My "follow-along" Mazda5 Suspension upgrade

I have a 2013 Mazda 5 sport with 40k miles on it, and am planning to proactively replace the suspension at 50k miles. I'm thinking about going to coil overs, but have a question:

About 4x times per year, we load up the van for a 300 mile trip ( each way) to the in-laws. In doing so, we put about 500 pounds of cargo in it, on it, and out on a receiver mounted carrier. As you might guess, it squats low in the back, the front end gets light, and our headlights blind the oncoming drivers.

Would Coilovers allow me to dial out that rear end sag for those four trips per year? Or should I be looking at KYB shocks/struts and some sort of pneumatic helper spring arrangement?

coilovers will have a higher spring rate, which will not squat as much as the stock springs. also, you could set them slightly higher in the rear to accommodate the extra load.
 
Correct I went with the Volvo ones. The volvos are pretty hefty so there is no weight problem here. I checked axle loading rates as well, and the shocks have no problem covering the weight of each axle. They are fantastic when paired with the speed 3 oem rear sway bar and goodridge SS brakelines. It drives like a factory hothatch, except this one has 6 seats and two sliding doors.

I was also considering the bilstein coilovers. But alot of the guys on the speed3 board don't have too much success with it as it has too many dead coils and really was made for the lighter MZ3. The relatively short springs and dead coils caused some of the guys to constantly blow their strut bearings. I wanted none of that and I also wanted to preserve stock ride height, so this is why I went with the setup I have right now. I was also considering other coilovers such as the HR ones and the ST suspension, but once again most of them are made for the much lighter MZ3 or the slightly lighter MS3. None of those options would have lasted terribly long on our cars.

Appreciate if you could confirm the partnums for the front and rears?
 
Update on ours, Since the new springs and shocks went on 3 wks ago, we have a brand new car again. What a difference. I am adding airbags to the rear next to take the extra weight of traveling with the family, roof rack and rear loaded. I have to say the 2012 springs and GR-2 shocks give a great ride and great handling.
 
I'm curious if OP's FSDs are blowing out like paper machete, like mine are.

Already replaced both rears and it sounds like the passenger front is going out now.
 
V50 bilstein

Correct I went with the Volvo ones. The volvos are pretty hefty so there is no weight problem here. I checked axle loading rates as well, and the shocks have no problem covering the weight of each axle. They are fantastic when paired with the speed 3 oem rear sway bar and goodridge SS brakelines. It drives like a factory hothatch, except this one has 6 seats and two sliding doors.

I was also considering the bilstein coilovers. But alot of the guys on the speed3 board don't have too much success with it as it has too many dead coils and really was made for the lighter MZ3. The relatively short springs and dead coils caused some of the guys to constantly blow their strut bearings. I wanted none of that and I also wanted to preserve stock ride height, so this is why I went with the setup I have right now. I was also considering other coilovers such as the HR ones and the ST suspension, but once again most of them are made for the much lighter MZ3 or the slightly lighter MS3. None of those options would have lasted terribly long on our cars.

If going the v50 bilstein route for replacement shocks would I order the v50 ones of the same model year m5? For me that's 2009...
Upon closer inspection of the forum...
http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-123797460.html
 
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I haven't replaced them yet, still sitting in the box. :( Been tied up with other things.

But I'm going to need to put new tires on too! What other components in the rear are guaranteed to be shot to be causing this besides the shocks?

IMG_20150324_071848%7E2.jpg
 
Replacing my trailing arm bushings with Energy Suspension polyurethane helped with my tire wear. You might have worn trailing arm or toe arm bushings. The toe arms are fairly inexpensive and easy to replace. These vans do tend to wear out the rear tires due to excessive camber though even with everything as new.
 
Your shocks are toast, which leads to added wear/tear on the bushings, which exacerbate your toe into extreme negative space.

Google/Read up on dynamic alignment and dynamic toe.
 
Forgot to ask, how those Continental DWS holding up? I've been eying getting either DW or RE760's.
 
They were holding up good until, well, you know.

Silentnoise -- makes sense. I haven't had a moment to read through this thread again to even see where I'm at, I got caught up with a bunch of other things. I can't ignore the problem anymore now though. I just hope I don't have to replace everything on the ass end.
 
Well I re-read the thread. I guess I have to do some digging around on here to find the rest of the parts that I'll need.
 
Yours looks exactly like mine did before I started replacing parts Dave! I replaced the following and the problem is 100% fixed : Trailing Arm Bushings on both sides with OE spec, not poly, Lateral Links, both sides with Moog from Advance Auto, rear shocks with OE Spectrum and shock mounts Moog. I know the OE Spectrums are supposed to be crap but they have done great for the last ten thousand miles on mine. The single biggest contributor to the alignment being so screwy is the bushings on the trailing arms, mine were so bad that when I removed the trailing arm from the car the metal center bar that the mounting bolts use to hold the arm to the car just fell out on the ground! You will have to have a shop press to get the old bushings out and the new ones in if we haven't already covered that ground somewhere in this thread LOL
 
Why the OE spec over something aftermarket on the trail arm bushings? As far as I'm concerned, the rear end OE parts are junk! Haha.

I might have to get a manual to figure out how to get the rear suspension parts off. Everything I've worked on has been a RWD solid axle. I don't know these new-fangled fancy cars! Are there any how-to guides on getting this stuff off?
 
The big bushing on trailing arms for multi-link suspensions tend to support a pretty complicated range of motion... they not only pivot across the mount axis, but sometimes rotate in and out and twist in weird ways too. If you replace the bushing with polyurethane, you tend to give up a lot of the factory designed motion and start binding up the suspension, causing other problems.
 
Well said ^^ And I needed more noises coming from under the car like I need a hole in my head. Once you get the car up in the air you will see that the disassembly is really pretty straight forward. You shouldn't have to remove the upper (camber) arms and those are the ones that can be a PITA to remove the hardware from. The worst part of the job for me was jockeying the trailing arm into my shop press and keeping it properly aligned to drive out the old bushing (which was a b****) and then driving in the new ones (which was a really big b****) The new bushings have to be aligned correctly so that the holes in the mounting bar are facing the right direction, if you get it wrong you will wreck your new bushings very quickly. I enlisted the aid of my lovely wife, who got to hear every one of my favorite bad words about 100 times while we did this. Doing the front struts was a comparative walk in the park....
 
Ah, I see where you're coming from with the range of motion, didn't think of that aspect of it. Now if it's the same suspension as on the Mz3 and Focus and those bushings are sold for those cars, what makes it bad on this one? Is there an aftermarket option that is better than OEM though? Not too impressed with the OEM suspension parts.
 
They fail because Mazda didn't figure the extra weight of the 5 would be enough to compromise the bushings that work just fine on the lighter car. They gambled on that deal and we, the owners, lost. To be fair the bushings do last a long time, just not as long as they might have if the right Durometer had been used from the get go.
 
Well said ^^ And I needed more noises coming from under the car like I need a hole in my head. Once you get the car up in the air you will see that the disassembly is really pretty straight forward. You shouldn't have to remove the upper (camber) arms and those are the ones that can be a PITA to remove the hardware from. The worst part of the job for me was jockeying the trailing arm into my shop press and keeping it properly aligned to drive out the old bushing (which was a b****) and then driving in the new ones (which was a really big b****) The new bushings have to be aligned correctly so that the holes in the mounting bar are facing the right direction, if you get it wrong you will wreck your new bushings very quickly. I enlisted the aid of my lovely wife, who got to hear every one of my favorite bad words about 100 times while we did this. Doing the front struts was a comparative walk in the park....
I gave up when the neighbors complained about my grinder and just let the shop put them in on my Civic years ago. I didn't want to torch them out and breathe the nasty...
Ah, I see where you're coming from with the range of motion, didn't think of that aspect of it. Now if it's the same suspension as on the Mz3 and Focus and those bushings are sold for those cars, what makes it bad on this one? Is there an aftermarket option that is better than OEM though? Not too impressed with the OEM suspension parts.
There are some really nice expensive sliding metal ball joint replacements (can't find pic right now) that are available to the Honda world- not sure if there's an off the shelf application that'll work for the 3/5/fuckus. They were way out of my price range on my no expenses spared Civic.
They fail because Mazda didn't figure the extra weight of the 5 would be enough to compromise the bushings that work just fine on the lighter car. They gambled on that deal and we, the owners, lost. To be fair the bushings do last a long time, just not as long as they might have if the right Durometer had been used from the get go.
Unfortunately that seems to be the case on a lot of the 5's subsystems. :(
 
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