I enjoyed driving my Monte Carlo version of the Fabia Estate (I think the tyres were Kumho) but this SE L (similar power)

does not seem to hold the road as well. I was wondering if the Fabias all had the same suspension units or if the Monte

are stiffer?

@gumdrop  are you talking about a MK3 Fabia Monte carlo estate?   A hatch and an estate do not have the same rear springs.  Then tyres might be the same but are the pressures set the same. 

A quote from one of gumdrop's r recent postings.

 

"After many years a Ford owner, I decided to buy a Skoda Yeti, I had two, then a Fabia Kombi monte carlo and a 1.5 Kamiq, monte carlo dsg,  my first automatic and now a Fabia SE-L dsg..."

 

Regarding the title of this discussion (Fabia SE L are the suspension units the same as on the Fabia Monte Carlo 1L) as it's now been established that the standard specification of the latest Fabia Mk4 cars with the 1.5litre 4-cylinder motor have disk rear brakes rather than the drum rear brakes of Mk4s with the 1.0litre 3-cylinder motor, it's POSSIBLE that they also have different suspension units. But there's no persuasive reason to think that Fabia Mk4 cars that have the 1.0litre 3-cylinder motor might have different suspension units according to the car's 'trim'. Whether a Fabia Mk4's 'trim' is SE Comfort, Colour Edition, SE L or Monte Carlo, if it has the 1.0litre motor it ALMOST CERTAINLY will have the same suspension units.

 

Having said that, a Fabia Mk4 with SE Comfort 'trim' has 15" wheels and185/65 profile tyres as standard, whereas a SE L trim car could have (as an option) 18" wheels with  215/40 profile tyres, and one should expect this to have a noticeable effect on handling and road-holding (ie. 'grip').

 

Even when a Fabia Mk4 SE L has the standard 16" wheels , the Skoda configurator website shows that 195/55 profile Continental, Bridgestone or Goodyear tyres may be factory-fitted (my own 2023-built SE L has 195/55 R16 Goodyears) and, depending on which make has been fitted, this might have an impact on tyre noise, wet grip, handling or road-holding. 

 

My 2009 Skoda Roomster's 195/55 R15 tyres were Continentals originally and these 'tram-lined' quite significantly. I switched to Hankook tyres and the tram-lining disappeared and the car now has Falken tyres that also don't tram-line. In my 60 years or so of driving 4-wheelers (and not slowly!!) I can only remember one tyre-related incident involving road-holding. This was driving at night at a reasonable speed in the wet on a road I knew like the back of my hand in a Golf GTi Mk2 16V when, on a tightish right-hand bend, the car's Pirelli P600 front tyres unexpectedly lost grip momentarily. It frightened me quite badly, but it probably wasn't the tyres' fault, just slippery stuff on the road surface.

 

My own experience is that it's fairly easy to notice car handling differences - I owned four Golf GTi models in succession and they all handled differently. So I have no difficulty believing that a Fabia Estate Monte Carlo would have handled significantly differently to a Fabia Mk4 SE L, in the same way that my Fabia SE L behaves differently to my Roomster. But  I don'y know if my Fabia is better or worse than the Roomster when it comes to road-holding and I've no intention of experimenting to find out.

Edited 17 May, 20242 yr by DerekU

DerekU

I realise there is a difference between the Estate and the hatchback and that tyres made another difference,

I was rambling on a bit 🤔. I was really interested in the suspension units they don't seem particularly soft

but the body seems to roll more than I expected (tyres are the Goodyear eco?)

Never mind I shall just have to drive sedately (until the voices say get on with it!)