was wondering what you guys paid to have your coilovers installed. i had planned on doing it myself but if its not too expensive i may just have a garage intall them

 

It depends.

If they do it the right way, installing them, setting the ride height you want and then cornerweighting the car, you should figure 4-6 hours. We've spent upwards of 3 hours just getting the cornerweighting right, depending on the weight of the driver and how close we get right off the bat (typically, the heavier the driver, the longer it takes us to chase settings). Then, they should do a full alignment.

If they just install them, figure 2 hours or so.

I would highly recommend taking it to a shop experienced in installing coilovers - proper setup and cornerweighting is absolutely KEY to optimizing the handling characteristics of your car. If you're going to pay a bunch of cash for coilovers, you should make sure they're going to perform optimally. I can't tell you how many times we've heard, "I installed coilovers and I just expected more performance..." To which we reply, "Did the installer properly cornerweight the car?" 99.99% of the time, the answer is, "What's that?" or "No".

 

cornerweighting should be able to be done at an alignment shop

 

I've not heard this. At least in my area I know of no alignment shop that can corner balance a car. We have a few race shops that do both.

I understand what is said about the importance of corner balancing the car, but I don't think people should get discouraged in getting coilovers if they can't. Corner balancing a street car is just not worth the time I don't think. If one tracks like 4 or more times a year then maybe.
Minis are really quite well balanced anyway. I think if you are good about getting the ride height set and MAKING SURE you have no sway bar preload, then most will never know the difference.
Like TSW, I like to balance a car if the owner has the TIME. But this would again really be for someone who was a more serious "tracky".

 

We have to do our own corner weights. There isn't any shops or even alignment shops near that do it. Cost me a brand new set of scales, oh well. Alot of race shops have scales but only use them for their personal cars.

 

Yep, scales are quite the investment.
Agree about getting it done yourself, or ending up with a screwed up car. Shops like TSW should be able to do a great job, but I have seen some so called race shops really screw up Minis.
Anyhow, guess we are off topic.
Out east here we have serious issues with totally rusted up and seized bolts. Pinch bolts tend to snap. It's a VERY big PIA when you plan on a two hour joband it takes 5. Not sure you guys have these issues. ?

 

It could be because most of our coilover clientele are track junkies, so I'm was speaking from our experience with customers...

The closest we've ever gotten, weighing the driver and eyeballing the perches, has been 48.6% on the cross weights... Personally, I can feel that difference in the car, even on the street. But, like you said, 99.99% probably couldn't tell the difference. Even so, I would still have it done - but that's just me - spending a ton of money on a coilover setup and not doing it just seems silly to not spend another $80-160 to have them setup right. Shrug.

Then again, I think single or double adjustable coilovers are a complete waste of money if you just want to slam your car for looks - KW V1's are fine for that application, among others non-adjustable applications. In that case, people probably couldn't tell the difference anyway, since they have no suspension travel left.

In Texas, we don't have issues with rusted/seized bolts, unless the car came from the rust belt...