Astra H
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Front and rear axle designs The type of chassis design or suspension in a car or off-road vehicle is heavily dependent upon the type of drive. There is a rough differentiation between independent wheel suspension and rigid axles. For Opel/Vauxhall vehicles, front-mounted engines are normally used. One exception at present is the Speedster/VX220. Therefore only individual suspension is used as the front axle construction. This is characterised by little space requirement, low weight and independence of the individual wheels. In Opel/Vauxhall vehicles, three types of front independent suspensions are installed - the spring strut type using the McPherson principle with or without a front-axle body and the double-wishbone axle. The rear axle constructions of the Opel/Vauxhall vehicles are mainly rigid axle, torsion beam axle and multi-link suspension (Vectra-C/Signum), where we distinguish between driven and non-driven rear axles. Because of the said advantages of the individual suspension however this is used in current Opel/Vauxhall vehicles. |
