What is standard ride height and where do I measure it?

I have just got my car back from the garage. It is a standard 1983 GTI, (not a cabriolet). For the MOT I had to have new front suspension springs because one had broken. Anyhow, the garage has fitted a pair of standard springs and now the car looks like it is on stilts. I'm pretty sure it had standard springs before but now the ride height is outrageous. I have a VW Caddy Mk1 which was always higher than my GTI, but now my GTI rides higher than it at the front. I need to measure accurately. On my pickup I can just fit my fist in between the wheel and wheel arch, but it is a struggle. Now on my GTI I can easily fit my fist in the same space, with room to spare. I think the garage has fitted the wrong springs. How can I tell properly? Can anyone tell me what the standard ride height should be?

I have measured and the height to the wheelarches is 630 / 585 mm and 620 / 570 mm front to rear. (The discrepancy side to side may be due to the ground not being perfectly level or limitations of measuring accuracy…) That means the front is sitting two inches higher than the back in old school measurements. I didn't think to measure before, but it fits with my gut feel that the front is now two inches higher than it was.

The front control arms do not sit level. There is evidence of significant 'lift', whereas from memory they were level before.

It doesn't grip in the corners nearly as well as it did - but I guess that is to be expected.

Could someone out there with a standard height GTI let me know what their measurements are from the ground to the top of the wheelarches please?

Not sure of the standard height but you should measure it from centre of the hub to the wheel arch.

Def sounds like it had lowered springs on before though.


Ian

I bought an Eibach pro-kit. The garage swapped out the wrong front springs for my new ones. They refunded me for the incorrect springs and there was no labour charge for the remedial work. I fitted the rear springs myself.

They have been on for two weeks now and everything seems to have settled OK. It handles nicely now, and the ride comfort does not seem to have been compromised. I've ordered Eibach Anti-roll bars and look forward to fitting them soon.

The Pro-kit springs are progressive and offer a mild drop over the originals. The front control arms are now slightly off-level, though probably not enough to cause any concern.

I have re-measured it at 580/570 mm on the right and 585/587 mm on the left, front to rear. I have re-checked and the rear shows one side consistently higher than the other, but everything seems to be assembled OK and the handling is fine so I'm just ignoring the discrepancy as it is probably 'within tolerance', whatever that is…

This was posted by crasher in 2003, may be of some interest :-

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 12:03 pm    Post subject: Bodge!   

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  You may find it best to start by measuring the ride height, from the dead centre of the wheel to the edge of the arch, the rebate. On a standard Golf 1 this is 360-mm and on a GTi it's 340-mm. If your car is say, 320 mm that's OK on standard length dampers such as BOGE and KONI (KONI now offer shortened by 50-mm). Even at 320 you should be thinking of 40-mm shortened dampers and at 300 mm 60-mm shortened, although 300 mm ride heights are obnoxious on Mk1's. Appropriately shortened dampers keep the dampers piston in the centre of its travel at rest and therefore they work better. The other extremely important point is bump stops. When you bought the car it may have had knackered, shortened or even no bump stops and if you then go and fit new standard ones with the new dampers you would have a very bouncy set up as the car is sitting on the bump stops all the time and this makes the dampers very inefficient. If the car rides at 320-ish mm you really need to fit shortened dampers and shortened bump stops. We have found that the 30-mm shorter POWERFLEX 006 front bump stop is excellent but you need to use early Mk3 concertina dust shields as the Mk2 dust shield the bump stops are designed for get smashed on Mk1's at full travel. At the back, the Golf 2 Rallye items (191 512 131 A) are absolutely perfect, take the Mk1 dust shield and look almost standard, apart from being shorter-that should please you originality

I bought Fiat Panda front bump stops, following a tip in another thread. (Fiat part number F0051856851) These have corrugated rubber dust covers with and short foam bump stops that are good for lowered suspension  

The rear bump stops were in excellent condition so I re-used them. Luckily, the rear height is not significantly different from how the car was before.

I will try to remember to re-measure from the centre of the wheels to top of the arches and post the results here.

I've been thinking of buying that Eibach Pro kit but I don't want to go too low, could you possibly measure from the wheel centre to the lower edge of the plastic arch, front and back, and post it.
Cheers.

OK. The measurements in mm from the wheel centres to the plastic arches are:

Right Front 313
Right Rear 299

Left Front 312
Left Rear 307

I've stated these as I measured them, but the measuring accuracy is probably within about 5mm and moving and re-measuring brings into play any unevenness in the ground, so I'm guessing they are accurate to within approx 10 mm after repeated re-measuring over a period of time.

Having lived with the pro-kit springs for a while longer, they are still impressive with a good balance of ride comfort and stiffness, though I do try to avoid pot-holes, etc, as much as possible as they certainly make their presence felt a lot more than my Caddy pickup with standard springing.

Good luck with whatever choice of spring you choose and let us know how you get on.

Cheerio,
Scott