As rob and probably most other regular contributors know I went down the Weitec route with my Octy around 10 months ago, AND I am also running 19" rims with 35-series tyres.

Maybe I am just used to it, but I don't find I have any issues with comfort or road-holding, my boss had a back operation last summer and I had to give him a lift into work one morning not long afterwards, I warned him before I picked him up that he may find the rise slightly harsh (and he's a bit of a grump generally) but he said it was absolutely fine when we arrived at work.

I know you say you are happy with your setup rob apart from over broken tarmac but is that such a regular occurence? If your local authority is anything like the ones up here then I know they aren't perfect, but are your regularly-travelled roads REALLY that bad?

I have only done approx. 7K miles since I got my weitecs on though, perhaps they deteriorate a bit (I suppose all suspension does) once they've had 20K+ mileage on them.

I don't disagree with you. The weitecs are great for the money - i may end up buying them again - purpose of this thread is to explore if the top-money options are THAT much better than what I have now. From the responses it doesn't seem that there is much first hand experience on the options i floated in the original post.

I'm going to join up on some of the Golf forums to see if there is any more to glean from those guys.

.. maybe i should just stick with the weitecs and pop some super-light 17"s on there with fat tyres

:no:

TBH I'll probably just leave them on the car and wind them up to something like stock ride height when it goes. I sold my OE springs and dampers last year to offset the cost of the weitecs.

Wrong answer......... :(

OK OK. I dont have a vrs but :-

With my last Octy 4x4 I had KW Variant 3's. I also tried the 2's but they just werent quite right, the 3's were far superior. They gave great handling but didnk knock your fillings out. We did several long drives in the car through Europe on Cannonballs etc, several legs over 1000 miles & it didnt become tedious. They are fully adjustable for bounce rebound etc but I asked the factory to set them for fast road & they were never changed, even worked well on track.

On the Nissan I run Tein super street which is adjustable electrically from a little box fixed to the dash & has 16 settings from hard to soft, you can vary it front to rear as well. "hours of fun " Not sure if anything like this is available for the Octy, its not on the site but Skodas arent sold in the states so you need to loook at the VW or Audi equivalent .

The bouncy bits http://www.tein.com/products/super_street_with_pillowball.html

The controller http://www.tein.com/products/edfc.html

Edited 26 January, 201214 yr by Stuart_J

Tein UK site http://www.tein.co.uk/contact_info.html

Edited 26 January, 201214 yr by Stuart_J

I had tein monoflex on my turbo charged type r and were good, but very pricey... I think I would go for nitrons or onlins next time

I have tried driven Octavia vRS's with all range of suspension setups from many different coilovers to spring/dampers and spring only setups.

By far the comfiest two have been the Koni FSD/Eibach springs and the Bilstein B12 kits. The bilstein B12 kit imo was better than they koni FSD setup though and is where my money would go

OK OK. I dont have a vrs but :-

With my last Octy 4x4 I had KW Variant 3's. I also tried the 2's but they just werent quite right, the 3's were far superior. They gave great handling but didnk knock your fillings out. We did several long drives in the car through Europe on Cannonballs etc, several legs over 1000 miles & it didnt become tedious. They are fully adjustable for bounce rebound etc but I asked the factory to set them for fast road & they were never changed, even worked well on track.

On the Nissan I run Tein super street which is adjustable electrically from a little box fixed to the dash & has 16 settings from hard to soft, you can vary it front to rear as well. "hours of fun " Not sure if anything like this is available for the Octy, its not on the site but Skodas arent sold in the states so you need to loook at the VW or Audi equivalent .

The bouncy bits http://www.tein.com/products/super_street_with_pillowball.html

The controller http://www.tein.com/products/edfc.html

KW do DDC on the coilovers which is electircally adjustable. Its based on the system like in the audi TT. Its not fully over in the UK yet but if you look on the international sight there is a little bit of information. They do two types DDC plug and play for cars fitted with factory DDC and DDC ECU for cars without.

No idea of cost but if I was going for suspension and had the money its something I'd be interested in, soft for everyday use and sport when on my own havig fun etc.

clicky clicky

KW do DDC on the coilovers which is electircally adjustable. Its based on the system like in the audi TT. Its not fully over in the UK yet but if you look on the international sight there is a little bit of information. They do two types DDC plug and play for cars fitted with factory DDC and DDC ECU for cars without.

No idea of cost but if I was going for suspension and had the money its something I'd be interested in, soft for everyday use and sport when on my own havig fun etc.

clicky clicky

That would be worth looking into in more detail, being able to change it is such an obvious solution, I love it on the Zed

That would be worth looking into in more detail, being able to change it is such an obvious solution, I love it on the Zed

indeed there is also an iPhone app that you can change the settings. I really dread to think of the cost though as the coilovers for the octavia are around the £1400 mark.

might be a useful LINK

indeed there is also an iPhone app that you can change the settings. I really dread to think of the cost though as the coilovers for the octavia are around the £1400 mark.

might be a useful LINK

No Skodas listed but its the same car as the Golf / Audi. Theres a chance for the first person who does this to ask for a deal on the price by offering their car as a guinea pig. I did this with a major UK aftermarket exhaust supplier for a full system on the old Octy 4x4, lost the car for a few days but it came in well under £500 If you dont ask you dont get !

Edited 27 January, 201214 yr by Stuart_J

my car has H=R 30mm lowering springs and Koni FSD dampers, new droplinks and anti-roll bar bushes, amazing handling, and my mate says it is like a limousine now

http://www.mog-racing.co.uk/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=vmj_naru.tpl&product_id=98&category_id=26&vmcchk=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=226

Alan, what was the logic on changing the drop links? Were the originals worn? Are those OE or aftermarket?

VrSy - interesting what you say about the B12s.. TBH I don't really need coilovers, as long as ican have a ride somewhere around 30-35mm below stock I don't actually need to be able to adjust them. Other than initial setting up I've not changed the height of the weitecs.

Were the B12s you tried on an Octavia?

Originally a squeek when four up in car, Alias on here got a stethescope on various parts when up on ramp one guy sat on boot plastic opening boucing and two in the rear .He listened to various points on the car and noise coming from bushes and droplinks . If you look you can see droplink rubbers are perished new ones( oem) are double the thickness than original as you can see by the photos in that thread

ohlins r&t.... £1500 including vat - eibachs springs recommended so circa £1650 plus fitting.... would have to be very very special

eibach pro dampers matched to pro springs - circa £650 all in - sounds a better bet.. i had this set up on the alfa gta and was pretty comfortable (well in comparison to alfas attempt of rock hard springs and weak damping)

I have the H&R cup kit on my vRS, very happy with it, car feels a lot more agile than on stock suspension, but its still really comfortable, not sure if this is what your after,

Which H&R cup kit have you got? there are 2 available one is comfort & other is sport, i m looking to lower my fl octy but don't want to sacrifice the ride quality much..Thanks..

Marc - IIRC there was someone on here who'd had the eibach pro dampers with the pro springs and reported that they were pretty firm, like just about ok for day-to-day but really on the limit of what you'd want in terms of ride.

Anyway - thanks everyone who's posted. Summary of where I am at the moment:

B12 kit: I checked on the dpm site and the vRS kit is also listed as applicable to a bunch of other "cooking" models quoting a 30mm drop. If it drops a (for instance) elegance by 30mm it will not drop a vRS the same amount, as the vRS is already 15mm lower than that car (I think?). So unless my assumptions are wrong a B12 kit will only lower a vRS about 15mm which is less than I'd ideally like. Other than that, it looks good vfm and all the feedback is good.

I'm ruling out ohlins as the kit is not specific to the Octavia and its dampers only. I don't want to be a guinea pig - I want something that's already developed/proven. Ditto the other "custom" options that have been suggested.

I've found a bunch of forum postings on mkV and mkVI golf forums on Street Comfort and B16's (ie my original thoughts). Nothing negative.

Most of the comparisons seem to be between B16 and KW V3, with the KW's having more adjustability (separately adjustable bounce and rebound) where the Bilsteins have just a single adjuster knob that does both together, but Bilsteins are easy to adjust with an easily accessible adjuster where the rear KW's seem to have to come off the car to be tweaked.

The Eibach pro street coilovers are another option, and cheaper than KW SC's or B16s, not adjustable but apparently pretty comfy and also stainless so potentially a better quality item vs. the galvanised weitecs.

Other options I've looked at: H&R "Comfort" cup kit. Spring and dampers so fixed height and damping. These are meant more for street use vs. trackdays so they should be fine for my requirements. As with the B12 kit I'm not 100% sure what ride height you'd actually get with these - blub says -35mm but again its not clear if you'd actually achieve this on a vRS. I found Mark_eire's review on here for the H&R but its not clear if that the sport kit of comfort kit and from the pics the drop does not look like 35mm.

JBS also list a Sachs coilover kit that looks good. These look to be very high quality, stainless, fully adjustables and a similar price to the top B16 Bilstein coils, but again, no reviews that I can find so it would be a £1,500 quid gamble.

Given the lack of first hand/octavia based feedback available I'm unfortunately no further forward. For the "new" car it'll either be a leap in the dark with something new based only on reading the posts on the various Golf GTI forums, or stick another set of Weitecs on it given they are a good compromise; not too pricey and a good balance of comfort and control.

Thanks again for all the posts.

Not too pricey? Did u u not say money was no object

Not too pricey? Did u u not say money was no object

Ok, to clarify - I'm happy to spend top dollar if I can verify that say, a bilstein B16 kit at £1,500 quid is demonstrably better than a £500 quid set of weitecs. Otherwise, why bother - just stick to "the devil you know".

I think this thread has proved that there isn't much first hand experience on the forum beyond the usual suspects. I guessed that would be the case but I still appreciate the effort people have gone to to offer up their thoughts.

With the b12 kit isn't there two different springs/ ride heights? 30mm or 40mm drop?

The Sachs kit looks the part but again very few people opting for them on this side of the Atlantic.

Spoke to a distributor for ohlins and the fact that he thought an Octavia was on the passat platform didn't fill me with confidence....

Re eibach pro shocks - I thought they were ok but that was on my alfa gta which was reknowned for street comfort I did 25k plus a year in it and to be honest it was not significantly stiffer than the vrs. It was however far too low...

Agree there doesn't seem to be anyone out there with first hand experience - I'm waiting a year or so with standard given its age - then will start exploring properly.

Ride height standard is fine with me (I go on some rough building sites) so probably will go with an eibach spring plus expensive shock route.

http://web1.carparts-cat.com/default.aspx?230=1&34=0,100370&36=190&35=0&32=19459&14=1&10=BAD18FA7F3234F2AE040A8C00A3E288D018001&12=130

Billies website catalog - mk5 golf do have 50kg less weight factored in on rating than the Skoda.

B12's Mkv golf and mk2 Leon get option of 40mm or 30mm springs - Octavia mk2 only lists 30mm pro springs.

I was in a similar position with my Fabia, after months of research I went for Eibach Pro Street Coilovers. They are really comfortable and only really firm up when you are pressing on, the comfort is better than the standard spring/damper set up. They are only height adjustable, I'm running mine at a 45mm drop, and are stainless.

I bought mine from DPM and in a month or two when I change the Fabia for and Octavia I wouldn't hesitate in making the same choice of suspension or supplier.

I'm about to take delivery of my new VRS CR hatch and am certain that i want it lower than standard, but if the octavia vrs of today has a ride anything like my 07 model did then i wouldn't want it any harder. Something that is perhaps worth considering when wondering why all options appear to involve compromise of some kind is that what you are asking for for, say £1600, when talking about car suspension. Plenty of motorcyclists spend £1500 on a single ohlins shock/spring combo, and for that they apparently get a great quality product with few compromises. The point is that perhaps for us to get something similar we should be paying £6000!..which of course few of us (me included) are ill prepared to do.

Anyway clearly the above doesn't answer the golden question (what to buy...for sensible money) so seemingly like many of you i'll keep pondering and reading the forums.