qashqai ride quality

[Deleted User 759]

This is a very personal 'quality' in a car. Some people will find it fine, some people will find it bouncy, some people will find it hard and so forth. Its down to personal preference at the end of the day.... in addition it all depends what you have come from in the past. Don't forget that class of car will make a difference... IE going from a standard family car (think new Pulsar, Mondeo.....) to a SUV will make a large difference. Personally I find the ride good in the QQ for general driving, however attempting to 'hoon it about' you do start to see the limitations of a tall, weighty car with somewhat medium rate suspension with electronic control (read: it applies the brakes to try and smooth the ride or drag you around a corner), and if you anchor on hard, you can see just how much the nose dips down... however if you wanted a car to hoon around in, maybe the Toyota GT86 maybe a better choice!

[F1 Bob]

Like many of the above comments I have no complaints about ride quality or road noise with our 1.5 Tekna after 12 months ownership. In winter we run 17" wheels with winter tyres and find little difference from the standard 19" Tekna wheels. The winter Dunlop tyres are a little quieter than the Continentals but then they are smaller. When looking for replacement tyres I will look at all options and the spec of each make but would be inclined towards the Dunlops.

[duncho]

[quote="F1 Bob"] The winter Dunlop tyres are a little quieter than the Continentals but then they are smaller.A [/QUOTE] Your 17" Dunlop winter tyres are of the same size as your summer 19" Continentals. The only size difference is dimension for rims

[gvmdaddy]

17" wheels equals less rubber on the tarmac as they are narrower.

[Pumpkin_Heed]

Again I have the Ntec+ with 18" alloys and day to day I find the ride quality fantastic, especially in the corners if your giving it the beans on the twisties. it's quite a bizarre feeling as you can feel the car adjusting the pitch and roll, not natural for a car with such a high centre of gravity but enjoyable non the less. The only time I feel as though the car gets a bit confused is on frequently bumpy surfaces i.e. cobbled streets or severely pot-holed roads which any car does to be honest. But unless you have came from something like an Bentley or a Rolls Royce then I really don't think there is cause for complaint! especially at the price bracket for the car. PS I personally think the ride quality is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous model as well!
Pumpkin_Heed2015-07-16 09:09:25

[FoxE]

arnison, I absolutely agree with your comments re the unrefined ride in comparison with the J10 (Mk1) Qashqai. I did post a similar comment to yours late last year. I think that the designers were trying to capture the hearts of the reviewers, who tend to appreciate a firmer ride which is generally commensurate with better handling, and they certainly did that. I have yet to find one review of the QQ J11 (Mk2) that mentions an inferior ride quality in comparison with the J10. I don't have a doubt in my mind that the current suspension is not as refined as that in the J10 car. However, everything else about the J11 is generally superior. I do long for the suspension that I had in my Qashqai 2011 (facelift). If I could get that in my current Qashqai then I'd be very happy! The ride quality is not peculiar to my car either as I have had two other J11 cars out for a few hours when visiting the dealer and both were the same ride quality.Unfortunately, I was silly enough to ignore the advice of my wife when taking the current car for a pre-purchase test ride. She immediately picked the harsher suspension and I made excuses that it must be the tyre pressures (which were up near 40psi during the test drive as it happened!). I wanted to convince myself that the suspension was as good as the original car and my heart won out over my head. Never a day goes by that I don't get reminded about it either! One positive is that my wife and I don't go for trips as much as we did in the first Qashqai, as she has a bad back and really suffers with the crashy ride of the car, - so the distance travelled in the current car is about half what we did in the old car (over a similar period). Maybe the facelift Mk 2, when it arrives, will have a more mature suspension set-up - one can only hope!.

[Summerjunk]

Definately the weak link in my car is the ride quality and my premium is even only on 17's. It's not so much the big bumps as the car deals well with these it's the slow speed over broken up surfaces and small bumps where I find it intrudes into the cabin and through the dash. Has anyone found an improvement in ride quality with different tyres as I think the ecocontact5's are a poor tyre?

[Deleted User 1571]

Have you got too much air pressure in the tyres? The ride quality of my car is excellent by any standard.

Another thought is whether the supplying dealer has removed the suspension transport stops that prevent the car bouncing around on the factory-to-dealer car transporter?

[Summerjunk]

I'm running 33/30 psi which I think is as low as I can go? I should probably just learn to live with it but the ride is definitely not as composed compared to previous cars I've owned.

[gvmdaddy]

The ride will soften a little after 3 or 4 months.