Scott02
Veteran Member
I see a lot of people saying the mk7 torsion beam handles terribly, the car in general handles terribly, etc etc. And I tend to disagree. I think with my SEL 18's the stock suspension rides quite firm feeling, and corners well. You can REALLY lay it into tight on/off ramps and generally speaking, it stays quite composed. I think this is partly because of the wider low sidewall tires and I'm thinking because of the XDS system.
I wanted to start a thread to hopefully find other TDI GSW people who are really trying to find a well-handing torque-monster FWD wagon. I've read a bunch of vortex threads concerning module tweaking, but you never can tell what a person thinks is "better", as everything is relative to the driving situation. I find myself more of a higher speed road course type handling person, as opposed to a low speed handling autoX or "traffic darter" person.
Back when I was HPDE-ing my now sold 08 135i, there was a couple (one in particular) mk4 GTI's at the track days that were built up engine/suspension-wise and were really able to get in some good lap times, so let's not hate on that mk7 rear torsion suspension just yet.
I'm getting into VCDS tweaking the module settings for XDS now. Mine was set to Normal stock and I've recently changed it to Weak, which I think is better feeling to me, but I do not have a ton of seat time yet (winter here). Anyone else have experience with tinkering with this?
Spring rates: I did gobs of research into where I was planning on taking my mk6 JSW from the handling standpoint, but then dieselgate happened, and I never installed anything. I was planning on doing Golf R springs front and rear and keeping the stock tdi JSW sway bars, because I do not like the idea of the rear end of a FWD car wanting to pass up the front end on a high speed corner. But with the torsion beam rear, I cannot steal from the VW parts bin like I could for my mk6. Any one know stock TDI DSG spring rates? I think I see that there may be sport and rough road springs available from VW, but I'm not sure if this was for torsion beam cars or euro mk7 cars with independent rear.
Lastly, I've searched some, and can't seem to find much on if a GTI VAQ system can be retrofitted to other MQB models? That would really be the cat's meow to tame all the torque and not wear out brakes and/or overheat brakes on track days trying to tame the inside tire on corner exit.
I wanted to start a thread to hopefully find other TDI GSW people who are really trying to find a well-handing torque-monster FWD wagon. I've read a bunch of vortex threads concerning module tweaking, but you never can tell what a person thinks is "better", as everything is relative to the driving situation. I find myself more of a higher speed road course type handling person, as opposed to a low speed handling autoX or "traffic darter" person.
Back when I was HPDE-ing my now sold 08 135i, there was a couple (one in particular) mk4 GTI's at the track days that were built up engine/suspension-wise and were really able to get in some good lap times, so let's not hate on that mk7 rear torsion suspension just yet.
I'm getting into VCDS tweaking the module settings for XDS now. Mine was set to Normal stock and I've recently changed it to Weak, which I think is better feeling to me, but I do not have a ton of seat time yet (winter here). Anyone else have experience with tinkering with this?
Spring rates: I did gobs of research into where I was planning on taking my mk6 JSW from the handling standpoint, but then dieselgate happened, and I never installed anything. I was planning on doing Golf R springs front and rear and keeping the stock tdi JSW sway bars, because I do not like the idea of the rear end of a FWD car wanting to pass up the front end on a high speed corner. But with the torsion beam rear, I cannot steal from the VW parts bin like I could for my mk6. Any one know stock TDI DSG spring rates? I think I see that there may be sport and rough road springs available from VW, but I'm not sure if this was for torsion beam cars or euro mk7 cars with independent rear.
Lastly, I've searched some, and can't seem to find much on if a GTI VAQ system can be retrofitted to other MQB models? That would really be the cat's meow to tame all the torque and not wear out brakes and/or overheat brakes on track days trying to tame the inside tire on corner exit.
Last edited: