'95 Legacy holiday load carrying

[richfoub]

Have a '95 Legacy wagon with the 2.2 and auto trans, thinking of upgrading/swapping the rear suspension for a bit more load carrying over the summer holidays. With a roof box on, rear cargo area loaded right up and four bikes on the hitch at the back I'm suspecting it'll sit pretty low. What can I do to bring the rear back up so it's not bottoming out on the suspension over small bumps? Can I go with stiffer shock absorbers or maybe a lift kit in the back? What other options are around?

 

Richard

[1 Lucky Texan]

I have never used them but, for temporary use, you could try; http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009JC42JU?keywords=coil%20sumosprings%20subaru&qid=1452522153&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

[Fairtax4me]

Best thing you can probably do is get a set of heavy duty king springs from Primitive Racing. They sell both raised height and standard height. IIRC they're around $250 per set. Or get all 4 corners for $450ish. 

They stiffen up the ride quite a bit, but are great for extra load capacity. 

[forester2002s]

I have used similar 'spring-inserts' years ago on a Dodge B150 van.

The ones that I used were all steel, and fitted between the coils of the spring.

Yes, they brought the rear-end up a bit.

And, yes the springs survived the modification without apparent distress.

 

But in retrospect, now that I am older and wiser(?), maybe that wasn't such a great idea.

I suspect that these spring-inserts put more stress on the remaining 'free' coils.

So that the actual sprung-load is then shared between fewer coils.

That higher stress-per-coil could result in overstressing the springs, and catastrophic (and sudden) failure.

 

That didn't happen with my old Dodge, but I'm not sure that I would use these spring-inserts again....

[AdventureSubaru]

Do the forester/outback lift. Makes it way stiffer (Especially forester) and unless you go way up in tire size will give you lots of room to load it up. Used is okay. New KYB struts with used springs would be ideal and still pretty cheap

 

Added benefit will be more ground clearance for snow, trails etc.

[Rooster2]

Another idea is to buy, and pull a small trailer, which would be a whole lot less work, and you would not be stressing out the suspension on your car.

[mikaleda]

Yes you could install the steel spacers. I've used them on our old ford plow truck, but I don't think I would use them on a Subaru ESPECIALLY if there is ANY rust on the springs.

 

You could buy and have installed heavier springs, all said and done your looking at least $300

 

But.....

Your bearings are still only rated for so much weight, then the lug nuts are only rated for so much and so on and so forth.

 

A small trailer will run you $200-$300 for a nice one and you'll need a receiver hitch bolted in. But you won't be causing undo stress on your rear wheel bearings, wich will cost you probably twice as much.

 

I would personally go with the trailer since it will only be seasonaly needing to haul the extra weight.

[mikaleda]

Another thing to consider is how old are the struts? If they have 200k+ miles on them a new set of kybs will help with the suspension bottoming out when you are going through rough stuff.

Struts won't give you more lift, but they will help it keep from bottoming out on every pothole.

[richfoub]

Yep I have considered going with a hitch on the back and a small trailer to haul stuff like bikes etc Probably wouldn't hurt the gas mileage too much if I found something light enough. I've seen new rear struts for sale that have stiffer springs, might check those out as well. I used to have an old Impala that had air shocks, they worked great when there was a bit of weight in the trunk, I wonder if they could be an option as well.

[3Pin]

I have a Interstate 4x6 covered trailer that I bought for $500.  We load Kayaks on top and lock all the rest of the gear and food inside which keeps the kritters out of our stuff.