Leon Ride Quality ?

[carl4x4]

A lot of the articles in the press praise the Leon for everything but it's ride quality (especially on the Sport) and I'm making an educated guess that the FR is going to be the same seeing a it appears to be a Sport in different clothes.

I've developed a bit of a love/hate relationship with the car, I love driving it around town & cross country, but when I get on a long motorway drive the ride gets all fidgety and it seems to bounce over bumps on the motorway rather than soak them up.
The Golf GTI has never had this criticism, in fact TopGear stated that the Golf got all grown up and smooth when you cruised on the motorway. So the question is;

a) Is it the Springs that are too hard?
b) or are the dampers not doing their job properly

Someone else on the forum said that Seats are traditionaly over sprung and under-damped, which sounds accurate to what I'm experiencing. Does anyone know if it's possible to swap over the springs/damper units from either the Golf GTI or the Octavia RS? I suspect the RS is heavier so that probably isn't an option. As the GTI and Leon share the platform, is there anything else to check? will the unit hieghts be the same?

I suspect I'm not the only person on here who's noticed the hard ride on the motorway. It seems to get worse the faster you go, pootling along in traffic at 50 and it's not as bad as 70mph for example.

Any thoughts please as the Leon is crying out for this !

 

[DanGB]

Ive changed the springs to eibachs on mine. I really cant Remember what the ride was like before, But i have a feeling its a bit less harsh on bumps, less crashy.

 

[loadswine]

Eibachs are supposed to be a very good solution, not too crashy, but more planted, I've heard. Looks very cool too.

 

[hibitdat]

Had similar concerns with the suspension on my Sport Altea. This is said to be one of the reasons for the demise of the Sport (other than as an option pack on Stylance) and aparently the FR (though obviously still firm) has a revised setup that won't fidget like the Sport does...

 

[carl4x4]

May be worth taking a FR for a test drive then I guess. If it's different then I can investigate what's changed, ie; springs, dampers, or both. It would be nice to replace any parts with Seat ones, although the KONI FSD ones are supposed to make a big difference.
Can I ask where you read about the FR suspension change hibitdat?

 

[carl4x4]

It's a revelation !! I've completely solved the problem with the ride in the Leon

It was my turn to drive to the pub this lunchtime and with four fully grown adults in the car (of average weight) the ride was pefect !

I'm not kidding it was like driving a different car, still sporty drive, but the feeling of skipping over every bump had vanished.

Only trouble is that short of buying 50 stone of cement bags and evenly distributing them around the car, there's absolutely fcuk all I can do about this

But seriously what does this tell me about the suspension? I'm still not sure whether the springs or shocks are at fault here, If I had to make a guess I'd say that the springs are under too high pre-compression in their struts and that the full load compensates for this, taking them over the pre-compressed rate at standstill (ie; moving the spring), rather than waiting until it hits a bump for the spring to move.

One thought is to use Stylance springs, as this is listed as not having the "Sports" suspension. The specs for the cars in the brochure state an identical vehicle hieght, so in theory the Sport springs are not any shorter, just stiffer. Or is this just supposition ??


Any ideas guys ?





?

 

[mto]

One thought is to use Stylance springs, as this is listed as not having the "Sports" suspension. The specs for the cars in the brochure state an identical vehicle hieght, so in theory the Sport springs are not any shorter, just stiffer. Or is this just supposition ??

What I have heard from dealer, SportUp springs are just 25% stiffer than regular but not shorter.

 

[carl4x4]

What I have heard from dealer, SportUp springs are just 25% stiffer than regular but not shorter.

So does that mean I can fit Stylance springs to my Sport ? Or will it screw up the handling, or make it unsafe ?

 

[mto]

So does that mean I can fit Stylance springs to my Sport ? Or will it screw up the handling, or make it unsafe ?

Why it would? Just get springs that are for that model. Only thing is that is there 2.0 TFSI Stylance? It's allways SportUp with that engine. It could be that TDI's axel weight would be the same but you should check that. If you have springs that are for smaller engine (weight) it's possible that handling would not be very good and it's not very good for safety either.

 

[yell_oh]

I've just had Koni FSDs fitted to my Mk2 Leon FR TFSI (excellent job, JKM in Portsmouth!) as the ride before was shocking. Could feel my brain thumping around in my skull.

I would say ride is now 25% better, car no longer "falls" down the other side of bumps. Bump is no smoother, but rebound is. Handling has also improved, better traction and more settled over bumpy roads. Initially feels softer, but when hard cornering there is actually less roll as dampers firm up with low frequency body movement.

I'm now wondering if Eibach progressive wounds would improve ride still further.

 

[sven7]

I've just had Koni FSDs fitted to my Mk2 Leon FR TFSI (excellent job, JKM in Portsmouth!) as the ride before was shocking. Could feel my brain thumping around in my skull.

I would say ride is now 25% better, car no longer "falls" down the other side of bumps. Bump is no smoother, but rebound is. Handling has also improved, better traction and more settled over bumpy roads. Initially feels softer, but when hard cornering there is actually less roll as dampers firm up with low frequency body movement.

I'm now wondering if Eibach progressive wounds would improve ride still further.

I'm also thinking of going down this route on my FR TDI along with the Eibach Pro Kit, primarily to help cure the 'bouncing effect'.

Did you find that the car actually sits higher than it did standard? (Any pictures?) - I've been told because of the setup of the FSD even if I replaced the springs which would normally reduce the ride height by about 30mm it would only infact drop by more like 15mm and that left on standard springs, the ride height would be slightly higher than standard.

I'm not actually too bothered about the ride height as such, not that I'd want it higher, but am thinking whether or not the change to Eibach springs would further help the balance of the car or make it worse.