it is amazing so many car owners are 'improving' their suspensions just after they buy their brand new car. are the factory fitted suspensions so bad??

i believe that in normal conditions (driving on the public roads) these kind of improvements might be just a waste of money and more importantly might lose these extra things they try to achieve by improving in the first place.

most probably many of you do not agree with me. But i will give it a try...

Many improvements exist, however the “improvements of” suspensions are cheap, simple and easy. Is it however a real improvement? A set of springs, a set of absorber and the car is transformed!! Of course, after it changes perfectly its dynamic behavior, the comfort and abilities. One expects that the “squeeze of” suspension makes the car better, secure and in general faster. However the truth is not precisely that.

The suspension, it is simple in the structure, however it is so much more complicated in the arrest.The dynamic behavior of a car constitutes autonomous science and the companies spend enormous sums in the development, designing, trial and application so that they achieve the pose that each model needs. If the work involved before the placement does not make people aware then perhaps the millions milles that it is given by the constructors before a car going comercial they give some size of importance.

The suspension has two basic aims. Firstly it allows the car to maintain its contact with the asphalt and second to isolate the cabin from the abnormalities offering relative comfort. Contrary to what is believed the two characteristics are not contradoctory bettwen themselves. It does not mean that is to say that a suspension that annihilates the comfort has achieved increased levels of accretion and hence safety or even better performance of the car. However this is only what the “improvements” achieve in my opinion. Removing perfectly the comfort and together the bents of car body, they give the impression that they improve the road behavior. However this is not true. It is not infrequent even improvements that become from othe constructors or even the same constructors they give the sport of character that wants a publication of model, they also make worse, apart from the comfort, the road behavior.

You can also think about it like that: it has been given less time, in general, in the development of suspension of a single brand model than the work that has become for the entire car model. Often the suspension becomes then dry, terminates immediately, bouncing wheels from the street in the abnormalities...Along with the comfort, it is also lost the road 'behavior'.

Of course there are improved car models that bring really improved suspensions that functions very good, also with small comfort sacrificies. The GTI models of most companies have such suspensions, however this are often also accompanied with other changes.

Our own “improvements” are usually empirical and the fact that we use parts from other brands or from third constructors that suit in our car it does not guarantee substantially something.

Do you trust your own experience against the work that has become in the factory?

Do you believe that the suspension of your car is a product of economic compromise and with the investment that you make you provide a real improvement?I certainly believe NO.

In our normal driving conditions these improvements only improve the looks of the car and nothing else! I may be too hard to believe so but that What i believe.what do you think?

Edited 20 March, 200917 yr by TOURBOLUX

How about some paragraph breaks?

I cant even to be bothered to read that, someone let me know if its interesting.

it is amazing so many car owners are 'improving' their suspensions just after they buy their brand new car.

are the factory fitted suspensions so bad??i believe that in normal conditions (driving on the public roads) these kind of improvements might be just a waste of money and more importantly might lose these extra things they try to achieve by improving in the first place. most probably many of you do not agree with me. But i will give it a try...

Many improvements exist, however the “improvements of” suspensions are cheap, simple and easy. Is it however a real improvement? A set of springs, a set of absorber and the car is transformed!! Of course, after it changes perfectly its dynamic behavior, the comfort and abilities. One expects that the “squeeze of” suspension makes the car better, secure and in general faster. However the truth is not precisely that.

The suspension, it is simple in the structure, however it is so much more complicated in the arrest.The dynamic behavior of a car constitutes autonomous science and the companies spend enormous sums in the development, designing, trial and application so that they achieve the pose that each model needs. If the work involved before the placement does not make people aware then perhaps the millions milles that it is given by the constructors before a car going comercial they give some size of importance.

The suspension has two basic aims. Firstly it allows the car to maintain its contact with the asphalt and second to isolate the cabin from the abnormalities offering relative comfort. Contrary to what is believed the two characteristics are not contradoctory bettwen themselves. It does not mean that is to say that a suspension that annihilates the comfort has achieved increased levels of accretion and hence safety or even better performance of the car. However this is only what the “improvements” achieve in my opinion. Removing perfectly the comfort and together the bents of car body, they give the impression that they improve the road behavior. However this is not true. It is not infrequent even improvements that become from delegations or even the same constructors they give the sport of character that wants a publication of model, they also worsen however apart from the comfort and the road behavior.

You can also think about it like that: it has been given less time, in general, in the development of suspension of a single brand model than the work that has become for the entire car model. Often the suspension becomes then dry, terminates immediately, bouncing wheels from the street in the abnormalities...Along with the comfort, it is also lost the road 'behavior'.

Of course there are improved car models that bring really improved suspensions that functions very good, also with small comfort sacrificies. The GTI models of most companies have such suspensions, however this are often also accompanied with other changes. Our own “improvements” are usually empirical and the fact that we use parts from other brands or from third constructors that suit in our car it does not guarantee substantially something. Do you trust your own experience against the work that has become in the factory? Do you believe that the suspension of your car is a product of economic compromise and with the investment that you make you provide a real improvement?I certainly believe NO. In our normal driving conditions these improvements only improve the looks of the car and nothing else! I may be too hard to believe so but that What i believe.what do you think?

I cant even to be bothered to read that, someone let me know if its interesting.

no it isn;t........unless you're having trouble sleeping, then it might help.

tldr

What is the native language in Luxembourg? I suspect the OPs English is a lot better than most of our "Luxembourgish" (is it German or French??)

Still boring though...

Yawn..Zzzzzzzz

Basically - he says we're dropping the ride height for the looks and the factory engineers know best.

He's probably right, and mine does look better now it's dropped, and the ride is better on my more expensive Koni FSDs and it's my toy so I'm happy.

What a load of..................ocks!!!!!

Tell Koni their FSDs suck, and I await the response - great improvement over stock. Guess what, stock suspension is built at a cost. If you are prepared to spend more on specialist suspension, the car WILL handle better. Plenty of sh*te out there too, fair enough - but buy the right gear and it transforms the car.

Try a Fabia vRS stock and tweaked suspension (rear ARB, FSDs/Eibachs or Coil-overs). Bet you can tell the difference, and the tweaked one will muller the stock one..

And yes I was bored :P

That sounds like it was copied from a car manufacturers website for some reason

Balls

I think there are a lot of car owners that modify their suspension with mainly looks in mind, and of course they are going to tell you their coilovers and ARBs improved the car when it cost them ££££s. I think the OP raises a fairly good discussion point but maybe should have summarised it in a shorter post by saying, basically are suspension changes on modern day cars justified given the vast testing and development they perform on designing suspension that is optimum for a given car.

I think the answer in constrast to some of the OPs points, is that it is all about a compromise. Even a sportscar is setup with a compromise to be able to be driven on a road and therefore can be "improved" upon. Improved upon in this and many cases however, can be defined generally as altered for even more aggressive turn in and lower ride height. You could get an Octavia with trick suspension wiping the floor with a standard one on track, but on B roads it would be uncontrollabe. So again, compromise.

:iagree: - The real fact is that a manufacturer's "ride-handling compromise" is exactly that, a compromise.

It's rare in the world of steel springs, but I actually know Citroen owners who fit the Hydropneumatic models with softer gas springs for ride comfort. Equally, I'm happy with the standard spring rates on the Octy Elegance with the 16s, but think it needs more powerful dampers.

Haven't read it, but I'm guessing it's another pointless anti-modding rant from an opinionated old fart!

Nobody cares!

How about some paragraph breaks?

Not just me who thought it then, i actually got about half way through it then thought **** this for a game of soldiers.

Pity as from the bit i read there were some good points made.

well i started dozing, eventually finished it, then read the other posts and now im awake and highly amused. thanks guysand to be fair if uprated suspension didnt work race all these BTCC and WTCC races would be an hilarious understeering race with very slow lap times

to be fair if uprated suspension didnt work race all these BTCC and WTCC races would be an hilarious understeering race with very slow lap times

But it doesn't 'work' straight out of the box, they spend many hours fine tuning it to get the optimum performance out of it (this even changes from circuit to circuit) as someone previously said it all about compromise.

But i would say the majority of people who change the suspension (all the boy racers) don't get the car set up fully afterwards.

I didn't say that, did I? :confused: (EDIT: It was simonskerton but it seems to have been attributed to me???)

But at least he took the paragraph advice. Still haven't read it though. Sorry

No, you didn't, how did that happen?? :confused:

Koni FSDs dont need any other setup - they just work as Koni did the work to work out how they should work for a particular application. With coilovers, things are very much different though.

summary:

you are not driving in a circuit! You are driving in normal roads with traffic and in UK !!!

All these mods are useless IMO because of the above reason. They do not offer you much more than the factory parts to compensate for the extra money ....

summary:

you are not driving in a circuit! You are driving in normal roads with traffic and in UK !!!

All these mods are useless IMO because of the above reason. They do not offer you much more than the factory parts to compensate for the extra money ....

I call BS on that, with respect. The Koni FSDs made the car more comfortable to drive PLUS more stable. This is on the normal, pothole ridden, bumps in the fast lane on the M4, general day to day driving.

With the stock suspension the car would feel unstable if hitting anything more than a pea-sized bump.

Considering I do a vast number of miles on various roads in various countries, I feel I am in a pretty good place to comment on what works well on the Fabia vRS at the very least. Of course you are entitled to your own opinion, but so am I, and my opinion is based on my personal experience of the car, the suspension changes I made, and the results thereof. I do not go on tracks, and my speed varies between mundane fuel-conserving and fast driving, following mostly the law.