How is the ride? I'd change dampers on feel rather than mileage or age. If the ride and body control are still good and it doesn't feel bouncy or unsettled over rough stuff and there are no visible leaks then leave them alone. The fronts from mine were still in very good condition at 110K when I replaced them with Bilsteins.

I'd only change springs if they're broken, and then do axle pairs as necessary unless lowering something on purpose.

The ride to me feels fine, but then I'm not throwing it round corners all the time or pushing it. It was just with having to replace the rest of the front suspension, I was wondering if the sensible thing would be to replace the shocks and springs while I'm at it.

I live down quite a long lane which is riddled with potholes, so it's a bit of a slalom course, and the car takes it in its stride, even on bits I do 30mph on. The car has roughly 88,500 miles on it.

I'd leave them alone then. They're easy to change independently of the suspension arms if you do need to do it in the future.

Cheers MJ. +++

Will get the car up to a proper mechanic (not me and my bricklayer brother) to do the suspension kit, and I'll still have a month before the MOT to see how it feels and drives... and for the piggy bank time to recover :D

Just following up on this thread. I did post in another thread (Front arms saga) on 11th April, so have reproduced it below:

Turns out fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed weren't enough. Despite A8parts shipping the part first thing on the 12th, it never reached Coventry on time to be shipped across. ParcelForce then didn't do any deliveries from Thursday to Monday, so mechanic never got hub assembly until Tuesday morning, somewhat late for the MOT (the previous Thursday). By the time I found out about these delays, I couldn't change the MOT date, so lost the £30.50 :(

Anyway, he finally got the work done and I got the car back last night, and had it up for its MOT this afternoon, which it passed with flying colours. Not even any advisories. +++

So, all in, it cost me £150 for the full Meyle kit, £130 for the hub assembly, £61 in MOT charges and £120 in labour. Can't really complain at that, as the Meyle kit costs around the £450 mark.

And to finish on a high note, a big thumbs up for LPG conversions. When he did the emissions test, it recorded 0.000% Vol for CO (has to be 3.5% or less) and 18ppm for HC (has to be 1200ppm or less) :cool: Driving a V8 and saving the environment at the same time.

. . . And yet still the UK government gives no benefit for the congestion charge in London any more for LPG fuelled cars despite the super low emissions - boo hiss :(

Are the rules different there? It's 0.2% CO and 200ppm HC fast idle and 0.3% CO natural idle here in mainland.

When I first bought mine 9 years ago it had 0.01% CO and 30ppm HC, but using Shell VPower and good maintanence has dropped it to 0.00%CO and 8ppm HC last couple of MOT's and that's without LPG.

Knowing this part of the 'United Kingdom', it's bound to be different! The MOTs are done by a government agency, the DVTA. There are only 17 locations in all of Northern Ireland.

As to what they test for, the figures I quoted where what was printed on the MOT sheet. I've just had a look at their website, and strangely enough, it does mention 'guidance figures' of 200ppm at 0.3% fast idle and 0.5% at idle.