I thought it was worth adding a thread here in the Model Y Driving Dynamics section to talk about the above suspension upgrade. There is a good thread in the Model 3 area here
Tein EnduraPro Plus - Review and I’m sure a lot of it is transferable and relevant to both models, but there are obviously going to be subtle differences.
I‘ve just received a set, and today have fitted the rears with my initial thoughts below (also posted this in the Model 3 forum).
I fitted the rear shock absorbers this afternoon, it was incredibly easy and if I hadn’t done some stupid things like leave the dust cover and bump stops off and only notice after I’d refitted and torqued everything up on the first side, then I’d say it would have taken me in total about 45 minutes.
Some points of note;
- The shocks I received have 26/27 ‘clicks’ of adjustment instead of the 16 which has been widely mentioned here and elsewhere. I have currently set mine at 6 clicks from the softest setting.
- I was expecting to have to remove far more bolts than I actually needed to. The procedure is basically;
- Jack the car up, remove the wheel
- Unclip the wheel arch liner with three pull out fasteners
- Remove the lower control arm plastic cover with a single bolt
- Loosen but not quite remove the two upper top hat bolts
- Remove the single lower bolt which holds the bottom of the shock into the control arm
- Carefully remove the two upper bolts and the whole shock will drop down (be prepared to catch it
)
- Remove shock, it might need compressing by hand a tiny bit to get it out
- Once the OEM shock is out, the top hat, dust cover and bump stop need to be transferred over to the Tein. @Heckraiser makes the right decision IMHO by cutting and only using the top part of the bump stop, and putting the dust cover on upside down.
- The bolt keeping the top hat on will spin the piston rod so you’ll need to find a way to stop this happening, I used a locking mole grip and a piece of rubber to prevent damage to the rod and add a bit more grip. The same is true for putting the Tein bolt back on.
- I actually think that it will be possible the get at the adjuster on top without taking the shock absorber out. The top hat sits proud of the bodywork by at least a couple of inches because of some box sections. I should be able to get to the adjuster with fingers by just taking the wheel off and unclipping the arch liner and a rubber dust cap which sits over the top of the mount. If not, then just unbolting the two top bolts and angling the shock absorber towards you a bit will definitely allow it.
I found two great videos which helped;
1. Rear -
2. Front -
(I’ll follow this when I get around to doing the fronts.
How does it drive with just the rears swapped? Well, I’ve only done a brief 10 minute test over a route I’m very familiar with and it does seem that a good amount of the low speed ‘bounciness’ that I didn’t like has gone away. I can definitely feel that the front is stiffer so hoping that changing the front shock absorbers will fix this and get rid of the rest. The car always felt unsettled and bouncy to me at lower speeds as if it had been badly lowered, but actually over 40-50mph depending on the road it was OK. I have a longer drive coming up tomorrow which will involve motorways so I’ll also report back after that. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to fit the fronts at some point next week as I’ve ordered a spring compressor which I understand is needed for the fronts in order to get the top hat off.
