Opinions - Cheap Top Mounts

[944 man]

Idly searching eBay for top mounts, I was surprised to come across these for Under £100 (£80 or offers + £16 del.) delivered. Im naturally sceptical, however Ive felt for a long time that the majority of adjustable strut mounts royally take the p*ss on price and offer very poor value for money.

I like GAZs offering (£160-ish del. but hard to find), but they dont have a reference milled on, which spoils them for the sake of very little extra work, in my opinion.

This is an image from the listing:

 

[Catamax944]

They look pretty solid but the main issue are the bearings . By looking at the design of these you could have problems with the bearing biding as it takes the full load of the springs.
Most quality camber plates have a secondary bearing on which the spring hat sits on and takes the load off the main bearing to prevent biding.
Another thing is these are bottom mount and unless you have coilovers the car will sit higher and even with coilovers the height adjustability will be reduced in comparison with top mount plates.

 

[944 man]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180923375699?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

I overlooked the link!

My concerns were the insubstantial looking bearing and the apparent lack of finish to the aluminium.

 

[bmnelsc]

I agree with the others on the bearing point - hard to tell what is really in there from the picture. My research (because I don't want to pay C$700 each for top mounts (if and when I need them) shows that you should expect to pay close to C$500 a pair for a good pair of these. There is one company (Tarrett Engineering IIRC) that offers a pair that do not affect ride height - most of these will raise the front end about 1/2" (according to the literature) so are best suited to height adjustable suspensions.

 

[Super_Marv]

Just to let you know, I fitted solid top mounts to my 968. I ended up refitting the standard mounts, as the solid KLA mounts made the ride too stiff for our overly bumpy b-roads.

So if you want to still have some road compliance, you might be better off sticking with standard top mounts.

 

[944 man]

Do you still have them Marv?

 

[Super_Marv]

yeah, still got them, they are just sitting in the garage doing nothing...

 

[944 man]

Obviousy worth relatively litttle to you then...

 

[Super_Marv]

Hehe, let me know if you're interested and maybe we can agree a price. I've also got some hard Poweflex PU bushes for the front wishbones (forward bush, like which you were asking about in the other thread), which are currently redundant...

 

[944 man]

Youre kidding, I bought a set the other day. I needed them quicky though and they needed to be delivered to the specialists.

 

[dlknight]

Let's revive a 13 year old topic shall we!

I may be replacing my front strut top mounts as I've no history of them ever being replaced (so most probably original with 200k+ on them).

My options are:

1. Genuine Porsche (not affordable, approximately £500 per side).
2. Aftermarket which look identical for around £450 a pair, made by Hamburg Technic (I've seen some rumours that this is a chinese company with a german sounding name, although they do have registered offices in Germany).
3. Similar and probably the same ones from Design 911 for £450 sold as OE equivalent but no brand.
4. More expensive M030 style mounts from partworks.de for £550 a pair.
5. Solid mounts from Design 911 (branded as Rohler) for £225 a pair, these look like they wouldn't raise the front suspension like some solid mounts, but might drop it?

Has anyone gone down this road recently and what did you do?

I don't want to turn my car into a track weapon (just yet), so want to retain some level of comfort which is making me lean towards the aftermarket mounts from HT for £450, but the Rohler mounts do look nice.

 

[scam75]

Interesting. My top mounts are original nearing 178k miles and are still in good order. OEM prices are ridiculous. If I was changing i'd go for the Rohler ones. I'm sure racers edge do a similar but adjustable mount which would be worth considering so you can dial in caster and camber without messing about with the bottom shock bolts.

I installed a 9 products semi solid gearbox mount and it does increase vibration slightly into the cabin, but weirdly only from cold, can't feel anything after a few miles. I know it's not apples for apples but for something like a top mount (not attached to a gearbox) it would probably only slightly harshen the rebound on the struts. If you want to replace, worth trying at that price point, and as you say, a decent looking bit of kit.

Also, Hamburg Technic, Chinese or not, sell a bottom ball joint rebuild kit, D911 sell it for about £50. I've rebuilt one of my arms with it, and on a lowered car it's holding strong after about 30k miles, so it's decent quality and looks totally OEM when you split the original ball joint and see the parts compared to OEM.