On 3 Apr 2008 at 8:18, James Hansen <jhsg@sasktel.net> wrote:

> For sure it's a spring issue Bryan.
> If you plan on permanently altering the weight of the vehicle, ideally
> you need to change the rate of the springs, so that they support more
> weight per inch of travel.  That can be acomplished two ways. shorten
> the existing spring, so you have less coils exposed to the travel, or
> just change the spring, but htat's tough with passenger car springs, as
> you need to determine a lot of things if you want the first try to work.
>   Going to a new stock spring won't address ride height THAT much,
> because you are carrying more weight that the stock setup permanently,
> unless you install a spring spacer to raise the ride height back to what
> it was.
>
> I would try the ten dollar fix of a spring rubber. It isolates a portion
> of the coils, so that you reduce the number of turns, which increases
> the effective spring rate.  You would install that at the bottom, not
> mid spring.

I've used these on the front of my Westy for years, and they work well. They
won't help with bottoming out much, but do help with the resting ride hide -
about 1" gain in my case. I haven't tried them on the Jetta yet.

Shawn Wright
http://members.shaw.ca/vwdiesels
'88 Westy 1.6TD 5 speed
'85 Jetta Diesel 1.6NA