I purchased my 98 with ~200k miles in 2017 and had my mechanic replace all struts with 5100s. I'm currently at ~275k miles and the 5100s appear to be in good shape so holding off on replacing those again.
Bilstein 5100 struts, they’re absolutely fantastic. Have them on my FJ.
I'd keep stock springs and go with some nice Bilstein struts/ shocks with new mounts. Wheels, tires, brakes, sound deadening, and a headunit would make a big quality of life improvement.
On my 13, I have bilstein with RCE yellows. Those are nice.
I saw the Bilsteins were in stock on RockAuto and picked up a set for the rear only.
No grinding or clunking sounds. Just a slight gear whine at certain speeds. I recognize that this means that the gears weren’t perfectly setup and will thus wear faster, but I can live with that.
I've always loved Bilsteins. Compared to blown shocks huuuuuge difference. Very precise steering and fantastic body control.
So I have the Bilsteins with Eibach springs. City driving sucks a big one. Just too stiff to give in the pot hole heaven, train track crossing, city. On a nice surface they are excellent performers. Really shined on the tail of the dragon.
Extended strut in photo is missing a small spacer that goes on top of the piston before you add the first bushing perch, which basically just makes it the same as the standard strut on the left. I switched to the standards because I wanted to lose 1" of lift to bring me down to 2" of front lift. As you can see, there is nothing really "extended travel" about these. The reason for the added 1" of lift is because the perch is higher and adding more preload on the spring. After having these side by side, don't waste your time or money on the extended travel struts. Just get the standard struts, and get the appropriate spring for the weight and lift you want. Extended struts seemingly offer no benefit to down or up travel, and only make the ride harsher by compressing the spring even more.
Don't buy B4s unless you are selling the car soon. Extremely high failure rate past 1 year.
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