Car Parts Guide: What you Should Know About Suspension

Many Vauxhall owners don't realise just how important their suspension is. Apart from the seats and the tyres, the suspension is the mechanism that is charge of separating your bum from the road. It's also in charge of making sure that the car doesn't shake itself to pieces, because no matter how smooth you believe the road in front of you is, it isn't a surface you want to travel down in a metal box without the suspension.

The suspension in your car is made up of two different car parts:

• Springs- These car parts are available in three different types. In newer vehicles, there are coil springs, which most car owners are familiar with and are really just coiled torsion bars. In cars made prior to 1985 and most vehicles that are considered to be 'heavy duty,' there are leaf springs. The leaf springs look like layers of metal, which are referred to as leaves, attached to the axle. The third type of spring is called a torsion bar, which acts like a coil spring. These car parts are only used on certain vehicles, like air-cooled Porsches, VW Beetles, Peugeot 205s, and the Karmann Ghias. Spring perform an important function, allowing the wheel to easily follow the changes in the road. Because of the wheel, your car can go down hill and over bumps without coming off the ground.

• Shock Absorbers- Shock absorbers are important car parts, as they reduce the vertical motion that occurs when you're driving the car along a rough surface. Imagine for a minute what it would be like if there were no shock absorbers in your car. The springs would be left doing all the dirty work, and the car would wallow and bloat down the road until you became so physically ill you would have to exit the vehicle. The ongoing vibration would damage your car as well, causing it to eventually fall apart. Because of this, the shock absorbers are essential to the life of your vehicle. They do perform another function, though: they keep the wheels on the car firmly planted on the road with the help of the springs.

Vauxhall Parts and Suspension Types

These days, if you want to know how your car works, you have to understand much more than what car parts are related to the suspension. Car manufacturers, in their infinite wisdom, have made it so there are several different types of suspensions available for cars via rear and front axles. The most common are dependent and independent systems. In many cases, if you purchase a Vauxhall or any other car made after 2006, it will have an independent suspension system. Most have electronically-controlled suspension now as well.

Front Suspension: Dependent

When a front wheel suspension is dependent, it means that the car parts making up the suspension are physically linked from wheel to wheel. While this type of system is still used on trucks today, most newly manufactured vehicles have stayed away from this type of suspension for three main reasons:

• With the wheels physically linked together, the beam linking them can be set in rotation if you drive across a bump with one tyre, but not the other. This creates a problem, as the torque created will begin to turn the axle, and with the inertia of the axle, the original motion will be amplified.

• They are much too heavy. Solid, dependent front car parts weight more and need sturdier and heavier springs and linkage to keep the tyres from leaving the road.

• Adjusting the alignment on dependent front suspensions is next to impossible. While they come perfectly set from the factory, any distortion can be frustrating, as the wheels can't be adjusted to compensate for it.

Front Suspension: Independent

The most commonly used type of suspension since the 1930s is probably the front independent suspension. This describes a type of suspension when the wheel's suspension system aren't connected to each other in any way, except when they are joined by an anti-roll bar.

The most widely known and used system for the front independent suspension today is the MacPherson Strut, also called the McPherson strut. This is especially true when it comes to cars with European origins. The great thing about this suspension system is how simple it is. It's basically made out of a spring and a shock absorber that have been combined together and pivot on a single arm with the help of a ball joint. The strut itself acts as the load bearing car part, while the shock absorber and strut are able to do their job without also having to hold the car up.

With this suspension system, each wheel can behave independently. Another bonus? This system is much more compact and lighter than dependent front suspensions.

Rear Suspensions

Rear suspensions can be be dependent or independent as well. For years, dependent rear suspensions were the preference of manufacturers, as their design was quite simple and easy. A solid axle would connect the rear wheels of the car, the coil springs would be connected to the axle and the frame of the car, and the shock absorber would be attached at the clamp that was keeping the spring attached to the axle.

These days, though, more and more car manufacturers are offering their vehicles with both front and rear independent suspensions.

Both types of suspensions work well in the rear, as there isn't steering rack to allow the wheels to move from side to side. This means that the rear suspensions can be much simpler than front suspensions.

Want to know as much as possible about your Vauxhall? Knowing what's beneath the bonnet and the chassis can help you understand more about how your car operates. It can also help you figure out any potential problems with Vauxhall parts quickly before they get out of hand. The suspension in your car is one of those important mechanisms you need a basic understanding of before you get behind the wheel. Make sure you know how important these car parts are.