Crossing the Blues

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A pre-histroic car in New York

Flash news from Volkswagen for US market! Actually the news release is for Europe but the content should be explained to Americans. Volkswagen’s boring family sedan Jetta is quite common in US like in Europe. If you have two children, a wife and most probably you are young and you could not afford to buy a larger car. Anyway, family cars suppose to offer more comfort than coupes! This means suspension should be “a bit” more comfortable without compromising the handling.

Unfortunately, two generations ago Jetta (Bora) and Golf models were offering a catastrophic rear suspension system called torsion bar. Actually some Toyota models and French cars still have this. What’s wrong with that? Very simply; torsion bar is not a suspension, it is just a cheaper replacement for a proper suspension. Many of you will think, so what! When you have a car with a torsion bar, your handling will be worse and people in the back seat will feel the every single pothole inside their spine! It is offering neither better handling nor comfort but it is cheaper!

VW was using this with Bora (Old Jetta) and Golf, later on understood what they done wrong and replace the rear suspension with multi-link independent rear suspension. Multi-link independent rear suspension is a proper suspension, you don’t need to worry about anything but it is expensive for car companies. For that reason, Ford Focus always had worse interior and great handling. Ford Focus has the best rear suspension on its segment.

The current Jetta sold in US market is offered with torsion bar. This means, Americans have a pre-historic suspension system in a European car, hopefully in Europe VW did not risk its reputation and offers the Jetta with proper multi-link independent suspension. Anyway, Jetta is available with micro size engine 1,2lt TSi with 105 horses inside :)





European Jetta 





Pictures' Copyrights
Ford, VW