What does the mechanic mean soft suspension

Shocks about knackered probably...

Tim..

Probably tired springs and/or shocks. Yes you can fix it yourself for not a lot but you'll need a couple of special tools, mainly a ball joint splitter and a spring compressor.

"sgtbash" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@localhost.talkaboutautos.com:

Soft suspension was a characteristic of most old Vauxhalls, like my old Cavalier. When you do a bounce test, the car sinks much further than most vehicles, i.e. the springs compress more. Doesn't necessarily indicate a problem, that's just how they were made. That's why they were always a nice smooth ride on bumpy roads, but the trade-off for this was large amounts off 'body roll' (tilting of the car's chassis) when cornering hard.

Stu

To clarify what has already been said, it means insuffucient damping of the springs, such that when you bounce the suspension, it keeps on bouncing for some time, whereas it should stop within one bounce ideally.

I'm not really sure that is true. Vauxhalls aren't known for an overly comfortable ride and out of the factory they're not soft. "Soft" means the suspension's a bit bouncy as the dampers have worn. "OK" means that they aren't leaking or binding. It's up to you whether you do them or not. You'll get a more damped ride, with less diving under braking and cornering etc. Look up shock prices on

Rears are usually easy to do, fronts can be a bit fiddly as you have to dismount and disassemble the strut. I actually got some front shocks from ebay for =A315 the pair. The guy had bought them but never got around to fitting them, much like myself.

"Aren't known" by whom?

Trading handling in favour of comfort has been a Vauxhall "feature" since Adam was a lad. Pretty much every road test will confirm this.

Chris

Take a look at the springs then. You'll see they're progressive. If you don't know how to tell the difference, on progressive springs, the coils are closer together at one end whereas the spacing is uniform on standard constant rate springs.

..and they'll confirm that the ride is nowhere near what you'd get with say a peugeot. I'm not saying they're sports car hard but that they're not known for being at the height of comfort.

I dunno when adam was a lad but when I was the Viva was around.

Parker's review on the '96 Astra (that of the OP) has "Ride quality is so-so and gets worse once the shock absorbers start wearing out."

"adder1969" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com:

These days they're just like any other car, but the old ones up to the mid-nineties were much more softer, believe me :-)

They didn't bounce around at all, they just sank farther than usual when one pressed down on the suspension turret.

I would normally describe soft suspension as 'easily compressed', not 'bouncy', because most of the resistance comes from the springs, not the dampers.

Stu

[...]

I wasn't a lad when the Viva was around - I was unfortunate enough to own one for a year!

Oh, BTW, the ride was softer and the handling was inferior to Escorts of the same era :-)

Chris

Brian submitted this idea :

One and a half...

You press down, release and it should...

1. Spring all the way up (1)

1. Then goes back down and stops/settles as it falls back down to the (1/2) halfway point.

All cars get a worse ride as the shocks wear.