Meister R's: A review for a Deuce

Hey guys,

Got my Mesiter R Coilovers roughly 1 month ago and have done about 2k kms in them so far on a combination of city, motorway and uneven ( ie.cratered) Irish rural roads. The following is my experience thus far.

Meister R Customer Service

I was in contact with Jerrick at Meister R after reading a number of positive reviews from Irish and Uk owners. Many of whome had them on Mini Coopers and such but not on an MR2. So I decided to give Meister R a go. From the start the service was great with all my emails being answered quickly and comprehensively.  Once I placed an order the Coilovers were delivered in days rather than weeksJ.

Coilover Units 

The first thing I noticed about the coilovers was the quality of the product delivered. From the nice box (I like packaging) to the well padded units within. The coilovers have a very reassuring weighty feel, not one that means built out of big chunks of cheap metal, but well engineered and should stand up to the rigors of the Irish roads.

The units come with adjustable dampening and rebound which is easily changed by adjusted the dials on the top of each strut which allows for fine tuning on the track and road.  It takes mere minutes to change the settings and tweak them.

Fitting the units was very straight forward, everything slotted in to place perfectly, and fitting was performed by a friend. The fitting would have been nice and easy were it not for my car and after many hours of trying to get the old struts out due to seized nuts/bolts and anything else that likes to be a pain to remove they were on.  Big props to Anto for the work done I seen the struggle and can only say if it were me I’d have ended up rage quitting on that job  :-p Below are the culprits for many an hour of pain, Bilstein stock struts with Apexi springs which will be going into storage in the lovely box the coilovers came in!

The car is currently raised higher than it was before the coilovers went on due to the poxy 18” alloys (46 offset) so they were touching the coilovers when at the original height. Spacers have been ordered so once they are on re-adjustment will be made. 

Driving

Currently have the dampers set to 6 all round from softest setting of which there are 32 in total. (I think that’s the stock setting) but will be playing with different settings this weekend when I have the spacers on. So far however I have to say the coilovers have given me much more confidence in the handling of the car. I have never had a oh crap moment since I bought the car but the front is much more planted than with the old setup of stock struts and apexi springs. Were before I was getting understeer on certain corners, the car now just turns in and drives on through.

The  ride on the roads of west cork is very good with the car not being trown off by bumps even mid corner and have had family members compliment the ride saying that it is as good as the previous setup if not better at absorbing the bumps. I think when you have your mother say that it speaks massively of the quality of the ride received from the Meister R’s. 

I am still getting to know the driving characteristics of my MR2 and have a track training day planned for January so expect many updates to this thread over the coming weeks/months.

Initial Impressions

I have to compliment again the service I received from Jerrick it was very comprehensive and had a personal touch. The coilovers thus far have held up well to the abuse the uneven roads of Ireland have given them and (hopefully) this weekend there will be a sluth of new photos to show this when the spacers are being put on.

The price of the units was fantastic and the shipping very quick. I think that value for money is one of the strong points of the Meister R’s but while not sacrificing in the quality department! The review may be lacking in technical detail due to my less than stellar knowledge of car suspension setups. But what I do know is when a car feels right and handles well and the Meister R’s add buckets of extra confidence and driving ability to both the car and the driver.

Lastly some shots of the car that has the good fortune of being endowed with said coilovers.