how low do you go?

[Rock_Steady]

Toying with the idea of lowering the Zed. I've had lowered cars before and have managed to escape cuffing the front bumper on road humps or cuffing the chassis away from underneath to leave my arse grating the road. But I think the zed looks reasonably low as it is, or maybe mine has already been lowered but I don't think it has . So, for those of you who have lowered your zeds, do you spend a lot of your driving time carefully planning routes that avoid speed bumps?

[AliveBoy]

just go over them diagonally, you very quickly start to remember which roads you can and can't go down locally to you

[Commander]

pff - my zed is at stock height and it's forever scraping things - car park ramps (if it's not the front bumper scraping the floor, it's the exhaust in the middle of the car), speed bumps / humps / sleeping policemen, etc... I'd love to know if people who lower their car actually use it as a daily too?

[Rock_Steady]

lol, that did make me chuckle. I'm just a little worried as my N-spec front bumper is carbon composite and is likely to kerrrack like a nut on the sleeping policeman. It is slightly lower than the rest of the car. I am thinking about taking it off and either shaving some off the bottom of the lip or flogging it and just getting a standard bumper.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Rock_Steady

[AliveBoy]

I've lowered mine a touch and I use it every day. Occasionally my front lip scrapes a bit on speed bumps. Multi-stories with aggressive ramps are a no go, but in the three towns closest to me I know where I can park so it's no issue.

 

With speed bumps etc, if you go slowly so that the suspension doesn't compress much it's normally ok. With the ones where it's three lumps in the road I put the centre of the car over the gaps between them so the sump is safe

 

Edit, found a picture of how lowered mine is

 

Edited December 8, 2014 by AliveBoy

[Rock_Steady]

Cheers for that AliveBoy, love that spoiler too!! but when you say "a touch" are you talking 10 mm? 20mm?

Edited December 8, 2014 by Rock_Steady

[AliveBoy]

Genuinely don't know, sorry. I did it at home and just adjusted until I had a look I liked but was practical. Then to match it on the other side I did the very technical thing of using notches on a stick to make it the same

 

It was a couple of years back so I can't remember at all

[brillomaster]

you wont be going anywhere near any multi storeys if you lower it, my non lowered zed already scraps the front coming off every ramp, most annoying!

[Rock_Steady]

I had this problem with previously lowered cars. Ramps at the MOT centre

[AliveBoy]

In Woking you can park on any level in the holiday inn multistory or you can use the Toys'r'us one if you use the curved spiral ramp and park on the same level as it. In Guildford you can park in York Road multi story so long as you don't go above level 9 and take wide turns to go up the ramps straight on Edit: in York road you have to stay on the ramp side of the parking spaces as there's big speed bumps round the back

Edited December 8, 2014 by AliveBoy

[StevoD]

When i went from my stanced look with Grids to the ultralites i raised mine about 25-30mm so im guessing im lowered about 30-40mm from stock

 

i got around st neots fine when i had my grids tho

Edited December 8, 2014 by StevoD

[Payco]

Lowered 20mm on Tein S Springs. Improved the LOOK and handling without causing any issues. A route many of us have gone down.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Payco

[hensh65]

When I had the RT-performance front lip is sat stupidly low. Once I turned right on a main road only to see a speed bump on the junction that I wouldn't have got over. So I just stopped dead in the road in fear Lucky nothing was coming and managed to turn round and find another route!

[AliveBoy]

When I had the RT-performance front lip is sat stupidly low. Once I turned right on a main road only to see a speed bump on the junction that I wouldn't have got over. So I just stopped dead in the road in fear Lucky nothing was coming and managed to turn round and find another route!

 

I had this a few weeks back, had to reverse out of a carpark entrance Luckily I had room to escape too

[PPod]

Don't think I will ever lower mine as its very low as it is (unless previous owner lowered it lol) scrape over so much bumps its unreal just the big square humps no matter what angle it always hits some part underneath but its always if 2 people are in the car. If only me will only happen like 1 out of 10 times

[Grundy]

How are people scraping on OEM suspension? are you all rallying over these speed bumps? Never had an issue.

[docwra]

Took me 35 minutes to get it up in the air the other day (2 sets of ramps, two jacks, 2 further pieces of wood) and Ive forgotten what the inside of a multistorey carpark looks like but most of the time its fine

 

 

Ive found the front end overhang and the backbox connection are most likely to hit stuff, I actually managed to skim a catseye with the front bumper while braking up a hill once

[Nutter]

Haha love this topic!

 

Well my zed I have to plan my route, certain roads I can't get down as there's too much of a gradient difference, to hit a cats eye is nothing much like docwra it takes me a lot of time and effort to get her in the air.

 

Speed bumps, if their the small ones across the road/ square blocks/ across the road in one piece but high entry, forget about it. If they allow the back wheels to get on or I can go sideways across then I can get away with it.

 

A mates estate I can only get across one speed bump, rest of the time it's two wheels on the pavement and two on the speed bump.

 

Drove round Liverpool the other night and it was mayhem avoiding sunken grids/potholes/ poorly repaired Tarmac. I didn't think mine was that low either, I've had to raise it a tad to get it onto the new drive way and have to take the same route on and off or else she's like a beached whale on steroids!

 

Pics can't get photo bucket to upload but tknutter on Instagram and there's a few on there.

 

 

Edit: what size wheels are you all running while being low? I'm on 18"s

Edited December 8, 2014 by Nutter

[370Ad]

My front lip is an inch off the ground and I use it daily to commute 50 miles.

 

You just have to be more careful with a low Z.

[Bodyboarder81]

Lowered 20mm on Tein S Springs. Improved the LOOK and handling without causing any issues. A route many of us have gone down.

 

This!!

 

Any lower and IMO you are asking for issues .

[StevoD]

When I had the RT-performance front lip is sat stupidly low. Once I turned right on a main road only to see a speed bump on the junction that I wouldn't have got over. So I just stopped dead in the road in fear Lucky nothing was coming and managed to turn round and find another route!

 

I had this a few weeks back, had to reverse out of a carpark entrance Luckily I had room to escape too

 

didnt escape on the toy run tho

[AliveBoy]

When I had the RT-performance front lip is sat stupidly low. Once I turned right on a main road only to see a speed bump on the junction that I wouldn't have got over. So I just stopped dead in the road in fear Lucky nothing was coming and managed to turn round and find another route!

 

I had this a few weeks back, had to reverse out of a carpark entrance Luckily I had room to escape too

 

didnt escape on the toy run tho

I thought I'd folded the bumper up luckily as I don't have an under tray it flexed loads

[buster]

mine sits low enough to still scrap on the odd speed bump

 

Edited December 8, 2014 by buster

[parello9]

 

Crap pic but you get the idea

 

I couldnt drive in the middle of the road with slight concave and if i found a speed bump id reverse and find another way lol

[steve916]

When i went from my stanced look with Grids to the ultralites i raised mine about 25-30mm so im guessing im lowered about 30-40mm from stock

 

i got around st neots fine when i had my grids tho

 

Are you local to St Neots Steve?