Mk3 Leon FR front end gets disturbed too much on road imperfections?

[serdar_18fr]

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to ask about other FR owners' experiences.

This is a subject that bothers me a little since I bought the car in May 2021. It had around 23k kilometers on the odometer at the time and there were factory-mounted Bridgestone Turanzas on it. I kept them for 20k kms more but I found them noisy and a little weak in terms of roadholding and replaced with Continental Sport Contact 5s, which is a tire I used & liked a lot in the past.

The chassis is the factory-spec lowered FR, meaning stiffer & 15 mm shorter springs and thicker anti-roll bar at the front, along with the optional DCC shocks. Also 225/40/18 tires are factory-spec too.

What I find a little odd is that the car's front end gets disturbed when passing over road imperfections at moderate & high speeds, like over 50 or 60 km/h. It sways to one side and then to the other, then gathers itself without any problems. Tire replacement did not change anything. Not sure if this swaying is too much and enough to get worried or if it is normal, but I don't remember anything like this with my previous car, an '07 Opel Corsa Sport, that I owned for 14 years, with factory-spec lowered & stiffer chassis and the same CSC5 tires, only with the smaller size of 215/45/17s, so similar setup with my Leon in regard to the running gear (no active dampers of course). It always felt like a train going on its tracks and no swaying at all. This behaviour in Leon hampers my driving pleasure a little bit, something I don't expect in an upper segment car with some more modern hardware. On the other hand, I thought that if this could be an intentional setup, for some more playability and giving the driver more feel, which my previous car lacked a bit.

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated, thanks & regards.





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[DEAN0]

Assuming the shocks are not leaking and are working correctly.

I found that a front strut brace helped to calm the front of my 300 Cupra.

No reason why it would not have the same effect on an FR with DCC

 

[serdar_18fr]

Assuming the shocks are not leaking and are working correctly.

I found that a front strut brace helped to calm the front of my 300 Cupra.

No reason why it would not have the same effect on an FR with DCC

What was it like before strut brace was installed?
Was it anything similar to the behaviour I tried to describe?

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[gege28]

for owning a cupra st 4drive dcc from 2019 I confirm your words, the original shock absorbers are dangerous at high speed because too much rebound, at low speed it pitches and bounces, the imperfections of the road are very my filtered, I have installed from Bilstein B16 and it no longer has anything to do with it, no more rebound and no more noise in the passenger compartment

 

[serdar_18fr]

for owning a cupra st 4drive dcc from 2019 I confirm your words, the original shock absorbers are dangerous at high speed because too much rebound, at low speed it pitches and bounces, the imperfections of the road are very my filtered, I have installed from Bilstein B16 and it no longer has anything to do with it, no more rebound and no more noise in the passenger compartment

Thanks for your input. It would be great to have a coilover kit but it is too big of a change for me. I'd better try to find a simpler solution, if there's any of course.

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[gege28]

find harder springs this will solve a good part of your problem

 

[Walone]

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to ask about other FR owners' experiences.

This is a subject that bothers me a little since I bought the car in May 2021. It had around 23k kilometers on the odometer at the time and there were factory-mounted Bridgestone Turanzas on it. I kept them for 20k kms more but I found them noisy and a little weak in terms of roadholding and replaced with Continental Sport Contact 5s, which is a tire I used & liked a lot in the past.

The chassis is the factory-spec lowered FR, meaning stiffer & 15 mm shorter springs and thicker anti-roll bar at the front, along with the optional DCC shocks. Also 225/40/18 tires are factory-spec too.

What I find a little odd is that the car's front end gets disturbed when passing over road imperfections at moderate & high speeds, like over 50 or 60 km/h. It sways to one side and then to the other, then gathers itself without any problems. Tire replacement did not change anything. Not sure if this swaying is too much and enough to get worried or if it is normal, but I don't remember anything like this with my previous car, an '07 Opel Corsa Sport, that I owned for 14 years, with factory-spec lowered & stiffer chassis and the same CSC5 tires, only with the smaller size of 215/45/17s, so similar setup with my Leon in regard to the running gear (no active dampers of course). It always felt like a train going on its tracks and no swaying at all. This behaviour in Leon hampers my driving pleasure a little bit, something I don't expect in an upper segment car with some more modern hardware. On the other hand, I thought that if this could be an intentional setup, for some more playability and giving the driver more feel, which my previous car lacked a bit.

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated, thanks & regards.





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I have a 2016MY FR ST with no DCC and 17" wheels and I have never noticed anything like that, could the DCC cause your problem? Can you turn it off or try different settings?

 

[serdar_18fr]

I have a 2016MY FR ST with no DCC and 17" wheels and I have never noticed anything like that, could the DCC cause your problem? Can you turn it off or try different settings?

There are two driving modes I use out of five available. One is Sport, where all settings including DCC are set to Sport, and the other is Individual, where I set Engine to Normal, Steering to Sport and DCC to Comfort. The problem occurs in both DCC settings (Comfort and Sport). DCC's other possible setting is Normal which sits in between the other two. I didn't test it with this situation. I'll try that

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[SuperV8]

When my rear dampers failed it sounded similar to what your experiencing - gave a weird roll sensation.
New rear dampers cured this for me. Now my front dampers have gone I think as i'm getting a similar sensation.

 

[serdar_18fr]

When my rear dampers failed it sounded similar to what your experiencing - gave a weird roll sensation.
New rear dampers cured this for me. Now my front dampers have gone I think as i'm getting a similar sensation.

Never suspected of dampers, but I guess I need to start by checking them first. Thanks.

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[nanobis]

Never suspected of dampers, but I guess I need to start by checking them first. Thanks.

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Did this fix your issues.

I'm noticing a bit of swaying particularly on the front of my 2016 FR ST. It's more noticeable on faster acceleration out of corners to a straight. I did think it was the road having a bit of wavey/ruts on this one juntion I use daily, as it's a high traffic road pulling on to a 60mph duel carriageway.
But I think I'm noticing it more often.

 

[serdar_18fr]

Did this fix your issues.

I'm noticing a bit of swaying particularly on the front of my 2016 FR ST. It's more noticeable on faster acceleration out of corners to a straight. I did think it was the road having a bit of wavey/ruts on this one juntion I use daily, as it's a high traffic road pulling on to a 60mph duel carriageway.
But I think I'm noticing it more often.

I didn't have the opportunity to investigate this further and later sold my Leon and bought a new Cupra Ateca. Unfortunately there's the same behaviour on my brand new Ateca, with the DCC and sportily-tuned chassis, getting swayed by the small cuts and bumps on the asphalt when accelerating out of corners, but a little less apparent than it was in my Leon.

I'm thinking about having some friends drive my car and see what they would think about it, whether it is normal behaviour or not.


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[jt20vt]

I didn't have the opportunity to investigate this further and later sold my Leon and bought a new Cupra Ateca. Unfortunately there's the same behaviour on my brand new Ateca, with the DCC and sportily-tuned chassis, getting swayed by the small cuts and bumps on the asphalt when accelerating out of corners, but a little less apparent than it was in my Leon.

I'm thinking about having some friends drive my car and see what they would think about it, whether it is normal behaviour or not.


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I have had the same experience with the Leon cupra 4drive and now the Cupra Ateca. It's the way they have set the DCC, i had a short time where the Leon was being worked on for the super sport steering wheel from the Forementor, Kieran at @Eastyorkshireretrofits put the Tiguan R profile on the car to test for the steering wheel to work. Whilst testing the car the suspension setup was improved and the car drove brilliant due to the map file the Tiguan uses. No issues with it having the bum wiggle when going over bumps and cuts in the road. The Tiguan uses the same struts just with a different file setup to make more compliant. The Leon was returned to stock file and the suspension returned back to normal issues.

 

[jt20vt]

I keep meaning to ask Eastyorkshireretrofits if they could make a custom file for the Cupra Ateca using part of the file from the Tiguan and the Ateca combined.

 

[serdar_18fr]

I have had the same experience with the Leon cupra 4drive and now the Cupra Ateca. It's the way they have set the DCC, i had a short time where the Leon was being worked on for the super sport steering wheel from the Forementor, Kieran at @Eastyorkshireretrofits put the Tiguan R profile on the car to test for the steering wheel to work. Whilst testing the car the suspension setup was improved and the car drove brilliant due to the map file the Tiguan uses. No issues with it having the bum wiggle when going over bumps and cuts in the road. The Tiguan uses the same struts just with a different file setup to make more compliant. The Leon was returned to stock file and the suspension returned back to normal issues.

Thank you very much for sharing the experience!
I had been guessing that it's the way they set it up, but I had to know for sure

Thanks again & cheers

 

[nanobis]

Thanks all. I don't have the DCC on my Leon. So I can't utilise that fix.
I'm guessing it might just how the car is set up stock, and possibly due to the 70k miles on the suspension, and might be worth refreshing parts of it.
I'll look into getting a some upgraded poly bushes, and better tyres. I'm not keen on going lower. As I'm occasionally at MTB parks.

 

[SuperV8]

My rear dampers were completely gone at 90k miles!
Do you have misting? or have you had misting advisories on the MOT?
I would avoid poly bushes on a daily driver.