do you set it to? Any other useful information you can provide?

I just want to compare the durability of these coilovers to the stock suspension. Currently I'm at 50k miles on stock suspension, mostly just daily driving with occasional spirited driving. I want to take this car to the tracks maybe once or twice a year and was wondering with these factors in mind, would the upgraded coilovers have a longer lifespan than a new stock suspension?

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Most aftermarket coilover kits recommend a service interval of 15k miles or 1 year.

Of course, most users aren't going to do this, but for maximum performance and comfort, you really do want to stick to the schedule. This applies whether it's Tein or JRZ or any other brand.

Mike,
What's involved in service for the Flex Z, where would one take them, and how much is the approximate cost?

Zs are not serviceable/revalveable (reason why their price is lower with eg. serviceable As). One orders damper "cartridge" separately and changes it to restore "like new" performance. Not the worst approach, as allows minimize car downtime.

Hi jc7993

Up until September last year (2019) I was running a set of regular Tein Flex A's that were installed in 2015. I probably covered 40,000 to 45,000 miles on them in that time, using the car every day and doing atleast 5 track days a year with the odd back road trip in between.

For the first few years I ran them at 8 clicks from full stiff and then full stiff or one or two clicks off full stiff when on track (track dependant). After a couple of years I noticed a difference in the damping and the coilovers becoming slightly more bouncy (bouncy is probably the wrong word). I then changed them to 5 clicks from full stiff and they felt much better. I was fully aware that Tein suggest a service / overhaul is done after 2-3 years or approximately 3-40,000km. However due to the fact that my car is a daily I didn't want the down time to remove the suspension and have them rebuilt, then put back on the car. I'd already got rid of the stand suspension by this point. So I decided to run the Teins for another couple of years, with no change in use. Last year I noticed a couple of knocking noises coming from the suspension, nothing to serious but thought I'd get them checked out. The garage I use found that the front right coilover (drivers side/RHD) had a worn top bearing, I'd also got a slight knock on the rear left coilover. Because of this I decided to replace them with a brand new set of Flex A's. I would have got the CSG Spec Flex A's, however due to cost/shipping/import tax, they would have been double the price of regular Flex A's for me.

As for the physical condition of the coilovers once removed, they were in reasonable shape with the issues being some rusting on the top mounts, springs and lower mounting points. Due to there use on a daily driven car in wet weather & snow on gritted roads, I thought this was reasonably acceptable for a powder coated coilover. Having seen a couple of other cars with the same Tein coilovers, unfortunately they all end up this way, atleast they do here in the UK.

In my opinion they are an excellent coilover for daily use with occassional track use, which fits me perfectly. However I have found they are abit too soft for dedicated track use. I'd happy recommend them for anyone looking for a excellent value for money coilover.

I've attached a couple of photo's of the coilovers from July 2019, which was 2 months before they were removed from the car, just so you can get an idea of condition after a several years.

Hope that helps.

p.s. Don't buy Whiteline droplinks, they also caused several knocks and can easily break.

You don't "rebuild" or service them per se. Rather, you buy a replacement cartridge, and replace the old one with the new one. It's fairly inexpensive.

If you can noticeably feel the degradation, they're WAY overdue for service!

If you still have your old coilovers, send them in to your local Tein servicer to see what they'd cost to get serviced. It may be worth servicing to have it ready to go when your current ones are worn, or even as a learning experience, so you can swap your current set at the 1 or 2 year mark, before they become bouncy/harsh, and see if you notice the difference immediately after the swap.

Quite often, folks go from Brand X to Brand Y, and proclaim brand Y clearly superior better, when in reality, their original Brand X coilover was just badly worn out, and they didn't notice the slow degradation over time!