What does your suspension do? Apart from your car's tyres and seats, the suspension is the prime mechanism that separates you from the road. It also prevents your car from shaking itself to pieces. No matter how smooth you think the road is, it's a bad, bad place to propel over a lot of metal at high speed. So we rely upon suspension. In a car, the rubber in your tyre helps with this little problem. In it's most basic form, suspension consists of two basic components: Springs These come in three types.

1.They are coil springs, torsion bars and leaf springs. Coil springs are what most people are familiar with, and are actually coiled torsion bars.

2. Leaf springs are what you would find on most American cars up to about 1985 and almost all heavy duty vehicles. They look like layers of metal connected to the axle. The layers are called leaves, hence leaf-spring.

3. The torsion bar on its own is a bizarre little contraption which gives coiled-spring-like performance based on the twisting properties of a steel bar.  Instead of having a coiled spring, the axle is attached to one end of a steel shaft. The other end is slotted into a tube and held there by splines. As the suspension moves, it twists the shaft along it's length, which in turn resist.

Shock absorbers These dampen the vertical motion induced by driving your car along a rough surface and so should technically be referred to by their 'proper' name – dampers. If your car only had springs, it would boat and wallow along the road until you got physically sick and had to get out. It would be a travelling deathtrap. Or at least it would be a travelling deathtrap until the incessant vibration caused it to fall apart. Shock absorbers (dampers) perform two functions.

1. As mentioned above, they absorb any larger-than-average bumps in the road so that the upward velocity of the wheel over the bump isn't transmitted to the car chassis.

2. But secondly, they keep your wheels planted on the road.

Of course it is a must that you keep the various parts of your suspension in good condition so be sure to contact us for an inspection of your suspension. Hi,  I’m Nathan, the manager at Dural Tyre House, call and ask for me for the best deal on tyres for your car on 02 9651 5900