Strut assembly Bilstein or Sachs

I'd keep stock springs and go with some nice Bilstein struts/ shocks with new mounts. Wheels, tires, brakes, sound deadening, and a headunit would make a big quality of life improvement.

On my 13, I have bilstein with RCE yellows. Those are nice.

I saw the Bilsteins were in stock on RockAuto and picked up a set for the rear only.

Almost forgot Sachs, if you have a euro car they are also a great choice.

No grinding or clunking sounds. Just a slight gear whine at certain speeds. I recognize that this means that the gears weren’t perfectly setup and will thus wear faster, but I can live with that.

I've always loved Bilsteins. Compared to blown shocks huuuuuge difference. Very precise steering and fantastic body control.

I changed over to Bilsteins struts and shocks 2 weeks ago and completely love the stiffness that comes with these bad boys. Had ranchos that were way too soft.

I’m using bilstein b6 with vogtland lowering springs… still somewhat harsh on my local shitty roads. Feels amazing on smooth roads though. I might consider swapping to b4 when my struts wear out because the comfort is really nice.

Extended strut in photo is missing a small spacer that goes on top of the piston before you add the first bushing perch, which basically just makes it the same as the standard strut on the left. I switched to the standards because I wanted to lose 1" of lift to bring me down to 2" of front lift. As you can see, there is nothing really "extended travel" about these. The reason for the added 1" of lift is because the perch is higher and adding more preload on the spring. After having these side by side, don't waste your time or money on the extended travel struts. Just get the standard struts, and get the appropriate spring for the weight and lift you want. Extended struts seemingly offer no benefit to down or up travel, and only make the ride harsher by compressing the spring even more.

Factory struts are now made by Sachs and didn't last.