Thread: Toyota Warranty - Brake use - Land Rover Warranty

Well no I don't drive a truck. I am a dentist...

Leaf springs will provide more stability when towing. Simply because it allow few directions of movement, mostlt vertical. This will reduce sway. Also leaf spring by design are all progressively rated

Leaf springs can take more load.
Yes some may say what if I put helper airbag in coil spring, this will increase spring rate and my defender can also carry tons of valuable camping equipments

Well yes and No. the thing is not just the spring rate but also the spring mount. How the force is transmitted to the chassis

Leaf spring can spread the heavy load along the chassis, when the coil spring can not. I have seen the coil spring mount (chassis end) cracks on a Patrol. It's simply the design not the brand.

Also I have to say, leaf spring two bushes, on my defender you can guess how many. If I use my defender to tow heavy load. God help me when it comes to bush renewal.


I know coil springs has more flex and perform better in racing. As in your description, more speed on gravel road. But it's irrelevant to towing isnt it?.....

the better handling of a coil spring car is mostly because of the reduced unsprung weight.
Less unsprung rate = feeling sportier, more agile. Because leaf spring is heavy it has more unsprung weight so the handling affexted

on the other hand, you will see ppl put heavy wolf wheels on their defender to increase unsprung weight, worsening handling. Go figure if handling is that important to us "tractor" drivers

This is why I say towing with leaf spring suspension is probably wiser.

Happy to know if otherwise

Cheers

Originally Posted by AK83

Dunno what you do for a living, but it doesn't sound like you drive trucks.

I've never driven a heavily loaded vehicle with leaf springs that handled better than (usually) air bagged, and in some cases coiler(my RRC back in the day).

My main experience of this has been between Isuzu and Fuso(air bagged) and Hino(crapola leafys).
The monumental sidestepping that the Hinos' all had was never an issue in the Isuzu/Fuso's.

My last vehicle with leafs was my Rodeo ute .. and quite simply never again .. ever, will I own a leaf sprung vehicle.

Funniest experience on the difference between the two types was long ago in my RRC driving around Lake Mungo.
Been so many times I can't remember the specifics of the road/location. Was a very wide and badly corrugated dirt road, and following an XD Falcon, him doing about 20-30k/h visibly sidestepping madly all over the place.
Me and missus in RRC camping for a week or so out that way, RRC loaded food/water, quite a bit of rear end sag(those load levellers were useless).
But I could easily maintain 60k/h on the road without breaking a sweat(handling wise) .. just the noise(drumming/pounding) limited speed on this road.
Once we got past the badly corrugated section XD came past me(at 60) and him doing maybe 80 or so.

Sorry Martin but you're are really wrong here.

Leaf Patrols crack the chassis at the hanger, as do many others.

Coils can be wound at any rate you want.
The 130 is rated at 1300kg payload and carries it easily.
I'm not going to get into suspension design here, I just can't be arsed.
A well designed coil rear end is every bit as capable as a leaf rear for load carrying, but a leafer rear is a bucket load cheaper to design and make.
That's it.

Originally Posted by martnH

Well no I don't drive a truck. I am a dentist...

Leaf springs will provide more stability when towing. Simply because it allow few directions of movement, mostlt vertical. .....

The issue with those few directions is that the more important one(fore/aft) which allows toe movements from the rear axle is the one that is totally random.

as an example, if the RHS wheel hits a bump, the movement it causes on it's shackle and on the LHS is random so you get a lot more rear end steering.
The quality and condition of the dampers is then much more important in a leaf system, than in an equivalently sprung(in terms of spring rate) coiler.

And leaf springs by design aren't variable rate. Multi leaf types can be, but they have their own issues if not properly designed too.
Coils are just as easily designed to be variable rate, and (say) like a Unimog can have spring in spring type design for light/heavy loading conditions.

Like Rick says, leafs only advantage in terms of use for wide variances in loads is that they are cheap. No other advantage over coils, or air bags, which are a type of coil spring anyhow.

About the only other advantage that I can think of with leaves over coils could also be the simple and easy nature of lifting the body ride height too.
Had to do that to dad's Exploder a little while back.
Rear leaves had sagged badly(maybe over an inch or more). Can not worth the effort to replace leaves, so longer shackles were bought, replaced very easily and ride height restored to an appropriate level.

I also doubt the comment re spreading the load more evenly on the chassis too. For sure they have more points of connection too the chassis, but in every case I've ever seen, those two points are always a much smaller surface(in total) area than the larger area that a coil spring is anchored too at the chassis.
As a bit of a case in point on that topic, I've read many more horror stories of leaf sprung utes cracking chassis, usually when towing, than with coil sprung vehicles.

Good report in the latest Pat Callinan magazine about a bloke from Cairns who converted his 79 to the wider track rear coil suspension, which wasn't cheap, but he reckons its far superior to standard.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Good report in the latest Pat Callinan magazine about a bloke from Cairns who converted his 79 to the wider track rear coil suspension, which wasn't cheap, but he reckons its far superior to standard.

Yup as per my post#4 in this thread 😊 love Defender coils.

Originally Posted by rick130

Sorry Martin but you're are really wrong here.

Leaf Patrols crack the chassis at the hanger, as do many others.

Coils can be wound at any rate you want.
The 130 is rated at 1300kg payload and carries it easily.
I'm not going to get into suspension design here, I just can't be arsed.
A well designed coil rear end is every bit as capable as a leaf rear for load carrying, but a leafer rear is a bucket load cheaper to design and make.
That's it.

A dentist with a sideline in rear suspension engineering

Im no expert, but, at home I have a Puma, at work in PNG i have a 76 6 cylinder toyo troopie, i spend 99% of my time in these two vehicles, all types of loads and roads, The puma is just so much better. And lets not even start on seating

Originally Posted by AndyG

Im no expert, but, at home I have a Puma, at work in PNG i have a 76 6 cylinder toyo troopie, i spend 99% of my time in these two vehicles, all types of loads and roads, The puma is just so much better. And lets not even start on seating

Torally agree AndyG. For the past 20 years I’ve driven either 70 series Tojos for work or my Defender. Whoever thinks the Defender iis a dinosaur in comparison hasn’t really driven a Defender. ...and don’t get me started on seating position either!