PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

ive got a 2005 Bonnie GXP that sits way too high in the front with just a hair of positive camber.

first question is; is the suspension the same between the GXP, SLE, and SSEI?
are there any lowering springs out there for H bodies that are compatible with my GXP?
can i use front springs from a 6 cylinder car such as the SSEI on my GXP to try and lower the front end?


final question being, are there any camber bolts out there for the H body? if not, can i use W body camber bolts?

#1: No, GXP has upgraded parts
#2: No off-the-shelf lowering springs
#3: Maybe, but your handling will suffer
#4: Not sure.

Ok thank you.

Can you look and tell if your struts have been recently replaced?

Camber bolts and/or shims are available for the Bonneville. RockAuto has them fairly cheap.

00Beast wrote:Can you look and tell if your struts have been recently replaced?

I had the same thought. If the replacement struts were Monroe quickstruts, two things:

1) You've lost the original FE5 spring and strut combo, so your handling won't be as good and completely mismatched for the stiffer setup in the rear. This could cause oversteer - the back end will want to step out under hard cornering, potentially unpredictably.
2) You have one extra coil in the front spring, which explains the ride height.

Also, you should NOT need a camber kit to bring alignment back to near zero or slightly negative camber with stock springs/shocks (which leads back to the question of whether the front strut/spring combo has been touched. Has your car ever been in an accident?

If the struts are original they should be Del-Phi struts iirc.. The only springs we have seen that make any bonneville sit higher are the quick struts... Most of the Bonnevilles, even my SLE sit down pretty good for a stock suspension..

The GXP suspension( FE5 ) is the stiffest of the 00-05 bonnevilles, and those are hard parts to find...

I have the same problem going on here. Just replaced my, what I would assume, original struts/springs with Monroe quick struts..my car looks like a monster truck in the front. I was told it would "settle". I'm thinking it isn't going to settle back to stock height which I'm NOT happy about. I salvaged the old assemblies from my auto shop "just in case". Why couldn't they use my old springs and just replace the struts?? The springs weren't broken or anything..

As the name implies, it's much faster to do the quickstruts and most people won't notice the difference. It wouldn't surprise me if tearing down the strut assembly to swap springs doubles the amount of time spent in the shop and on the hoist, etc.

ok, got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is the shop where I took my car to have the struts installed, INSTALLED THE INCORRECT STRUTS!! Monroe DOES NOT make a quick strut for the 05 SE. They installed the quick strut that goes on a 98 Bonneville (my old car), this is according to the shops supplier and per my phone call with Monroe last night. My persistence has paid off. I knew something wasn't right with those struts, especially with the ride height being so off, but the shop kept insisting they were the right ones. Also good news, I went to the old shop (before they closed the doors) and picked up my strut assembly that came off the car knowing in my gut I would possibly need those back!!

The bad news is the shop went OUT OF BUSINESS during this "investigation" of the shudder in my front end so the warranty I had is GONE and I'm going to have to pay labor costs to get this fixed. I'm not sure after finding all of this out I would return to that shop anyway!

But, on a brighter note, the supplier is going to let me swap out struts so I don't have to pay additional part costs. Hopefully putting the right struts on is going to get the suspension sitting where its supposed to be and the shudder will be GONE!!

I'm not so sure about that. 92-99 and 00+ suspensions don't exactly interchange with each other.

They don't interchange at all... The struts are completely different, the springs are completely different as well as the strut mount and bearing assembly..

Sounds more like a W body part or a U van part... Either way something is messed up..