IPD Suspension Series: Springs Seats

The upper spring seat is an integral yet rarely spoken about part in your Volvo's suspension setup. The upper spring seat provides a cradle for the top of the spring and strut assembly. It works in part to cushion the energy from bumps but also works as a cushion for spring recoil. Providing a cushion and a snug fitment for the spring, the upper spring mount takes a lot of abuse and is not something your car can go without. Lets go over how they work (and don’t) and exactly why you need them!

Factory spring seats tend to fail when the factory suspension has been modified with upgraded shocks, lowering springs and heavier duty bushings because they have to deal with additional stress from the harder bumps and suspension stress that is inevitable with upgraded suspension over factory. Factory rubber spring seats were not made to bend and flex and take more stress than the factory suspension set up requires from them. This failure is especially common for Volvo spring seats.

We often get calls from Volvo owners about knocks, squeaks, rattles and clunks. Common failures that can create these noises are worn out upper front spring seats or worn out upper rear shock mounts. Volvo front wheel drive models commonly develop a clunk in the front suspension that can be caused by worn out upper spring seats. This can occur in some models with as few as 30K miles and can be perpetuated by performance springs and shocks. Many aftermarket versions of the upper spring seat are cheap and commonly fail prematurely.  Normally you get a loud clunk, squeak, knock from the front end when they have failed. Also, you can actually visually see it as well, when some upper spring seats get really bad the strut will blow into the hood!

With this in mind, IPD Volvo engineered heavier duty upper spring seats that can take the wear and tear of a performance built suspension system. To increase safety, longevity and better suspension damping, we took the liberty of completely recreating the upper spring seat design with new materials and extended stress testing. The standard spring seats have a metal sleeve which is vulcanized to the outer rubber section. This design we've found doesn't hold up all that well, especially in areas with poor road conditions. Our design incorporates a heavy duty silicone blend of rubber as well as a metal collar around the center sleeve for an extremely durable design.

Our spring seats are unlike any manufacturers design, and in bench testing of these mounts in a press we actually saw the spring seats fold in half before the center sleeve would punch through. That kind of force is way more than your car would ever go though and we're so confident in this design that ipd spring seats are guaranteed for life. Let these be the last set of spring seats your Volvo will ever need! IPD’s heavy duty spring seat features additional material in key areas to increase longevity and consistent performance without adding additional noise or vibration into the chassis. Get your vehicle back to handling like a new car and keep it that way!

IPD offers standard replacement front spring seats (used on '97 and newer models) which were redesigned by the manufacturer to reduce separation between the inner steel sleeve and outer rubber insulator. While these are an improvement over the original design, we have still seen failure in as little as 30,000 miles.

We recommend replacing the upper spring seats whenever the struts are replaced as part of regular maintenance. Also suggested to upgrade your upper spring seats when lowering your Volvo since the stress of the new suspension geometry and performance might be more than your factory spring mounts can handle. The expense is minimal in comparison to having to do the job over later.

IPD Volvo offers upper spring seat options for an array of Volvo’s. Our part# 124672 is one of the most commonly bought heavy duty spring seats and it fits:

P2 Model Volvos:

• 2001 - 2009 S60
• 1999 - 2006 S80 (all submodels)
• 1998 - 2007 V70 (all submodels)
• 2001- 2007 XC70 (2.5T)
• 2003 - 2014 XC90 (all submodels)