Saw something a bit unusual today.

Nope, the are fantastic out of the box, you get a lot of surprised looks on motorway to motorway slip roads when you out corner "sports" cars in a large estate.

Any firmer and the whole point of the vehicle, eating lots of motorway miles, is lost.

I think the only thing I would change is the dash, it's a little too soft, and maybe the damping on the glovebox, it's a little slow.

hehe.

"Pete M" wrote in message news:f7ombo$sqd$ snipped-for-privacy@registered.motzarella.org...

There's no reason coilovers should be any firmer than a conventional MacPherson strut. With the coilover you can get any spring rate and length you want cheaply, they can be as hard or as soft as you want them to be. They've only got a reputation of being hard because most people who put them on road cars do so to lower there car as much as possible and end up having to use short stiff springs to limit suspension movement.

I think the point is that VAG spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into fancy suspension on the W8 Passat, so you're unlikely to improve it by sticking a set of coilovers on it.

Utter bollocks. Car manufacturers have to balance performance with ride comfort so they're a compromise.

You can always improve handling over the manufacturers setup but you'll lose some of the ride comfort.

However, I'll quanitfy it by saying it's not as simple as bolting on a set of coilovers. Like anything, what you do needs setting up properly by a specialist to get the best out of it.

No, you can't "always improve" handling. You may improve it. You may improve grip levels. But it isn't guaranteed.

And it also needs individual tailoring to suit the driver.