Spring/Damping on the V70R

[FC]

This is a noobie question mostly related to my V70R. As many of you know, the car has 3 driver-selectable damping settings: Comfort/Sport/Advanced.

I've often complained about the poor suspension tuning of the V70R. I'll try to explain a bit more.

Under Advanced, the ride is very harsh but the car exhibits almost no roll, dive or squat and feels pretty responsive. Practically however, it's totally stupid because I've rarely found a road where it doesn't make the ride got to hell and even on smooth roads it seems to amplify any minor vibration to the point that it is uncomfortable. For example, hwy driving in advanced sucks. Around town, unless I have to Ronin style driving (never so far) I would never use it other than to experiment.

The sport setting is cool. It's a firm, sporty ride, car behaves well, and not much to complain about other than for us, the R is the family car, and I could use more comfort over our crappy NE roads. This is my preferred hwy mode (more on that later). For reference, it's like the ZHP except not as good - perhaps because the car is a cow, but probably also because Volvo is not as good at tuning suspensions.

Comfort isn't what you would think. It feels like the car is oversprung/underdamped. This mode takes off the edge from sharp bumps, reduces vibrations and makes the car feel smoother over even but rough roads. It is still, however, pretty firm, and the annoying part is that it allows quite a bit of roll, dive and squat. On smooth roads, comfort is very comfortable.

Now, here's my question. I'm convinced that Volvo added "comfort" as an after thought. It just isn't that comfortable and the suspension is jittery and unsettled over broken pavement. This is very noticeable in turns while on washboard surfaces. This is downright freaky at hwy speeds, which is why sport mode on good hwys is the way to go. The car just feels better all the way around. Plus, the car is much more responsive and better able to handle an emergency situation even if you do feel the road/vibrations a bit more (I prefer this, but it's not limo-like for the usually sleeping family on trips to Canada).

Sadly, there is not much I can do about it without probably spending a lot of money, killing my warranty and upsetting my wife, so I'll have to live with it. But I find it weird that Volvo would steer the suspension tuning so far towards sporty that a reasonably comfortable ride can't be properly achieved.

So, am I full of it, or could my impressions be correct?

[jsn]

Does IPD offer sway bars, etc for this car? I don't think they would hurt your warranty and would reduce roll.

It's a bit of a porker since all the V70R are AWD if I am not mistaken.

Post at volvospeed.com and see what they say.

[equ]

Just leave it in sport...

[FC]

I remember posting at v70R.com and the fanbois got very upset when I said that the ZHP's one suspension setting was better than all three modes on the V70R combined. One of the few guys who didn't just whine said something along the lines of if you get new sways and tweak this and that, it will have the proper great sports suspension it should have had for the factory. Assuming the guy is right, his solution takes the car the other way - making the firm suspension work, as opposed to making the comfort mode well sorted.

It's not worth spending any more time or money on this car. I wish it were better and I try to keep it in sport mode as much as possible except for brutal roads. That will have to do. Now that I'm keeping the ZHP, I won't be complaining so much and when the ZHP goes, the V70R's replacement won't be far behind.

[John V]

The actual construction of the suspension and chassis has a lot to do with how the car will ride and handle. Things like how the control arms mount to the frame, how the shocks mount, ball joint location, they all make a big difference.

Then again... I think back to the E46 M3 versus the E36 M3 (mine with Konis). The E46 was twitchy and nervous, had a horrendous ride and still didn't handle well. The E36 was a softie but managed to handle well and it had a great ride. The overall suspension was basically the same between the two cars. The conclusion we came to at the time was that the E46 was undersprung and overdamped. It couldn't handle bumpy surfaces at all (the ride was horrible) but it wallowed in corners. Switching to super stiff springs and higher quality shocks made the car handle AND ride better.

Hard to say what's going on with your Volvo but I can't help but think that ditching the stock shocks (how many miles on them again?) and installing a set of Konis would solve most of your problems. It sounds like the car has soft springs (lots of pitch and dive) and they're trying to compensate for it by tweaking the damping. And it isn't working.

[FC]

The V07R (an '06MY bought in December of '06) has barely 13.5k miles. Also, the car has special shocks whose damping can be electronically controlled. And apparently Vovlo is picky about warranty voids, so replacing the shocks is not on my list.

[John V]

Sounds like you're screwed then.

[FC]

Sounds like you're screwed then.

:lol:

[ff]

Set the shocks on the firmest settings, then lower your tire pressure to 25 PSI. Then hope your Volvo doesn't roll over like all those Explorers did.

;)

[John V]

I don't understand why changing the shocks (a wear item) would void the warranty. Isn't that in direct violation of Magnussen - Moss?

[FC]

I don't understand why changing the shocks (a wear item) would void the warranty. Isn't that in direct violation of Magnussen - Moss?

I haven't checked why. They do reccomend a very high pressure - about 38-40psi, I believe. Even then, the tires looks liek the squat a surprising abmount. Of course, the tires could be to blame as well.

[Rob]

Shocks with settings are usually magnetically controlled in the current market place. You don't just replace them with Konis b/c konis don't have the right hardware to interface with the ride control. I don't know what tying off the wires would do, but I know it would kill that nifty ride control feature.

[JST]

Shocks with settings are usually magnetically controlled in the current market place. You don't just replace them with Konis b/c konis don't have the right hardware to interface with the ride control. I don't know what tying off the wires would do, but I know it would kill that nifty ride control feature.

Don't think Volvo uses the more advanced magnetic fluid; I think that they still use valves, like the old-style system on, e.g., the Probe GT.

FWIW, on the Probe GT replacing the strut with a non-adjustable unit led to no ill effects other than losing the adjustibility, but of course the Volvo might be entirely different.

[clyde]

For some reason, I wanted to be helpful today. :ack:

I went looking at what might be available from Koni. The retailer supplied info about applications was conflicting so I asked someone at Koni. Their parts are for FWD only and he doesn't know if the V70R would go into a limp mode or similar if non OE parts are used. Some cars with OE electronic control shocks do, some don't.

[John V]

Shocks with settings are usually magnetically controlled in the current market place. You don't just replace them with Konis b/c konis don't have the right hardware to interface with the ride control. I don't know what tying off the wires would do, but I know it would kill that nifty ride control feature.

Doesn't sound like the "nifty ride control feature" is really that nifty if it's only useful in one mode.

[Rob]

No doubt. I would only be worried about what sort of panic the disconnection might cause the car computers.

I have experienced lots of different ride settings in a bunch of different cars. There was only one that I thought was worthwhile. It's not an option I would check if given a choice (I realize Fernando didn't have a choice).

[FC]

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have, and if I lived in Germany with their nice roads, I'd be mor einclined to use advanced which would make teh car have better reflexes, etc. But as it is, sport is an ok suspension tuning (if on the firm side) and comfort just doesn't sften up the ride enough. But sometimes I'll take what I can get and better to have crappy "comfort" than just "sport" or worse, "advanced." Granted if the car came in tuned to advanced-only, Next to nobody (at least in NE) would have bought one.

[Rob]

I was under the impression that next to nobody bought one anyway. If the timing had been better, we would have bought one for the wife, but it's existence and her desire for a wagon didn't mesh up. But I think that makes like 20 people total that were interested.

[FC]

I think total production was about about 1500.

[FC]

I just wanted to point out that since the complete POS OE tires died early this Spring(Pirelli Rosso's of some sort) I've been running PS2's and they have completely transformed the car. Comfort setting is now works almost as you would expect and used on broken pavement, Sport is my default setting and seems like a great compromise, and even Advanced (previously almost intolerable) is actually useable and kind of fun.

The slushy still kills this car (I feel like I have to dick around with the "sport" tranny button all the time - a black or white experience), but at least the ride is much, much better and since I can actually use Advanced, the car handles far better too.