I’ve been having some problems with the MINI’s suspension lately. First was a thumping sound in the right rear, and the left front seemed to bottom out on even the slightest bump in the road. That and the fact that my family won’t ride in the car anymore because of the harshness of the ride, finally got me to thinking of changing the suspension again.

The photos above show the old TSW springs compared to the new green H&R springs. The new springs look to be quite a bit taller, but that’s somewhat deceptive. The H&R springs are progressive and have extra coils at a lower rate so they do not slip when the strut is fully extended such as when the car is on jack stands. Shorter springs will slip when not in compression and then you have to reseat them before lowering the car.

One of the added benefits of having shorter springs and shorter struts is that you can remove the entire strut assembly without having to separate the ball joint at the hub. With the standard strut height, there isn’t enough movement in the lower control arm and axle to get the strut out of the housing. With the shorter strut, you can just drop it out.

The front H&R springs appear to be a bit wider than the TSW springs they replaced. That means I’m going to loose a bit of negative camber once I get it realigned. We took a quick trip once I had it all back together and the harshness is gone. Seams in the road no longer bottom out the suspension.

Once installed, the rear has the same ride height as before. I cut down the bump stop by a half inch so I’ll have a bit more suspension travel now. It turns out the retaining nut on the right rear strut was almost completely loose. That may have accounted for the noise I was hearing. I reassembled the strut and tightened everything. If there’s still a sound there, then it’s either in the swaybar or in the subframe.

I measured the ride height before and after the change. The rear ride height is the same, but the front is about an inch taller. That splits the difference given the two inches it was lowered previously from stock. I also found the source of the “whump” in the front. There was no bump stop installed on the front left strut. The strut was bottoming out against the camber plate.