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The day of the install started off with the craziest thing I could've imagined. While driving to my friend Jakes house I saw a car flipped on its side, and a girl banging on the front windshield to get out. I stopped the car and helped get her out. In the following not-so-short story I'll talk about my rollercoaster of a time putting Coilovers on my Chevy Cruze. The only way the story could have been better is if I recorded all of this, I wish I did.
BEFORE THE COILOVERS
![Wheel Tire Vehicle Car Grille]()
Hello everyone. I figured I would start off with a small introduction to help provide some context to the story. My name is Justin, and I own a 1st gen 1.4L-T 6MT Chevy Cruze. I'm not a mechanic so if I get any terms wrong, please bear with me. I bought the Cruze with the intent of having a somewhat safe, somewhat reliable, daily driver that I could modify and have some fun with. I needed it to be reliable because this is the car I will be taking to college and door dashing in. I found that the Cruze fit everything I was looking for, so I bought it. I've had a handful of small issues that left me stranded, but nothing I couldn't fix with the help of my father. I've done tons of modifications since the day I bought it, but we will leave those issues for a different story, todays story is about Coilovers.
The most recent modification I did was the most significant one I've done so far, Coilovers. It took me a long time to gain the courage to purchase them because I had no idea how to install them myself, and Coilovers are not cheap (for me at least). I decided against any of the Lowering springs very early on because I figured with my car having 120K+ miles on the original suspension, that most of the components would be rusted out or near death. So, the only option that made sense to me was Coilovers. I went with the Five 8 Industry set because they were the cheapest and fit all of my wants and needs. I didn't see the point of breaking the bank with a nicer set because the car is only worth roughly $6,000. One night in a discord call with my best friend jake and the help of 7 or so beers, I decided to buy them. When I woke up, I surprisingly didn't regret my decision. Thankfully Jake offered to help out with the install. He did the lowering springs on his own car, a 2021 Honda Accord 2.0T, and figured it should be much harder than that. We watched the only Chevy Cruze Coilover install video we could find on YouTube and figured we would finish the job in about 5 hours... We were off by about 15... I've never had to problem solve or improvise this much in my life. I've also never felt so hopeless about anything. The events that transpired during the install were moments that I will never forget.
The day of the install started off with the craziest thing I could've imagined. While driving to my friend Jakes house I saw a car flipped on its side smoking out of the bottom of the car, and a girl banging on the front windshield to get out. I stopped the car and helped get her out. I assume she was texting and driving and when her eyes went back to the road, she over corrected and flipped. Once I got her out, she was completely fine. Thank God. I waited for police and paramedics to arrive before I'd resume my trip to Jakes. Now that the day was officially starting, I figured I built up at least a year's worth of good karma, or hopefully enough for a smooth install. But honestly just thankful she was ok.
Thankfully Jake had a low-profile jack so getting the car in the air wasn't a problem. We started with the rear because we figured it was smart to start with the easiest part of the install. For the most part we were correct. The Stock rear suspension components were very easy to get off. It took us about an hour but then we ran into our first problem of many. We were unaware that apparently the Five 8 Coilovers do not come with everything you need, on cheaper Coilovers you usually need to re-use some components off the stock set. This wouldn't be the only time we would run into this issue. We needed to get the top rear bracket off old suspension to put it on the new set. This was only a problem because we needed to drive 40 minutes round trip to my dad's house to get the correct tools. The rear was super simple other than that. We got everything in and the wheels back on the car. We were very satisfied to have the rear done. In total that took 4 hours on the dot.
We now needed to do the front. We were way behind schedule and sadly figured we might not finish today. We put that behind us and got started. Getting the front components off was way harder, it wasn't even comparable to the rear. The sway bar end links were nearly impossible to get off due to its awkward location and rusted tight nuts. I wish I was as confident as Jake because we could have done 2 sides at once, but I was mainly offering support to him whenever I could. Finally, after 2-3 hours we got the right side on. We lowered the car to see what happened and we were flabbergasted. The car's tire completely tucked in on itself and the top of the suspension component stuck out 3 inches from the housing. We had no idea why this happened. We tried adjusting the coil to see if that would help and it changed almost nothing. The video I talked about earlier in the article was mostly helpful but did not explain AT ALL why this was happening. After sitting for another hour trying to solve the problem, I found someone with exactly the same issue on the Cruze Talk forum. Apparently, you need to reuse the "top hat" off of the stock suspension. At this point it was 9pm. We decided to start again the following day.
![Automotive tire Automotive wheel system Gas Engineering Rim]()
![Plant Gas Electric blue Stuffed toy Fashion accessory]()
![Tire Wheel Vehicle Automotive side marker light Car]()
To start off day 2 my friend Jake called off work to make this happen, so I went to his place around 11AM when my classes were finished. The "top-hat" off the suspension was held together by a 24mm nut (if I'm remembering correctly) and we didn't have the tolls to get it off. I was DOWN BAD, and we drove to my local exhaust shop "Flowtek Customs" to see if they would take this off for us. It was a stretch and probably wasn't going to happen. The following act of kindness from the owner of this shop owner was something I'll never forget. The owner is a young guy, I won't give out his name because I don't know him that well, not sure if he would want me to include who he was. He heard how bad the situation was and stopped what he was doing and took it off for us, completely free of charge. My family has been doing business with them for over 10 years, and I'll be taking my car there any time it needs something done because of this. He saved us; it was time to finish the car.
We drove back to Jakes and started back on the front. We were 90% sure this would now be a smooth install, if it wasn't for my stupid mistake, it would have been. We now needed to get the top nut off the Coilover off so we could put the "top-hat" on. Jake put the Torx bit in the hole, and I put the wrench on. I cannot express how defeating this part of the story was, so I'll just say it. WE STARTED TURNING RIGHT INSTEAD OF LEFT... the Torx head snapped off inside of the bit and we were now stuck. I'll leave a picture below so you can see it, but now this thing is stuck, and we have no idea what we will do now. We sat there in silence for at least 10 minutes, I wanted to cry. Almost finished, turned into another 5 more hours at least. I finally bursted out laughing. I couldn't believe what we just did. We tried picking it out, but it obviously didn't work. We called it a day...
![Automotive tire Rim Automotive wheel system Wood Gas]()
Day 3 Was thankfully the final day. My dad came to Jakes and brought a Dremel to cut a line across the top piece so we could use a flat head instead of the Torx, that unfortunately didn't work. Thankfully my dad, and engineer, blessed us with his genius idea. He took two nuts off the old set, tighten them together on top of the one holding this together. This time we turned them both left and the main bolt broke free, finally! We got the bolt off, put both "top hats" on, and it fixed our problem. The car was finally finished with about 20 hours' worth of work.
AFTER THE INSTALL
![Wheel Car Tire Land vehicle Vehicle]()
In conclusion, my car is SLAMMED. I would rate these Coilovers 8/10. I wish I would have brought this up earlier, but they had no instruction manual of any kind included. Anyways, I regret nothing. I love the way it looks, handles, and I think I got a great deal. This is a story for anyone in my shoes, wondering what to do next with their Chevy Cruze. I hope this story inspires someone to modify their car, because it was a lot of fun. I do recommend getting a professional's advice before doing anything, and maybe paying someone to do it, if you can afford it. I also wanted to give a special shoutout to my dad for helping us out when we needed it most, and to my friend Jake and his wife. They are currently expecting their second child, so I really appreciate Jake's wife letting me borrow him during a very important time in their lives.
BEFORE THE COILOVERS
Hello everyone. I figured I would start off with a small introduction to help provide some context to the story. My name is Justin, and I own a 1st gen 1.4L-T 6MT Chevy Cruze. I'm not a mechanic so if I get any terms wrong, please bear with me. I bought the Cruze with the intent of having a somewhat safe, somewhat reliable, daily driver that I could modify and have some fun with. I needed it to be reliable because this is the car I will be taking to college and door dashing in. I found that the Cruze fit everything I was looking for, so I bought it. I've had a handful of small issues that left me stranded, but nothing I couldn't fix with the help of my father. I've done tons of modifications since the day I bought it, but we will leave those issues for a different story, todays story is about Coilovers.
The most recent modification I did was the most significant one I've done so far, Coilovers. It took me a long time to gain the courage to purchase them because I had no idea how to install them myself, and Coilovers are not cheap (for me at least). I decided against any of the Lowering springs very early on because I figured with my car having 120K+ miles on the original suspension, that most of the components would be rusted out or near death. So, the only option that made sense to me was Coilovers. I went with the Five 8 Industry set because they were the cheapest and fit all of my wants and needs. I didn't see the point of breaking the bank with a nicer set because the car is only worth roughly $6,000. One night in a discord call with my best friend jake and the help of 7 or so beers, I decided to buy them. When I woke up, I surprisingly didn't regret my decision. Thankfully Jake offered to help out with the install. He did the lowering springs on his own car, a 2021 Honda Accord 2.0T, and figured it should be much harder than that. We watched the only Chevy Cruze Coilover install video we could find on YouTube and figured we would finish the job in about 5 hours... We were off by about 15... I've never had to problem solve or improvise this much in my life. I've also never felt so hopeless about anything. The events that transpired during the install were moments that I will never forget.
The day of the install started off with the craziest thing I could've imagined. While driving to my friend Jakes house I saw a car flipped on its side smoking out of the bottom of the car, and a girl banging on the front windshield to get out. I stopped the car and helped get her out. I assume she was texting and driving and when her eyes went back to the road, she over corrected and flipped. Once I got her out, she was completely fine. Thank God. I waited for police and paramedics to arrive before I'd resume my trip to Jakes. Now that the day was officially starting, I figured I built up at least a year's worth of good karma, or hopefully enough for a smooth install. But honestly just thankful she was ok.
Thankfully Jake had a low-profile jack so getting the car in the air wasn't a problem. We started with the rear because we figured it was smart to start with the easiest part of the install. For the most part we were correct. The Stock rear suspension components were very easy to get off. It took us about an hour but then we ran into our first problem of many. We were unaware that apparently the Five 8 Coilovers do not come with everything you need, on cheaper Coilovers you usually need to re-use some components off the stock set. This wouldn't be the only time we would run into this issue. We needed to get the top rear bracket off old suspension to put it on the new set. This was only a problem because we needed to drive 40 minutes round trip to my dad's house to get the correct tools. The rear was super simple other than that. We got everything in and the wheels back on the car. We were very satisfied to have the rear done. In total that took 4 hours on the dot.
We now needed to do the front. We were way behind schedule and sadly figured we might not finish today. We put that behind us and got started. Getting the front components off was way harder, it wasn't even comparable to the rear. The sway bar end links were nearly impossible to get off due to its awkward location and rusted tight nuts. I wish I was as confident as Jake because we could have done 2 sides at once, but I was mainly offering support to him whenever I could. Finally, after 2-3 hours we got the right side on. We lowered the car to see what happened and we were flabbergasted. The car's tire completely tucked in on itself and the top of the suspension component stuck out 3 inches from the housing. We had no idea why this happened. We tried adjusting the coil to see if that would help and it changed almost nothing. The video I talked about earlier in the article was mostly helpful but did not explain AT ALL why this was happening. After sitting for another hour trying to solve the problem, I found someone with exactly the same issue on the Cruze Talk forum. Apparently, you need to reuse the "top hat" off of the stock suspension. At this point it was 9pm. We decided to start again the following day.
To start off day 2 my friend Jake called off work to make this happen, so I went to his place around 11AM when my classes were finished. The "top-hat" off the suspension was held together by a 24mm nut (if I'm remembering correctly) and we didn't have the tolls to get it off. I was DOWN BAD, and we drove to my local exhaust shop "Flowtek Customs" to see if they would take this off for us. It was a stretch and probably wasn't going to happen. The following act of kindness from the owner of this shop owner was something I'll never forget. The owner is a young guy, I won't give out his name because I don't know him that well, not sure if he would want me to include who he was. He heard how bad the situation was and stopped what he was doing and took it off for us, completely free of charge. My family has been doing business with them for over 10 years, and I'll be taking my car there any time it needs something done because of this. He saved us; it was time to finish the car.
We drove back to Jakes and started back on the front. We were 90% sure this would now be a smooth install, if it wasn't for my stupid mistake, it would have been. We now needed to get the top nut off the Coilover off so we could put the "top-hat" on. Jake put the Torx bit in the hole, and I put the wrench on. I cannot express how defeating this part of the story was, so I'll just say it. WE STARTED TURNING RIGHT INSTEAD OF LEFT... the Torx head snapped off inside of the bit and we were now stuck. I'll leave a picture below so you can see it, but now this thing is stuck, and we have no idea what we will do now. We sat there in silence for at least 10 minutes, I wanted to cry. Almost finished, turned into another 5 more hours at least. I finally bursted out laughing. I couldn't believe what we just did. We tried picking it out, but it obviously didn't work. We called it a day...
Day 3 Was thankfully the final day. My dad came to Jakes and brought a Dremel to cut a line across the top piece so we could use a flat head instead of the Torx, that unfortunately didn't work. Thankfully my dad, and engineer, blessed us with his genius idea. He took two nuts off the old set, tighten them together on top of the one holding this together. This time we turned them both left and the main bolt broke free, finally! We got the bolt off, put both "top hats" on, and it fixed our problem. The car was finally finished with about 20 hours' worth of work.
AFTER THE INSTALL
In conclusion, my car is SLAMMED. I would rate these Coilovers 8/10. I wish I would have brought this up earlier, but they had no instruction manual of any kind included. Anyways, I regret nothing. I love the way it looks, handles, and I think I got a great deal. This is a story for anyone in my shoes, wondering what to do next with their Chevy Cruze. I hope this story inspires someone to modify their car, because it was a lot of fun. I do recommend getting a professional's advice before doing anything, and maybe paying someone to do it, if you can afford it. I also wanted to give a special shoutout to my dad for helping us out when we needed it most, and to my friend Jake and his wife. They are currently expecting their second child, so I really appreciate Jake's wife letting me borrow him during a very important time in their lives.
Could you make a condensed version?
