Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

I have been given the tedious task of finding an upgrade on the suspension for my husband's 2010 Pajero. No clue where to look. He has been told by the agents that he needs to do a modification on the front suspension because the winch is too heavy and the tyres are wearing down. They suggested LA sport in Boksburg (as it needs to be an approved Mits. supplier as the vehicle is under motorplan")but I have not had any good dealings with this supplier (we are in the motor trade). First of all what is the best suspension to put on this vehicle i.e coils and springs, front and rear and where can I have it done.
We do tow a dive boat of 3500kg so I would assume one cannot just do the front. The car is also very low. Someone suggested ...something Gold or the other (LA sport fit it)but I want the best. Help please.

Sheleen

Firstly - Welcome here!

Calling any suspension change an upgrade is a bit of a misnomer as it actually is a change of the current setup to accomodate a change in use/requirement. With this change you will upgrade certain areas(load carrying ability, ground clearance possibly) but you will also downgrade on other aspects with that same change(stiffer less comfortable ride, higher center of grafity, possibly more body roll). So please be aware that there are no suspension system in the world that can do all things for all applications, but rather a trade off to get closer to ones own requirements, no matter what any salesman out there tell otherwise

OK, so after that bit of useless info, here are my recomendations.

Firstly do a search on this forum as there are many examples and previous discussions on this matter in the past that might already answer your questions

Secondly, given the speech above, there are no perfect system out there although some might be better suited to a specific persons requirements. None of the aftermarket dampers/shock absorber on the GEN3(2000-2007) Pajero is of a longer length than the standard one so none will give better articulation or increased travel, no matter what the sales people tell you. You will gain some ride height increase due to the longer coils fitted by most suppliers and if used on most off road trails this could be a nice addition.

I like the following suspension systems in order of preference:

• Old Man Emu
  TJM Extreme
  Iron Man(not my personal choice)

I would also look at just changing coils with coils from Van Zyls springs and put in Gabriel HDP(Good value for money) or Monroe shocks

Definately look at increasing load carrying capacity at the rear with Air Suspension addition which has the nice feature to work when needed but otherwise drive like normal.

CATS