500 500 Abarth Suspension on a 1.2?

[bgunn]

As standard, for me, my TA feels reasonably healthily sprung, but the damping is quite wrong; on compression it's quite under damped, and on rebound it feels rather over damped - particularly on the rear.

I often feel the wheels lose contact with the road after negotiating those small rubber speedhumps (we have a load of them in our work car park) unless I creep over them at a very low speed. I can't imagine this helps with the rear grip of the car on a bumpy road, you can feel the outside of the car load up when cornering hard, and you eventually run out of travel.

Intrinsically, I think the geometry and design of the suspension is pretty good, but the damping rates aren't quite right. I'd be interested to see what the 'original' 500 is like, as the uprated one is like the curate's egg, good in parts.

Definitely like the sound of the billies and will probably fit when my rear dampers start rattling (which they no doubt will).

 

[306maxi]

Yeah, it's the damping that's all wrong, the spring rates seem ok for road use.

Just seems like an accountant spec ed the dampers

 

[jnoiles]

Just seems like an accountant spec ed the dampers

In terms of function in day to day use, perhaps. But one can't argue against the longevity of them. 80k miles, 20 odd track days, 4 or 5 Nurburgring trips and 2 weekends around Spa plus the usual spirited driving were needed to cause this:

I'd call that quality

 

[306maxi]

mine failed at 36k miles, ones on our Scooby are still going strong and it's done 220k miles? Sure they won't be factory fresh, but the Fiat ones wouldn't pass an mot