General Ride quality

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General Ride quality

Boanerges

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Oct 19, 2005
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Good evening everyone.
I have a 54 reg 1.2 Dynamic and over the past seven months have come to realise the ride is more bouncy and unsettled than my previous 2001 Punto. This is rather annoying as the Punto drove me mad with it's harsh rock hard ride which crashed into every pothole. Now with the Panda I find it is too bouncy. Where I live a lot of my daily driving is on 50 or 60mph limit country roads which were basically tarmac laid over the moors. Hence the Panda gets a bit out of shape when asked to press on and I get Mondeo or Vectra drivers about one inch behind me pushing to get past.
I am lead to believe the kerb weight of Panda and Punto is near identical. One major difference is the wheelbase which will be shorter, and possibly the track measurement between the wheels - both which make things worse if you are looking for stability. However I feel there is some built-in issues with the Panda set up, either the dampers or springs are not stiff enough or else it is the tyres. One theory is that with some weight in the car it would control things better - ie a bag of sand in the boot! The Multijet may be better in this respect due to extra weight of the engine. By the way I am not a boy racer and just expect safe responsive handling.
I am tempted to start with the tyres before tampering with anything more major/expensive and drastic especially whilst it's relatively new. Has anyone else considered things are a bit out of shape on the standard rims with 155/80 R13 tyres? I have never driven an Eleganza or Sporting with the 165/65 R 14 option but imagine they would offer better grip and stiffer responses.
My two main gripes are the bouncy responses to anything but smooth motorway level roads, and also poor wet grip (in particular it slides sideways when going over any metal cattle grid at 10mph if you touch the brakes or happen to go over a wet manhole cover). Perhaps the standard Continetals are poor and Michelins would help. If I do go down that route then a change in size and aspect ratio would be part of the deal.
Comparisons to similar cars such as the Ka, Arosa, or Picanto show they all have 165/70 14 as a minimum spec. Any thoughts? :confused:
 
My wife has a Sporting, and to be honest it handles very well. Now this may be due to the extra weight of the Multijet engine, and the 14in wheels and low profile tyres. But what i can say is that we had a Mazda2 1.4TDCI and my father in law had the same car but with the petrol engine. They were like chalk and cheese, the diesel handled better both at low and high speed, and yet the only differance was the weight of the engines.

As the panda has quite a narrow track it may pay to put wider tyres on to control any side slip, i saw a black panda last night in Edinburgh with a set of 15in TSW Catalonya wheels, and low profiles. Very nice indeed.

My daughters Ford Ka ( an 05 reg ) came on 13in wheels not 14.
 
I had a 54 Dynamic and used to think it was fine BUT on getting a 2005 Dynamic as a courtesy car, noticed a big difference. The 2005 seemed some tighter and more quiet and refined.

I put that down to just the difference in my mind of driving a different car. However, I now have a 2006 Dynamic and again, it's slightly better than the 2005 and significantly better than the 2004 - although this could just be the honeymoon period in running it in.

I had a 2000 Punto that handled like your Panda - sliding about on wet manhole covers etc but none of the Pandas has given me cause for alarm or drives as you describe.

However, haleluja - we had an absolute downpour this morning - roads flooded with standing water, the lot. This Panda sailed right through - compared to the previous that would make machine gun noises when it was wet and vibrate under the handbreak like hell.
 
Boanerges said:
...poor wet grip (in particular it slides sideways when going over any metal cattle grid at 10mph if you touch the brakes or happen to go over a wet manhole cover). Perhaps the standard Continetals are poor and Michelins would help.
I've noticed that the car will understeer quite easily if you're "making progress" round roundabouts in particular. The standard Continentals are biased towards economy, by having a low rolling friction. This will almost certainly be at the expensive of grip, and while they're not exactly sliding all over the place, I have wondered about higher performance tyres. The problem is that in the standard size, there aren't any really high performance tyres (after all, who puts 14" wheels on a performance car?). I think when my tyres are due for replacement I will have a serious look at other brands.
H
 
You might remember I complained about roadholding in my 2004 Panda ( Emotion/Eleganza ).

Well having changed from the Continentals to Michelins a month ago there was an immediate improvement in:

Cabin noise ( down )
Roadholding ( fantastic )
Grip ( good - no more tyre scrabbling )

So the cheapest performance mod to the Panda would be to shod it with decent tyres, and don't spare the moolah.
 
Cheers, thanks for the feedback. It's not just me then who is paranoid about roadholding(y)
I have heard other accounts about the 'low rolling resistance' economy tyres such as Conti Eco being biased towards economy with a 'hard' compound and precious little tread grip. I also suspect they squirm about a bit not being lower profile and you lose grip that way.
I will consider Michelins but as you say they are top whack but when it comes to tyres it's false economy to buy cheap ones due to obvious drawbacks.
I am going to get some 14 inch wheels but steel ones from the Punto, several on auction sites for sale. Same dimensions but allow you to have 165/65 tyres which don't cost much more. Will let you know how it goes.
 
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