If you are only looking to improve one part of your Golf 7 or other MQB platform vehicle's suspension, you won’t do better than installing the VWR Sport Springs. What do they do? Well, by replacing the car’s four standard springs with re-engineered, different-rate and shorter VWR Sport Springs, the vehicle’s centre of gravity is lower, reducing body roll for better handling whilst maintaining the ride quality and comfort of your car. No other changes are needed, it’s as simple as that.
They have been painstakingly developed to work perfectly with your standard dampers – no fewer than 22 different springs combinations were trialled in our development. This is what makes the VWR Sport Springs special – APR has concentrated all of our engineering development into the Golf 7 for the past 6 months, rather than offering a wide range of ‘generic’ springs for all makes and models as many spring companies do. We would only offer a spring set that has been developed exclusively for your car, rather than one that ‘will do’.
What's The Difference?
As the standard-fit dampers are of a much more sophisticated design on Golf 7 than on previous generations of cars, we have found that fitting an upgraded ‘VWR Sport Spring’ kit delivers a surprisingly worthwhile improvement to your car, subtly stiffening and lowering it.
The VWR Sport Springs that we have developed for the Golf 7 (and the other cars using the new MQB platforms) all match correctly to the standard dampers, making this a very cost-effective modification to any of these cars. With different engine weights, we have different options for front springs depending on your car’s powertrain. These springs are fully compatible with cars fitted with Volkswagen’s switchable ACC (Adjustable Chassis Control) dampers.
We now recommend this set up for all but the most demanding use (such as track use, or when a very low ride-height is required, for which the VWR StreetSport Coilover Suspension kits are ideal).
Development
Many experts consider suspension development to be as much an art as a science. In truth, it’s a bit of both. What is certain is that an ‘off the shelf’ spring set that some companies offer is not going to be optimised for any particular car. For our VWR Sport Springs, we were very determined to put extensive development into determining the perfect specifications for the Golf 7 ‘MQB’ platform. So, our pre-production development cars have covered thousands of miles in UK and Germany to determine the ideal specification for these Sport Springs; we are very proud of the end results and can promise with confidence that we believe these to be the best springs for your Golf 7 on the market.
We have chosen to lower the GTI/GTD by 20-30 mm, and the non-GTI models by 30-35mm for each kit in order to preserve the wheel travel needed to keep the usability of the standard car (different lowering as the GTI/GTD are already lower from the factory). Go lower or stiffer as some popular lowering springs do, and in our experience your car will bounce and crash its way along the road as the dampers are mismatched to spring-rate, and the springs themselves run out of wheel travel. You also risk reducing the life of your dampers significantly if you choose the wrong springs - which the VWR Sport Springs are guaranteed not to do.
Having tested our springs with a variety of different types of construction, the VWR Sport Springs are a progressive rate spring with a barrel-type shape so the end forms come slightly in. This allows us to preserve the ride quality in normal use, but stiffen the spring rates at the ends of its travel when cornering or braking hard.
Technical
The springs come in powder-coated gloss VWR blue with Volkswagen Racing logos, and work extremely well in combination with the VWR Anti-Roll Bars. Note that we recommend that you get your car’s wheel-tracking verified as a part of the installation process. Whilst the ride-height reduction that the VWR Sport Springs provide keep the geometry within the Volkswagen-recommended tolerances, if your car is not brand new it may have already been moving out of tolerance with use, so it is good practice for your installer to verify that all is well after fitment.
Please note: These will not work on vehicles equipped with multi-link rear suspension. If you have the multi-link rear suspension, please use these springs instead.