Hi everyone, I need a little help/advice. I have an 09 SS and purchased a set of ZZP lowering springs. When installed, the rears worked fine, but the front allowed the struts to fully compress and rest on the bump stops. The service shop thought it was a problem with the springs themselves, so I got another new set, Pedders this time. They have reported back that these were slightly better, but still relatively the same, no front suspension travel and sitting on the bump stops. I contacted Pedders and was advised their springs are designed to work with the bump stops installed and the struts should not be compressed down resting on the bump stops. Anyone ever heard of a problem of this nature? Up until the springs, everything was stock OEM, but again, according to the service shop, the rear lowering springs seem to be/work fine, it's the fronts that have a problem, both the ZZP and Pedders.


Thanks in advance for the assistance.

 

 

My Ground Force springs don't have any issues...

 

When you contacted Pedders were they aware that you have an SS, rather than the more common HHR models? I suspect there are different strut dimensions between the SS and other models.

 

I'm running the Pedders and don't have any issues with the fronts. Granted, there's not much travel left with 1.5 inches of drop. I've never looked to see how close mine are to the stops.
If you're running stock size tires, take some height measurements of the front fenders. From the ground to the fender edge at the center of the wheel well.
Mine sits at----Right: 26 1/8".....Left. 26.0"

Other question. Have you ever changed struts ? Maybe you have and they are not the correct FE5's ? True SS FE5 struts are only available from Chevy. Lots of aftermarkets may advertise struts as being FE5 but they aren't.

 

Thank you for the responses.

Unfortunately, the Pedders springs didn't come with any instructions; however, the shop installing them is vastly experienced. They haven't had any installation problems and they tell me there are no issues with the rear springs, just the front. No installation issues with them, just that there is no front suspension travel with them installed. They actually updated me that they even removed the bump stops to see what happened. I was told it compressed a little further completely, now also compressing the shock boot all the way together. They said in the end there was less than 1/2 inch of suspension travel left, and to get that 1/2 to move at all you had to have an enormous amount of extra weight to get any movement. They said the coils of the springs seemed to be bound at that point.

Yes, Pedders were aware the vehicle was a HHR. I made sure I told them exactly what it was and the rep. even confirmed it during the conversation. They genuinely seemed concerned, they're having me get some pictures and confirming the part # on the front springs.

I'm going to see if they will check the wheel well measurements provided (thx.). Regrettably, I don't know the full/true history of the unit since I just purchased it. They did mention it has KYB struts, and they thought that might have been the issue, so they ordered the Chevy OEM struts and compared them with the KYB's, said there was no exterior differences. They advised there are some internal differences between the OEM and KYB's, but with regard to the springs there wasn't any difference that should cause the problem being experienced.

 

They need to take the spring compressors off

Seriously though, gotta check bonehead stuff too.

 

 

I bought my FE5 struts from Rockauto.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...ion,strut,7584