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These devices completely change the way your car looks and rides.

Think of coilover suspension and you generally think of a modification for used sports cars. Any forum you go to that discusses coilover suspension is probably not deliberating on the merits of a Koni set up for a Ford Edge. In fact, suspension, in general, is usually the realm of full-bore gearheads rather than the average consumer hoping to smooth out the ride on their Veloster N.

That being said, coilovers do offer a number of practical advantages over spring-and-shock arrangements, the first being handling stability/reduction of body roll. This is helpful in helping you maintain traction in suboptimal conditions. Adjustable coilovers further offer the prospect of dealing better with rough terrain. Finally, on even terrain a lower ride height can reduce drag, even improving your gas mileage.

Coilovers can offer a variety of advantages, but from any perspective other than performance they are usually not needed.

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Suspension chat is absolutely rife with jargon, so we’re hoping we can clear this up for those of you who aren’t experienced tinkerers or budding engineers. Traditional suspension consists of a shock absorber and a spring. Shock absorbers prevent sudden jolts from being imparted to the spring itself, which would make for a lurching ride and wear out the springs fast.

The shock and spring are often combined into one unit called a strut. “Coil-over” means the spring (the “coil”) is mounted “over” the shock absorber, so in practice coilovers often simply are struts and fulfill the same function. NAPA claims that “In the field, the main difference between coilovers vs. struts is adjustability and customization.”

Lowering springs are good for adjusting ride height, but for the most part that’s all they’ll do. There’s also the possibility they won’t couple well with your shocks. Only use them if you're sure you won't need something fancier.

Coilovers come in four types: coilover sleeves that fit over existing shocks and have a fixed length, those with adjustable springs but fixed shocks, those that offer adjustment for springs and shocks, and finally those that also come with camber adjustment kits. The more adjustable coilovers allow you to tune the compression vs. rebound rates separately. That is, you can tune how readily the suspension shortens vs. how readily it extends.

Most of the time – no. Generally, you won’t need coilovers unless you specifically want your car to perform in ways that it can't right now. Coilovers are more expensive than regular springs most of the time, and cheap coilovers are generally flimsy and will end up being worse than the stock, warrantied spring and shock set up in the long term.

For cars, the main purpose of coilover suspension is generally to improve performance by reducing body roll and lowering the ride height. This allows superior traction, more efficient cornering due to the mass of the car not wobbling around, and less drag. They can also be tuned to help a car squat when accelerating, which for rear-wheel-drive cars momentarily improves traction. Off-road vehicles can make use of adjustable coilovers to adapt to the terrain.

Some of these adjustable suspension kits can be used at the press of a button. KW Suspensions, for example, offers the kit you see above that will either be integrated with your car’s existing suspension adjustment technology in which case only the springs are provided or a full kit that enables you to ultimately fit your vehicle with button-adjusted suspension. The kit offers three basic modes: “comfort”, “normal” and “sport”.

This setup would probably be most beneficial from a consumer perspective in a family’s sport sedan. You’ll probably want softer suspension most days when you actually use it (especially for road trips) but can easily drop if you want to have fun with it on some twisty backroad. We made that sarcastic comment about the Veloster N earlier, but that might be one of the best uses for an adjustable coilover – saving your S.O. from a telescoped spine or your kid from destroying a wheel the first time they take the Maserati Ghibli downtown.

Coilovers can be anywhere from several hundred to ten thousand dollars. You’ll also want to look at how exactly they get adjusted because there are two approaches and one is generally better. Autoworks comments: “In one system the spring seat is moved to compress the spring against the top hat which lowers the vehicle, [but] changing pre-load on your springs…will adversely affect handling. [The other is] thread[ing] the actual shock body to allow the base mount to be lowered or raised,” which does not change the pre-load and is therefore superior.

Almost all performance cars have coilover suspension as a matter of course, so the advantages of a new kit will probably be higher quality or ride height adjustment. With the right suspension upgrade, a previously solid sports car can attack the track and gun for purpose-built machines. The improved suspension was a large part of what enabled the Camaro ZL1 1LE to make Nurburgring history.

Sources: Autoblog, Autoguide, Autoworks, CarID, HowStuffWorks, NAPA, Shock Surplus, Spring Rates

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Harry Green is a lifelong auto enthusiast layman taking the opportunity to learn and inform through writing. A graduate of Yale University's African Studies program, he aims to bring his intensive research skills to bear in an entirely new field. He has had a book and movie review published by Providence web magazine and 40 album reviews written for Metal Temple. When not writing, he draws, watches anime and listens to metal, synthwave and the occasional K-pop banger.