My kids have been complaining about the stiffness of the ride compared to our old 2012 T6 XC60, especially on these shredded streets near our home in central Houston, Texas. I figured I better dial things in before my kids flat out refused to ride in my car.
So, here is a log of my experience. First, a few points…
- My vehicle’s front and rear dampers have 50 clicks between fully stiff and fully soft.
- My vehicle was picked up with fully stiff settings on all dampers. They weren’t all at 0, I think the front ones were at 1 or 2.
- The clicks are much further “apart” than I expected. I estimate nearly a quarter turn per click. The knob feel becomes looser as you approach middle stiffness to softest range.
- The rear dampers can be accessed above the tire without lifting the entire vehicle! It’s tight, but totally doable. I have the 19″ wheels, all stock. I’ll show you how I did it below.
Before attempting to adjust the rear dampers, I set the front dampers to fully soft as I had been driving for a few months on fully stiff and wanted to feel the difference. I took it on a loop on a particularly bumpy road right near my house, and it was IMMEDIATELY apparent. The front of car seemed to float, and the bumps were almost fully ironed out. But at the same time, what little road feel this car had (which is my one main complaint about it) was completely gone. It was like driving a luxury sedan, not a sportswagon. Needless to say, I hated it. I did a test run at half stiffness, and it was better, but still a bit soft. So I settled on 10 clicks from stiffest, or 80% stiff.
Once that test was complete, I scouted above the rear driver side wheel to see if I could find the damper with its little hat. At first I unscrewed a cap to pull away the firewall/textile material, but it quickly became apparent that was not needed. There are two pieces that come together exactly where the damper control sits, so it’s just a simple matter of moving each one aside, and then pulling the “hat” off. Mind you, I was right at the limit of my arm and hand size, and my arm was pressed firmly against the tire. So I got pretty dirty, but it wasn’t all that frustrating to access.
Here are some images…
I ran the same test as with the front dampers…set them to fully soft and did a loop. Again, the car rode like a boat in the back. Another test at 10 clicks in from softest setting and I think I’ve got a ride that’s acceptable to my style while much more comfortable for the backseat passengers. So it’s set at 20% stiff.
I’ll drive it like this for a while and if I find I miss the old feel, I’ll just adjust accordingly. Now that I know I don’t have to jack up the car, I’m feeling even better about the adjustable suspension.
The one thing I’m not sure about is what I can expect from a softer rear. Will acceleration decrease? Will it handle differently at high speed? I’ve seen Polestar’s recommended settings in the manual (which don’t map to my 50-click dampers anyway), but I’m not sure what “performance settings” actually do to the real world performance. Thoughts on how the suspension should be set for different scenarios?