Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my post.

I work at a luxury wheel and shop and have a customer who is looking to soften his ride up. He drives a 2004 MB c240 Quatromatic. Going with a smaller wheel size is out of the question as the calipers have nearly zero clearance to the wheel with the 16" factories.

What my customer would like to do is change the springs on his MB to soften the ride. He is an old man who drives very conservatively so he should be ok with not changing his shocks to match the springs. What i'm looking for is a distributor or retail store that sells softer springs for this car.

If anyone can link me to a site that shows spring rates for this car that would be great. Or, if anyone can post them in a reply even better.

I appreciate any response to this post and would really like to help this customer out. he is an old man who is also a vet, has teached at colleges and i'd really like to solve this problem for him as his wife has to go through physio for back problems from riding in his car..


Thank you very much for your time.

 

I doubt there will be anything better than OEM springs being that all components are matched for ideal ride quality. That car has standard/non performance springs. If you do find anything, i'd like to hear. Good luck

 

First and formost, the springs control the ride height, DO NOT replace springs, try a softer sidewall tire, or maybe trade in foran E or S class. Has anyone check the suspension for damaged or worn parts?

 

I'm aware the springs control the ride height but what i'm looking for is a spring with a lower spring rate(softer spring). Most lowering springs have a higher spring rate so I don't see why I would have trouble finding a softer rate that wont' lower the car. Although I think finding a softer spring will be hard period. The suspension is fine has been checked.

 

SO can anyone post the spring rates for the c240 that come on the car out of the factory?

 

I suggest to measure the spring rate, fix the spring at bottom and make a platform on top then load weight and measure the change in height. if you have other spring with known spring rate, do the same measure, which will increase the accuracy.

In priceple, changing to low rate spring is good idea toovercome low frequency vibration,
but two things, when there is hard impact vertical position of car can be off the limit, the shock obsorbers will run out faster.

If they drive really conservatively, it may work.

 

Thank you for the great idea. The client does drive very conservatively as he's like 80 or something.