Following on from recent articles looking deeper into the mechanics of our beloved Volkswagens – how to get the most out of them with efficient use of our hard earned; here’s a handy guide to improving your classic VW suspension and steering.
1. Tyres are a good place to start; I know they’re not steering or suspension exactly, but they connect the car to the road, and likewise are connected to the car by the suspension, and pointed in the direction you want to go by the steering. If your tyres are trash we may as well all go home!
For those on a shoestring budget, pop to your local 24hr garage and check your pressures with their machine, it could be 50p well spent. (Under inflated tyres will kill your fuel economy and wear down quicker too). While you’re there, take a look at the tread depth, and the overall condition of the rubber; a new tyre is cheaper than a blow-out, or 3 points and a fine, and will make your car much nicer to drive too!
2. Working our way through the suspension; and connecting all major components to each other and to the body will be rubber bushes. One of the downsides of being into old cars, is that everything is old! Of course, that’s not a problem if you know where to get the parts from, and renewing your rubber bushes or even upgrading them to polyurethane can make it all feel a lot less wobbly. Corners will no longer try and kill you, knocking noises should be reduced to almost nil, and you might not be shaken to pieces with every stone in the road!
A visual inspection would be a good place to start, look for cracking in bushes or evidence of metal rubbing on metal. Rocking the car side to side, or test-driving with extreme steering each way will also highlight rogue rubbers, and give you an idea on where to concentrate your efforts.
3. Suspension can be used to give your classic a whole new lease of life. Lowering your VW by even a small amount will reduce the centre of gravity, and give you a better balance in the corners, allowing for faster speeds (if desired) and resulting in a few more smiles per mile.
A pleasant by-product of lowering your Volkswagen, and in fact for a lot of us the main reason to do it, is to change the aesthetics. A smaller wheel to arch gap looks sporty, it emphasises the new wheels you’ve just bought, and is key to the stance that everyone talks about. Think about it before you go too low though- your car wasn’t designed (with years worth of R+D) to have a cheap coil over kit chucked on it and still function perfectly for plenty of miles to come! Something will give!
4. We somehow accept vague steering as part of our older cars character, but there’s a fine line between funny and fatal. Your car might be getting a green light each year for its MOT, but it’s never too early to replace a ball joint, or adjust a steering box.
When you drive along a straight road and let go of the steering wheel does the vehicle pull to one side? This is an easy indicator that your tracking is out. This might be as you adjusted your suspension and never got round to sorting it, but may also be from knocking a kerb or hitting a pot hole (and there’s plenty of those around to catch you out).
Your local fast-fit garage should be able to take care of this with laser alignment for about £50; It’ll give you peace of mind, and save on uneven tyre wear too.
5. We’ve talked about lowering suspension, but we should also look at shock absorbers too. Whilst your VW will ride along held up by its springs, it’ll be bouncy at best, not to mention dangerous. The shock absorbers are there to stiffen things up, and transition bumps with the least disruption to you and your fellow passengers.
If you have seen people pushing down on each corner of a car when they go to buy it? This is just what they are doing – testing to see if the shocks are still any good. Ideally the car should bounce once, followed by a smaller movement and then come to a standstill. If the car continues to bounce the shocks have had it, and you’ll be driving with a giant pogo stick in each corner!
Hopefully you’ll find these hits useful, and the summer will offer many miles of hassle free motoring!
Andy
The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VW Heritage.