Stiffer Springs

[Laurence_374308219]

Hi all, advise please, would it be better having stiffer springs or adjustable shocks fitted for towing and what are the pro's and con's.

 

[rob_jax]

What sort of car are you thinking of? and why do you want to change it anyway? Does your car sit very low at the back when towing, or does it wobble all over the place?

The manufacturer spent considerable effort getting the spring and damping rates right for each car, and engineered certain characteristics into it - as an example I'm sure most people would be familiar with the soft springing and resilient ride of certain French cars.

The effect of changing the spring and damp rates could make for an interesting ride when unladed.

What you could consider is to fit spring assisters - that stiffen up part of the spring range - rubber donuts like MAD assisters or completely new variable rate springs are possibilities.

But if you car is swaying from side to side, it probably has too much compliance in the suspension bushes or the tyre walls and you need to consider replacing all the bushes, or fitting better quality or lower profile tyres or higher tyre pressures to stiffen the side-walls.

Sorry, no easy answer - just picking one item in the car to change without the complete picture is a difficult position to be in.

Robert

 

[Garfield]

Hi,

I was thinking about this today, perhaps it's been done before but what if one of the magazines took a car that was known to have dubious stability or attach a poorly loaded caravan and tried various thing to improve stability such as stronger springs and/or dampers, fitting low profile tyres, fitting dampers to the caravan etc, and see which gave the best results

 

[rob_jax]

Hi Garfield,

That would be interesting and I think useful, but that would require real work rather than just inserting advertising copy.

Robert

 

[Laurence_374308219]

What sort of car are you thinking of? and why do you want to change it anyway? Does your car sit very low at the back when towing, or does it wobble all over the place?

The manufacturer spent considerable effort getting the spring and damping rates right for each car, and engineered certain characteristics into it - as an example I'm sure most people would be familiar with the soft springing and resilient ride of certain French cars.

The effect of changing the spring and damp rates could make for an interesting ride when unladed.

What you could consider is to fit spring assisters - that stiffen up part of the spring range - rubber donuts like MAD assisters or completely new variable rate springs are possibilities.

But if you car is swaying from side to side, it probably has too much compliance in the suspension bushes or the tyre walls and you need to consider replacing all the bushes, or fitting better quality or lower profile tyres or higher tyre pressures to stiffen the side-walls.

Sorry, no easy answer - just picking one item in the car to change without the complete picture is a difficult position to be in.

Robert

Hi Robert, thanks for your reply,i run a vw bora and it does tend to sway side ot side a bit, i first thought that maybe the shocks or springs were shot but now you mention it the vw's have a tendancy to ware the rear bushes,apparently a better fix is fit bushes from the audi range, A3/A4 etc although basically the same car i have been told that these bushes last a lot longer.