Wheel balance, Full geo and fitting of Eibach springs.
Plans have a friendly and accommodating approach, the use of their Smartcar was essential for me as I live about 25 miles away. (Not far but to get to that place from the Wokingham/Reading area is an utter nightmare. It took me an hour and 20 minutes! My only gripe of the day was travelling backwards and forwards for a total of four hours on Monday)
So I can’t fault Plans, they did a good job and also washed and hoovered the car.
The Results:
Well the thing I noticed more than anything from the start was the irritating steering wheel vibration had gone, I hadn’t realised how much that bugged me. (Bracknell tyres didn’t do a great job of balancing them when they fitted them a few months back) As for the springs and the geo it’s hard for me to separate the two but I’ll try, bear in mind I’ve not had that many chances to push the car. The car definitely feels quite different to how it was but I’m not entirely sure why, I guess I’d got so used to my car after 2.5 years. I had more camber applied to the front wheels and the rears where then aligned. There was also some toe out applied (I think Graham said they were toe-ing in slightly before).
Firstly the springs feel fine, absolutely no worries about hitting bump stops as per the scare stories. The car feels slightly softer, I guess that could be down the progressive nature of the springs, but for the journeys I do that’s no bad thing. I don’t think the set up would suit everyone and the steering could be slightly vaguer than before, but the car feels less crashy as a result. Plans ask you how you want the car setup on a scale of 1 to 10 (one being a trip to the shops with your granny and 10 being an straight up race car). I plumped for 5 so may be I got what I asked for but until I get the chance to really push the car I can’t say for sure. On the roundabouts it just feels different and I can’t explain why at the moment, again I’ve not pushed it but there feels like there’s less under steer. Once I’ve got a better feel for it I’ll let you know, at the moment it’s just different but I absolutely LOVE
the way the car looks right now. 25mm lower is just how the car should be. (See user gallery)
Edited by iandhd, 27 July 2005 - 01:25 PM.
That's one of the reasons why I've gone for mediocre geo setup.
