Monday, April 28, 2008

Suspension system - of bumpy or bouncy ride

If any of your friends are complaining about the ride comfort problem they experienced with Toyota Avanza, please refer them to this article.

It is a known issue that the suspension system of Toyota Avanza does not give a promising ride, although improvement has been made for the 1.5 version from the earlier 1.3 version to minimize the effect.

Some people says it is "bumpy", while some other says it is "bouncy". For my experience, it is not bumpy but bouncy.

A vehicle is bumpy if its suspension is stiff. Stiffer suspension makes the car feel more responsive and more direct to the road condition. When the suspension encounters a bump, you will feel the car is "jumping", and in severe case, you will feel your buttock lifts up from the seat a bit whenever a bump is encountered. Normally, cars designed for performance ride (eg. sports cars), those designed for off-road driving (eg. 4WD), and those designed to carry heavy loads (eg. trucks), have stiffer suspension and might bring you a bumpy ride experience. This is not true for Toyota Avanza.

A vehicle is bouncy if its suspension is soft. When the suspension encounters a bump or running on uneven road, you will feel the car is bouncing up and down. The ideal condition for a car to cross a bump is to rebounce once, but a bouncy car will rebounce more than one time before the suspension stabilized again. This is exactly what happen to the Toyota Avanza.

To overcome the bounciness problem of Toyota Avanza, one can modify the original suspension system with the right combination of coil springs and shock absorbers. Several options can be found in AOCM, which vary in different pricing and level of comfortableness.

In addition, you can also enhance the ride comfort, increase stability and reduce the bounciness of Toyota Avanza by installing Ultra Racing bars, which is highly recommended by AOCM members. These bars can really make a big difference to the ride comfort and drive handling of Toyota Avanza. I'll share about my experience on installing and using the Ultra Racing bars in the next article.

4 comments:

GohWah said... Reply To This Comment

Hi...I found what I was looking for..solution to my bouncy Avanza. Great bunch of information BUT may I know where is the location of the shop that replaces the suspension?

I am from Penang.

Thanks!

Voyager8 said... Reply To This Comment

Hi GohWah,

You can meet up with the AOCM member in the northern region and find out from them about the solution and recommended shop.

Visit the AOCM forum on http://avanzamalaysia.com

Unknown said... Reply To This Comment

I think it;s a little late here, but I can't access AOCM. And I need solutions to reduce my avanza;s bouncy ride. Can someone share me this information?

Voyager8 said... Reply To This Comment

@Kevin Wong Syspex KL

You need to change your absorber to Titan high-low adjustable performance suspension system.

In addition, you can have even better result by installing the Ultra Racing bars

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