AP Coilovers - Review

[noone]

They are only height adjustable.

After a long windy drive on Sat, I got a better feel for the handling. After a fairly fast corner I can feel what I think is the sway bars settling, its a new feeling for my car.

The more I drive it, the more confidence I have. Starting to notice how the H&R setup did not work for me and made me reluctant to push its potential in the corners. Acceleration traction is much better.

I think they are definately more of a road setup as they are quite comfortable.

Whubbsie is correct, the little rings at the rear that adjust the seat height for the spring as indicated in the picture.

[jesum]

how do they compare in terms of comfort to:
1. stock
2. H&R with stock shocks

?

[noone]

Compared to stock:
You feel the road. There was a clip on Top Gear last night where Hammond was talking about the 911, he mentioned that through the steering wheel, he could feel the different road surfaces. This is how the car feels to me now (but I believe this is strongly affected by the bushes).

The bumps are road surface are much more noticable and some people would call the ride rough I think. As I've been used to the H&R's with degraded springs, its definitely a step in the right direction.

The cornering is much tighter, but again, i have so many other mods in play here, its hard to isolate. Also its been about 9 months since stock, so hard to comment.

Compared to H&R's:
The ride is smoother, BUT my shocks were on the way out, which was compromising the ride. The H&R's with stock shocks seemed to take bumps badly, and the feeling of the unmatched settings at higher speeds (above 70kms) was floaty.

When I took my GF to the blue mountains, we found some lovely roads, but I made her sick from my hard driving and the oscillating effect of the suspension.

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I don't know how others are finding their stock shocks after some good kms or some hard driving, but mine just did not last.

I think the AP's are good street suspension if you want to go low, but if you just want a sporty ride, the H&R's coupled with some good shocks has been a winning combo for many people.

The front end of my setup is proving to be fairly noisy, but I'm not going to look into it yet. Its not as bad as my dash was / is.

[Roodosutaa]

I don't really want to go low (been there done that) but would deffo consider these APs since they seem to be good value - would probably just leave them at their highest setting though, speaking of which, would I be right in saying they'd be similar to H&R ones where it'd drop the car by only about 15-20mm since the GTI is already about 15mm lower than other Polos?

[noone]

Personally, I think that whilst these coilovers are well priced, you can get some good springs / shocks for similar or less that would do a better job.

Have a look at the Awesome GTI and Venom websites, they both have a reasonable catalogue. I'd allow $200 for freight as a ballpark.

[Gti Dave]

I don't really want to go low (been there done that) but would deffo consider these APs since they seem to be good value - would probably just leave them at their highest setting though, speaking of which, would I be right in saying they'd be similar to H&R ones where it'd drop the car by only about 15-20mm since the GTI is already about 15mm lower than other Polos?

Nope, lowering upgrades are based on the vehicle model application and hence would result in 35mm lowering of the Polo Gti.

[RhysQ]

Nope, lowering upgrades are based on the vehicle model application and hence would result in 35mm lowering of the Polo Gti.

You're absolutely right Dave, I put the H&R springs in my car expecting the "20mm" drop and when the hoist lowered the car down the car just kept on going down with it. I seriously reckon it's closer to 40mm once they've settled (and once the shocks are sagging haha)

[Preen59]

Car looks good dude.

[ef9]

Your ride looks awesome!!!

i just got my H&R springs put in, should have got the bilstein shock with it too, and put them in together.

Good write up by the way

[barra240t]

Do any of you guys with H&R's have pics? I would like to see how low your car looks!