Is there a way of stiffening the suspension up? On ebay they sell coils supposedly for the job, but has anybody ever done it? Is it difficult? Will it hold the bends better?
Just curious. Thanks!
Coil and shocks are your best bet as just coils ruin the original shocks because the dampening is different. You'll need to spend around 200 notes unless you want an awful ride.
If you want to do it properly put some coilovers on 😉
[s]Listen geezer, first, howz yer skillz innit? Wot you needs is a set of H&R Cup Sport coilovers, then you want, like, polybushin's all round, an slam it right, on some phat rims, like 17 inches minimum, bro. That would be wickid. After that I reckonz strut braces innit, top and bottom and some super-phat anti-roll bars. After that it'll handle like a spunked go-kart. Know what I mean.
But first thing, geezer, is to like check out your shocks and make sure the dampers ain't donald ducked - is that swear filter avoidance. No matter dude, I dunnit wiv all my motors and they is wickid, innit.[/s]
Actually, just start off by making sure your dampers aren't shot, if they don't actually damp, get them replaced and see if that helps. Cheap lowering springs are properly nasty, don't bother. If you really want to improve it, look for a matched damper and spring kit from a decent manufacturer with near to standard ride height unless you like scraping things on speed humps, but tbh, it's hardly worth bothering with on a 406 and expensive with it.
HTH
You will need to change all the sus rubber bushes as well to make any real difference
If you bought springs around 20mm shorter then the dampers would probably cope well enough.drop it 60mm and you will soon find out how bad our roads are.you will also find that the car wont hold the road as good as it did set up as standard unless you get dampers to match and make a few other tweaks.. but even then,60mm is probably asking for trouble whatever quality you go for.It just wont cope with real world u.k driving compared to something around 20mm.
If you get a set of quality springs with around 20mm drop with quality dampers to suit,then you will find that it wont wallow around corners,yet it will still have the travel needed for our crappy roads.Lots of folk seem to think that dropping a car to the floor will make it handle better.. then they find out that its skipping around corners,losing traction and possibly not even getting the power to the ground because of it.you might also mess up the driveshafts after them sitting where they have been positioned all their lives.
Is it a 406 v6 coupe? :O)
Not worth bothering IMO.
I had a 406 HDi estate (the phase 2 / facelift one) and whilst it was never particularly involving to drive, you couldn't fault the speed at which it went round bends for such a big and heavy car.
IIRC Peugeot make their own dampers and are generally regarded as one of the best teams around for suspension tuning. If you look at when Ford started making cars that handled well - the Ka and the Focus - it closely co-incides with the poaching of a load of Peugeot chassis engineers.
Looks like a proper waste of time 😀
[url= http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sports-Lowering-Springs-Peugeot-406-1-9-TD-Estate-96-04-/400167776843?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5d2bdbb24b#ht_3046wt_907 ]I thought that could be a good idea.[/url]
What are you really going to gain by lowering its hardly a sports car in the first place.
However if its just generally not driving very well I would start with checking your shocks are not knackered. Also are you running reasonable tyres, no point upgrading suspension if your driving on cheap nasty tyres.
Very decent tyres - Uniroyals 🙂
I'm just toying with the idea, nowt more. The car resembles a boat at times, it floats, not very good if you're susceptible to travel sickness. The dampers fitted are ok, they're old though. I wouldn't change for a Koni set for 600 quid but would like to make the car hold the road a bit better. I suppose slowing down would be a good place to start.
Head turning sports look
Safer high speed chassis control
Razor sharp handling
Faster corner speed
This is from that auction site. 1.9TD estate 406 will be totally transformed thanks to PANTHER springs...
If I were You I would not spend more cash on a car like that and just put the £130 + cost of labour to a jar towards the purchase of the Celica/Civic. Springs only would probably not improve the ride, and because 406 estate is not on the list of boy racer cars than lowered suspension will not be putting any premium on a price when You sell it.
My cousin had a Corsa with full Koni adjustable suspension and it was an 82bhp gocart. Had wider tyres as well, most fun I had in a car that small 🙂 But if I had a 406 estate to transport bikes and family in comfort than stiffer springs would be last on the list of improvements 😉
leave the springs alone and get some mildly uprated gas shocks which will stiffen it up without wrecking ride quality.
Ive used [url= http://www.kyb-europe.com/shocks-excel-g.html ]these KYB ones[/url] on a couple of boring hatchback/estate cars and they are good. They are used as standard fitment on quite a few quick Jap cars apparently. Cheaper than OEM (Audi) too.
Tried lowering springs, a bad move imo with our roads these days.
Bearing in mind roads in Britain tend to be better surfaced than those in Eire lowering is not really an option. The coils I could change without having to pay anybody, but it probably be unnecessary. A bigger turbo and a cooler on the other hand, hmmm...
It's pretty old, isn't it?
Springs wear out as well as dampers. Just replacing them all for new would probably help.
Oh and if you do change the springs then that will be a 'performance enhancement' and will cost you a bomb in insurance, I'd imagine. That's the reason I haven't got progressive springs on my Passat.
In real life we don't tell everybody we fixed our cars, do we? So why would I tell them I fixed the springs? It's more likely they would tell me off for washing the car as it makes it more aerodynamic than notice different coils.
Springs wear out as well as dampers. Just replacing them all for new would probably help.
I wonder if your hardtail gets less stiff over time?
you'd better change all the valve springs as well, as they're going off ~1500 times a minute when the car is running.
TBH I'd be worried about all the structural elements of the car not being as springy as they were when the car was built.
In real life we don't tell everybody we fixed our cars, do we? So why would I tell them I fixed the springs? It's more likely they would tell me off for washing the car as it makes it more aerodynamic than notice different coils.
I don't make the rules, mate! If you change the springs for anythign stiffer than stock they will ping you. You could not tell them, but if they feel like wriggling out of a claim they'll have your car inspected and you'd be without cover.
If you look at when Ford started making cars that handled well - the Ka and the Focus - it closely co-incides with the poaching of a load of Peugeot chassis engineers
Really? I've never heard that before! I work very closely with Ford on chassis related engineering....
I certainly support the comments that the 406 is generally a good handling car.
Has it done many km's? Perhaps the current dampers are showing their age?
What size tyres are you running? This is also a relatively simple way to 'tighten' things up.
I bought the car from a 2nd or 3rd owner, he owned a garage in Feltham. Who's to say he didn't do it? Besides, if coils deteriorate (as you say they do) fitting new ones will bring the car back to its original ride quality.
BTW The only thing my Pug and performance have in common is their first letter - P.
@Marge, the handling is fine but floaty. I'm only wondering if I could make it a bit more controlled.
It's just done 180k miles, approx. 300k kms.
Tyres - 185x65r15 IIRC. Steel wheels with the tallest tyres, OEM stuff. The Uniroyals are rather subtle but they're cope with standing water spectacularly well. I suppose Energy savers would be stiffer but grip is paramount as my local motorways aren't built straight but bendy and bumpy.
When new the 406 had a really good ride/handling balance which shames most modern cars on British roads. If yours feels like a boat it's likely to be due to worn bushes and dampers, much more than the springs.
How can I check them? Is it the eternally reliable way of "get somebody to do it for you"?
Have you looked on frenchcarforum.co.uk? Might be worth trying for advice and they might have stuff in their classifieds 😉
Let me assure you, unless the springs are cracked they will not be less stiff than when thy were first fitted, they might have compressed so you get a bit of sag but even that is unlikely and minimal, you will find much more sag in the bushes. The springs will give exactly the same spring response as when they were installed. Look to the dampers and bushes to solve your problem.
Dampers/shocks are easy to check. Push down on one end of the car and see if it bounces more than once before stopping moving. Having said that, you only get the pogo stick effect when they are really really bad.
A better test is to push down on the back of the car (jump on the boot sill for instance) and see if the front of the car moves.
If you are saying it's floaty, then it probably is the shocks. Oten is with old cars since they deteriorate gradually, and people tend not to notice it.
Springs - I dunno. If you put stuff in the back of the car, does it look really low?
If you pay a garage to change the shocks tho springs are cheap as chips and won't cost any labour to replace, since you have to take the springs off to change the shocks anyway. Although don't necessarily get the cheapest rock bottom springs and shocks since they are not that good (ime).
The car isn't low, it sits rather high, when you compress the suspension it bounces back nicely. The floating is when I drive. You hit a ditch and where a Passat recovers immediately my Pug takes its time. Basically, the missus says she feels sick when I drive (pun intended). The ride quality is this of a coach so to speak.
Correction, the tyres are 195x65x15(R) Uniroyal Rainmasters. 33PSI front and 35PSI rear.
Bushes were changed a year ago, no play there.
Definitely shocks.
And as mentioned, springs will be super cheap to change at the same time.
Right, point me towards cheap and reliable ones. If the exercise were to prove expensive I'll learn to slow down to some sort of sensible velocity (and I'm not overly keen as Germany are on the horizon).
Yep - sounds like your dampers are knackered.
I wouldn't be too sure, I'm not 100% convinced the peugeot chassis/suspension folk don't all have bad backs - my 306 estate has soft handling (not bad, it actually is a very nice drive, but soft in comparison with many cars) and a change of shocks made absolutely no difference to it at all (it was my first port of call) and my 205 before that was the same. It's lovely on motorways and long open roads, a bit less so on twisties but still grips well for the class of car and is fairly predictable.
Be wary of eurocarparts shocks - the set I bought have absolutely zero rebound control and something as simple as driving slowly off a kerb results in topping out of the shock with a massive bang. I complained to them about it but to be fair I'm not about to pull my whole sus apart again to try another pair that may be the same so I didn't continue with my complaint.
<pedant>
the original shocks because the dampening is
[i]DAMPING [/i]DAMNIT!
</pedant>
Yes, the twisties are no fun really. I drive to Swords daily and there're 3 routes - a motorway (boring), a main road (holes aplenty, slow as it crawls through a fair few abodes) and a twisty R108. If it were possible to make the car a bit more stable in the bends it'd be great. Proper motorways are dispatched easily, but boredom kicks in after a few miles.
My thinking is along the lines of progressively wound coils, just like in the old Manitou SX. Dampers are expensive, too expensive really. I could buy a new set for the front but a fatbike is so much more important (as is fixing my motorbike).
I got four shocks/dampers changed on my car for £250. Not too bad really. If yours really are gone then there'll be a huge difference.
Take it to a garage see if they can advise - or video yourself bouncing the back and front of the car and we'll tell you 🙂
Polybush it, engine bay brace, set of decent coilies and the piece de resistance, get a decent weld in cage fitted. That'll stiffen it up a treat.
bounce on the front of the car. The front end should rebound up, then stop. If it rebounds up, then down, then up, then stops, the damper is shot. Same on the back.
Half fill it with concrete, allow to set. The extra weight will ensure a much stiffer, firmer ride.