[DarrenDriven]

EXPERIENCE AT ~50 MILES (August 3rd 2012):
Well, 50 miles is not a lot of seat time to get to know the personality of my new D2 coilovers, but it's long enough to report that nothing bad has happened yet. I've got the front end dropped pretty low and the rear not as low, so the issues that I am running into have more to do with the low front bumper and lower cross-member making contact with the ground than with anything else. It's nice to know that even though the car is nicely stanced, I still have another INCH that I could drop it on the front! I have the compression settings at full stiffness for now so I can feel the road -- and man can I feel it! The stiffer springs and tight compression have the car a little bouncy at the moment, but when I get a few more miles on the car I am going to adjust the compression to the softest setting so I can compare the two. I have no strange noises, no clunks, no rattles, no rubbing at all... overall I am very happy with the value that this product has provided and as long as there are no annoying hiccups (or catastrophic failures for that matter) I will consider this a successful modification.

EXPERIENCE AT ~200 MILES (August 20th 2012):
All is still well. With 7.4kg/mm rates at the front and 5.0kg/mm at the rear (vs 2.3kg/mm and 3.8kg/mm for the stock springs) you can definitely feel every nuance of the road for better or for worse. Combined with a 40-series front tire, I can tell you if I drove over a penny! This doesn't bother me and it was totally expected based on the specs of the coilover and my previous experience driving lowered cars. Because the car was so low I ran it with the adjustable compression settings at maximum stiffness in order to avoid bottoming the bumper (or lower cross-member) on speed bumps and potholes. I will run at maximum stiffness for another 100 miles or so until I get used to the feel and then move to maximum "softness" in order to feel the other extreme setting, before deciding where in the spectrum I would like to keep it for daily driving. Changing the compression rate is as easy as popping the hood and inserting one of the four included custom allen wrenches.

I have been driving with the front end lowered 2 1/4" until I raised it 1/2" yesterday to avoid chewing up my bottom bumper on driveways. Raising the car was a simple affair. I removed the two front wheels, loosened the lowest locking collar and then used the included wrench to turn the entire spring/strut assembly. It took me about five minutes for each side and when I was done I could actually make it out of my driveway without leaving an Asphalt-colored stripe.

EXPERIENCE AT ~1000 MILES (September 14th 2012):
Still no issues or complaints. I adjusted the compression settings on the front pair to full softness for a trip from Portland OR to Lewiston ID and it's tough to say if there was much of a difference. The springs are very stiff, so the ride is fairly stiff simply because of that -- does the compression setting make much of a difference in a daily driving situation? I do notice that when I go over speed bumps I can barely make out the quiet wooshing sound of the shock oil squeezing through the adjustable orifice... but I really need to drive some back-to-back runs on a bumpy road while playing with the settings to see if much of a difference can be detected.

The car sits great and although my maximum camber settings up front can't be doing great things for the performance, I think that my tire choice affected handling more than the suspension. Grippier tires keep the car stuck to the ground better around corners, but the release point of the contact patch is much more abrupt than when I had the car at stock height on stock tires. I think that the car is slightly less predictable as far as when it might let go, but getting to that point (and I try almost daily) has become much harder. Both the suspension and the tires combine to change the handling dynamics, but since I did both at about the same time it's hard to say which had a greater effect.

I visual inspection of the coilovers shows them to still look brand new. There are no apparent defects or damage from 1000+ miles of driving. No strange noises, creaks, rattles or thumps. No leaking fluids or loose fittings. All appears well.

EXPERIENCE AT ~8000 MILES (September 8th 2013):
Well, I still haven't made the time to adjust the coilovers since originally setting the ride height at installation. Visually the coilovers still look virtually new and ride the same as when I installed them. No problems, no issues at all.

EXPERIENCE AT ~10,000 MILES (January 2nd 2014):
I FINALLY dropped the car even lower recently, which was an easy task because there was no corrosion or damage to the threads on the coilover body. Before attempting to adjust the collars, I soaked the threaded parts of the body down with WD40, wiped them with a rag and blew the threads clean with the air compressor -- just to insure that no foreign matter would have the chance to contaminate the threads. I had zero issues with adjustment and at this point the coilovers ride as well as they did when I first installed them.