How do you find the car leaning while trying to push it in the corners?

 

I have elegance with 17 tyres, no sport suspension and I find it somehow leaning too much. Or maybe I am just being thrown out of the seats so it feels more like a lean than it actually is...

Cheapest solution?  Slow down; although I don't think that is what you want to hear!

Agreed. I'm considering a set of sway bars. I had a RARB on my MKII and that made a great difference, more stability and less understeer.

 

Now I don't seem suffering of much understeer with my 4x4, but 1) perhaps front and rear sway bars might be of help and 2) I still have to push her in order to better feel high(ish) speed behavior.

RARB defo the way to go, http://www.balancemo...ecnumber=133064

My Whiteline RARB and ALK were bought at balanced (thanks Julian).

 

I'm still trying to understand if I'd better buy only RARB or both of them...

Try changing your driving technique to.....slow in fast out..

 

Please don't take that the wrong way as only trying to offer advise. It's all about being smooth and as they say..less is more. Unsettling the car and putting the weight in the wrong place is not the fastest way.

 

Steve.

Agreed StevenB, to be smooth is the key. Anyway, I felt a lot of difference between my old VRS mkII and let's say my old 320d touring. A different weight distribution, RWD, stiffer suspensions made a lot of difference when trying to drive along "that" bend.

 

My MkII suffered of heavy understeer (I simply ->had<- to lift my foot) which was effectively tamed by the RARB.

 

My actual MkIII seems less prone to understeer, but body lean (and lift) due to "soft" suspensions is pretty evident.

 

Oh, BTW, does anybody know the specifications of suspension setup of greenline? Car seems sitting quite lower than standard.

Edited 30 September, 201411 yr by Genoa1893

Try changing your driving technique to.....slow in fast out..

 

Please don't take that the wrong way as only trying to offer advise. It's all about being smooth and as they say..less is more. Unsettling the car and putting the weight in the wrong place is not the fastest way.

 

Steve.

Good advice, I dont mind at all.

 

In fact, I drive normal most of the time.

 

Recently, I was on trip, ended up on some windy countryroads and tried steady puhing it a little through the corners and in the end found it lean little bit too much for my taste, but of course octavia is not a sportcar, not even a vrs model. On top of all, I have an elegance which doesnt even have a multilink.

I have the sports suspension and 18" wheels and get no noticeable body lean.  Steering is so neutral though that you can't push hard into corners as you can't feel what is going on with the car!

 

On a week long demo I had 17" wheels and normal suspension and I can't say that I noticed any excessive body lean with that setup either.

 

Have you checked and removed any suspension transport blocks?

I have the sports suspension and 18" wheels and get no noticeable body lean.  Steering is so neutral though that you can't push hard into corners as you can't feel what is going on with the car!

 

On a week long demo I had 17" wheels and normal suspension and I can't say that I noticed any excessive body lean with that setup either.

 

Have you checked and removed any suspension transport blocks?

No transport blocks, thats for sure. Like I said, maaybe its not the lean so much more that I get pushed out of the seat so it feels like more of a lean that it actually is.

The rack is also quite slow on regular cars, this mixed with the lack of feedback doesn't help whilst pushing on.

The steering is sharper on vRS due to the standard variable rack.

Seats in the Elegance aren't very supportive laterally either.

I'd say the seats aren't as supportive I've a Black Edition (so SE seats) and find I move a bit but wouldn't say the cars leaning.

I have a 4x4 2.0 150 TDi Combi and essentially it doesn't understeer at all. Quite amazing actually, and I'm sure it is a combination of the multilink rear axle, four wheel drive and the active differential all working very well together. When you do get to the limit it drifts all of a piece with a slight bias towards the rear. Very very controllable and great fun on empty roundabouts!

 

However the car is, when all said and done, not a sports car but a multi-purpose vehicle, and there have to be some compromises so that it fits the bill across the board. In order to ensure decent comfort levels for passengers there is some compliance in the bushes and the damper settings are a compromise. The result of this is that there is a small amount of initial movement when entering a corner before the suspension settles, and this is the trade-off for getting decent comfort levels.

 

If you are pushing on and driving smoothly then you will go through this region almost instantly and the car can be driven very fast indeed with incredible levels of grip and stability for a multi-purpose vehicle.

 

However if you are driving more moderately (maybe with passengers on board) then it takes a bit more finesse to drive quickly without a small bit of lurching going into corners. I think the main ingredient of this is the ARB bushes and also possibly the dampers, but fixing this would probably spoil the ride comfort so in my view the setup strikes a very good balance which delivers a car which is extremely rewarding to drive for what it is.

 

Also worthy of mention is the really great TDi engine which has exactly the right levels of torque at the right revs to exercise the chassis optimally.

Having recently took delivery of my new  2.0tdi 150 DSG Elegance I must admit I am pleasantly surprised on how well it handles and sits on the road and this has been echoed by a few of my passengers .To be honest I would consider the cornering lean/ roll so small I don't notice it .I would definitely agree with what StevenB said earlier, driving style ,positioning along with approach/exit speed are the major contributors firstly to dictate what a driver can do and how a car will behave during cornering.Also maybe its the dsg gearbox ,but it seems to have you in the gear you need when you need it,so much so I sometimes flick over to tiptronic just to make it a bit more unpredictable especially on roundabouts.Maybe my suspension characteristics and how it reacts might change the older the car becomes but I hope not.      

I agree with nickcoll, the 4x4 is really a surprise to me coming from a FWD PD170, first and a RWD 320d, after.

 

It grips and grips, but at first impression the body lean may seem a bit too much when driving brisky, especially when the car is loaded with people...

 

I'm reading nice feedbacks from user adopting both front and rear H&R sway bars (either 26/22 or 26/24).

 

One thing a bit disturbing to me is the body lift when stomping on the throttle. Again, way better than with the old VRS because there is no axle tramp effect and traction is very good, but the car "raise its nose" considerably.