2004 S60 - Best Ride Comfort Advice

[ionianp2]

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well. As we are slowly warming up I am thinking of tacking a suspension refresh on my S60. Base model with 15" rims, so plenty of side wall. I had put some KYB shocks a few years ago because they offered a good discount at the time and also the Sachs that I was looking around that time had a lot of complaints (possibly that vintage of production not being made in Germany)

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with any aftermarket shocks to get a better than stock ride quality. Don't get me wrong, I think stock ride is excellent, but I was wondering if someone was pleasantly surprised by something else?

This is a daily driver and looking to make it as comfy as possible. Keep in mind, I am planning on replacing control arms with OEM bushings, lemforder, sway links, ball joints, etc...

I already searched this and other forums and I haven't found a consensus yet for comfort (plenty of threads for handling upgrades though.

...and if Sachs is still the way, that is fine too.

Thanks in advance

[vtl]

My Turkey-made Volvo struts, and the rest of front suspension, were replaced after 7 years and 53k miles. They we not fully dead, but not as good as when they were new. Replaced mostly because the springs sagged, and dampening force was insufficient for 29" AT tires I put on a year or so ago. The suspension have seen a lot of overlanding, with car overloaded well beyond GVWR, heavy LT AT tires, thousands of miles of gravel and log roads. Can't really complain about Turkey Sachs. Don't buy Sachs springs though, they break in 2-3 years.

Replaced with Bilstein B4 struts for XC90 and Lesjofors XC90 springs, the medium load ones. They are a bit on a stiffer side, I can imagine it will be quite a bit stiffer without my heavy 14 GA stainless steel cage around radiators and heavy tires.

For the rear end comfort I can advise to switch to Nivomats. Night and day.

Also need a lot of new bushings in LCA and both subframes, otherwise even with the refreshed suspension the car will be all over road.

[Vova585]

I would say that tires will be the element that will contribute to the ride quality the best. I have goodyear assurance comfort for my summer tires and they are ok. My prior cooper set was way softer. In terms of springs quality, I am still would recommend oem from fcp and replace them every 50k. Based on my very biased view, volvo constantly cheaps on springs and they break(on my 01v70xc I had 3 broken springs-always front, now 2 xc60 with rear broken springs and both with 55k on them). Try to avoid ipd HD series bushings and stick with old fashioned rubber(once again my biased view).