Testimonial

Banzai Magazine - PB Coilovers Review

First things first, I'm pleased to say that my Modellista goodies have arrived from Japan via Jesse Streeter's part-sourcing service. From Spotting them on a website to actually having them in my hands has taken a little over a month (possibly an extra week than usual due to coinciding with Obon) and cost an eye-watering £460. The papers themselves amounted to £345 (£93 for the eyebrows and £252 for the interior panels), which means the remaining £115 can be attributed to postage to Jesse's place, his commission, PayPal fees, overseas shipping to the UK, and then import VAT and clearance fees. None of these extra costs have been unreasonable but when piled on top of each other have bumped-up the price considerably. What's more, I'm yet to sort out the painting of the eyebrows.

In other news, another large parcel has found its way to me from the other side of the world. It came from PB Coilovers in Taiwan and contains... well, the clue was in the name... my coilover suspension setup. I've mentioned before how tempting Taiwanese brands look in today's cost-conscious market. Indeed, as the engineering and construction appears to be comparable with that coming from Japan, there shouldn't be a stigma attached to buying goods from a different island in the same East China Sea. Much of the industrialisation of Taiwan came courtesy of Japan anyway, during its time as part of the Japanese Empire in the early parts of the 20th Century.

PB Coilovers is run by ex-pat Dan Newton, and dealing with him via email was as quick and easy as it would have been with a company based here in the UK (PB sell direct to the customer rather than through a distribution network). Cost was actually less of a factor in deciding to run PB suspension than discovering the company was possibly the first in the world to produce a specific setup for the third-gen Yaris and that it had already supplied examples to customers in USA, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and China. Time is of the essence with this project, and that immediate availability really swung it for me.

Delivery time was incredibly quick. The carriage box was disappointingly nondescript in appearance but its contents appeared every bit as good as I've found in big-name manufacturers. Fitting was arranged with my trusted experts at Torque Developments International (TDI), where technician Matt Levine wasted no time removing the windscreen wiper mechanisms and entire scuttle panel area to get to the front top mounts.

Examination of the instructions showed that the OEM top bearing needed to be pilfered from the standard setup and inserted onto the new shock absorber shaft, where it was supposed to locate over a collar and be secured between a cup-shaped adaptor and the car's fixed top mount. Unfortunately, this collar turned out to be approximately 1.5mm too large to fit inside the OEM bearing, which was a cause of great confusion to us because this precise setup had been successfully installed in all the countries mentioned earlier.

An email was fired over immediatly to Dan at PB showing photos of the precise measurements of the incompatible components with a digital vernier caliper. Despite the eight-hour time difference, Dan was able to pick up his emails immediately, and with a bit of to-ing and fro-ing for further explaination we quickly worked out that while the collar in question was correct for the Yaris models supplied elsewhere in the world, my car is a European model built in Valenciennes, France, and it clearly has a slightly different suspension setup. Nobody knew that until this juncture.

It was slightly frustration not being able to get the coilovers on straightaway but this is simply a teething issue that has materialised because we're working on such a new application. PB is already on the case machining a pair of collars of the right internal and external diameters. These should be with me imminently, and as soon as I recieve them I'll book another fitting slot with TDI. It's comforting to know that all future purchases of PB coilovers for the European-spec thirs-gen Yaris will now automatically be supplied with this adjusted collar. Another good to come out of this slight delay is that it is giving me a chance to sort out new wheels and tyres on the cars. More on that next month...

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