Why are cheap coilovers crap?

My mate has TA Technix coilover's on his MK4 Astra and it is brilliant but whenever I have fitted cheaper suspension on a Nova you can really feel the lack of "quality" when your driving, I think it may be that you can feel everything through the steering etc.

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Originally Posted by craig green

i bet they are. I wouldnt be surprised if they didnt last as long as something more pricey though. Pays yer money, takes yer choice.

I reckon Novas are too fussy suspension wise, as odd as it sounds. I actually would fit 'cheap stuff' to any modern car tbh. A mate wants something for an A3, hot-tuning I'll be looking up on ebay..

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Well, they cost me £150 delivered brand new, they lower more than the Avos on the Nova, and they ride better! lol

OK, they have softer springs than whats on the nova, but MEH

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Originally Posted by craig green

but Novas are very sensitive to suspension setup I find & anything that cant take the abuse will soon feel crap & lose the pleasure of driving.

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It's pretty plausible that the lighter weight means a tighter 'tolerance' on the correct valving etc is required :)

the MK4 would handle well on solid ali bars inplace of dampers imho lol

A lot of the time some suspension manufacturers just "guess" the new valving based on dynoing a 20yr old OEM damper, and then just "stiffen" it up by 20-30%.... which in many cases is wrong and not matched to a particular range of spring rates you may want to use. Thats why the cheapo ones kinda get it right on modern cars and very wrong on anything earlier than 1995 lol

Thanks for the replies.

Reason I made this thread is because of the bad experience I had with the FK coilovers I had on my Corsa, they were solid and felt like they were welded!

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Originally Posted by Mieran

Thanks for the replies.

Reason I made this thread is because of the bad experience I had with the FK coilovers I had on my Corsa, they were solid and felt like they were welded!

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possibly really soft springs and hard damping to try an compromise.


I know the vx chassis is different to the nova one, but I've recently changed my rear springs to 550lb ones and I need to play with the damping to stop the bobbing on the road but its a great drive now :) (up from 475lbs)