Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M
Maybe the volare had a particularly bad design or build of torsion bar suspension but torsion bar suspension as a design is actually much better than leaf or even most coil spring systems.
Case in point the first auto maker to adopt it for consumer vehicles (prior to that it was only found in race cars) was the luxury brand Packard around 1955. Mopar adopted it around 1957 and most mopar cars, from then until the introduction of the Macpearson strut equipped K-cars, were torsion bar suspension equipped.
Properly designed torsion bar suspension almost doesn't need shock absorbers a to avoid oscillations after hitting a large bump, and unlike a coil spring car where when the springs get worn and the car starts to sit lower you HAVE to replace the springs to restore ride height and suspension performance, torsion bars can be adjusted to restore (or purposely change) ride height and suspension performance. Also generally speaking replacing springs in torsion bar suspension is safer since the shaft only has to rotate a handful of degrees to unload and can't readily turn into a missile in the wrong hands the way a coil spring can.
My 02 Chevy suburban even has torsion bar front suspension and almost 150k into it's life the original suspension is still doing fine despite my tendencies to load the thing with 2k lbs of crap, drive over curbs and off road, traverse country RR crossings at 50MPH, power slide on corners and otherwise drive it like I stole it.
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I didn't think GM had the insight to use torsion bar suspension.
The very first Volkswagen had torsion bars.