Some background about me: I price shop the shit out of everything I buy, and I gauge whether or not a few extra dollars is worth a new relationship with a vendor.
Before pic: Please ignore me on the ground.. with the helmet.. and bear.. and bad farmer's/watch tan... It's a part of the Houston group's picture challenge game. Join if you haven't
The Wheels:
I wanted VMR 710's in 18" staggered for a long time now, but never pulled the trigger since I had new tires on my stock 17" wheels and didn't want to waste them. I finally decide to pull the trigger, and guess what? They are on national back order. Not a single vendor has a complete set (since they source from VMR directly).
Supreme Power was the last vendor that hadn't gotten back to my PM yet.
Eric PM's me with a phone number. It's
11pm, and I'm wondering "uh, now??" I call, and low and behold Eric is there to answer my call. We talk about how the wheels are on back order, but then a light bulb goes off. He suddenly remembers that he has a full set! I was going to buy these wheels no matter the price at this point. I was expecting the full $850 $100 shipping, but I got an amazing price instead. You'll just have to
PM him to find out
Eric, whom is there at SP alone, even takes the time out to unpack the boxes while still holding the phone just to make sure that the right wheels are in there with the right offsets and finish. He takes it one step further and picture messages me the two different types of VMR center caps. He sends both sets. I got a tracking # the next day.
I get the wheels in 2 enormous boxes which are very heavily padded with sheets of cardboard. Inside are 2 boxes each containing one wheel. Every wheel has a soft cloth cover on the face, and is fully wrapped in a heavy duty plastic bag. All in all, VERY secure packaging.
The Coilovers
This was a very hard decision for me. I bought Supreme Power's lowering perches, but ultimately decided to forego it and go straight to coils. I price shopped KW V1's everywhere, and nothing was cheaper than about 1100. Sonic Tuning offers a kit for 850, but since they don't have a large reputation yet, I decided to write them off as well. I then discovered ST V1 coilovers. They are the same as KW V1 but use galvanized instead of stainless steel. Since I live in Texas where it never snows, this was no issue for me. They were also significantly cheaper.
Alan from **********s and
Eric from PYSpeed both did their best to get me set up with these coils, and their customer service was superb. Alan is readily available via phone, and Eric is also readily available via AIM as well as phone. The AIM feature was GREAT, and I recommend the other vendors participate in it as well.
After putting in an email to Eric from Supreme Power, he gave me a price I couldn't refuse, once again. I paypal'd the money and he even accommodated my special delivery date for me (since I was out of town for a week and didn't want people nicking it off my porch).
I got the coils from Fedex. The packaging has some really lame Ford-esque car illustration on the box, but it's well packed inside.
The coils felt of high quality for the price, but obviously no Ohlins. I had no qualms.
Eric from Supreme Power was a true pleasure to work with. We have
63 emails on log as well as
21 PM's and several phone calls. He's answered every question I've thrown at him within a day, and even "goes to the back" to look for parts per my request. Oh, and he sent me a machined aluminum license plate frame that I know costs something like $30 to make.
The Installs (Houston)
I called every shop. Price quotes ranged from $300 to $900 just for coilover installs. I decided to go with
EVS Motors for several reasons: Price, reputation, customer service, and their leverless tire mounting machine.
I called
Ted to talk prices, and eventually met up with him. Stand up guy. I ended up referring several people including another member with an E90 for Sonic Tuning's S1 coilover install. Ted gave me a very fair price and I eventually left my car there. The coils were installed by the end of the day, but I had stupidly forgotten about my 20mm spacers in the back. With the new offsets, the fender pretty much sat on top of the wheel.
Ted was very understanding in my schedule as I couldn't get the correct bolts in until the end of the next day. (They couldn't move my car due to the rubbing and if they removed the spacers, the bolts would be the wrong size. A risk I appreciated that was NOT taken with my car.)
The install was done and I had no issues. There were no squeaks, rattles, pops, knocks, or anything strange from the coils. They ride well, albeit sharper. Going off of bumps would result in sharp drops of the car that are a bit jarring sometimes on very bad roads, but overall I am living with it 95% satisfied. Body lean is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced, therefore removing a lot of the falling feeling I get when taking high speed highway sweepers. Responses are sharp, and I feel more of the road. On top of all that, it looked great lowered.
After a day and observing pictures, I wanted to lower it some more. Ted and his tech Nick dropped the front some more for me. Ted has also ordered me Dimisa tips... I'll be returning for an alignment, tips, and brake pad swap. Here's a pic of Laci right after coils were readjusted.
And here are some photos of how she sits now! Credits to BillLee
Hope you enjoyed. Please feel free to PM me with questions.