Suspension is too stiff!

Hi! I do really love the car handling overall, but right now my wife is pregnant, where we live there is a lot of potholes and the road is bumpy so the ride is kinda uncomfortable for her, is there anything that can be done to get a more smooth ride?

It's a Civic 2017 Hatchback EX-T

It's a pretty smooth ride already. best thing to do is get 16" wheels to have more sidewall on your tires.

Grab some 16" EX sedan wheels or LX Hatch wheels from Ebay or even on this forum (a lot of people sell their old stuff) , which like @dc2turbo said it will add sidewall and make it more comfortable. Other than that, not much else you can do.

Going from 17s to 16s is not worth it.

From the stock 16s I went to the 17s, ride quality was the same.

I'm sorry but the Civic is not the most comfortable compact car out there.

Rather that spend a lot of money to take care of what is a temporary condition (pregnancy) considering getting some of the seat cushion/pillow things that can be bought. It will dampen the hits to the butt/lower back and make a big difference. Tires will help a little, but not as much as a simple, low tech automotive pillow... and they'll cost a fair deal more. Unlike tires too... get something off Amazon. You don't like it... return it and try something else until it meets with approval from the boss.

My wife had a lot of pain, especially lower back pain during the last trimester and she had a hard time being comfortable sitting. She'd actually get up and stand/walk around a lot.

We got them for our RSX at the time, as it's seats were pretty firm and, living in upstate NY back then, the roads were a hot mess.

She even got one of those big body pillows to kind of wrap her body around because she couldn't even get comfortable lying down.

I feel you bud. I love the 3 kids I have... but I don't miss pregnancies. Each one was harder than the one before.

charleswrivers said:

Rather that spend a lot of money to take care of what is a temporary condition (pregnancy) considering getting some of the seat cushion/pillow things that can be bought. It will dampen the hits to the butt/lower back and make a big difference. Tires will help a little, but not as much as a simple, low tech automotive pillow... and they'll cost a fair deal more. Unlike tires too... get something off Amazon. You don't like it... return it and try something else until it meets with approval from the boss.

My wife had a lot of pain, especially lower back pain during the last trimester and she had a hard time being comfortable sitting. She'd actually get up and stand/walk around a lot.

We got them for our RSX at the time, as it's seats were pretty firm and, living in upstate NY back then, the roads were a hot mess.

She even got one of those big body pillows to kind of wrap her body around because she couldn't even get comfortable lying down.

I feel you bud. I love the 3 kids I have... but I don't miss pregnancies. Each one was harder than the one before.

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Going to try that, honestly, the car is an excellent ride, it's just that it's not comfortable for pregnancy at all (stiffness, ride height, she takes around 2 minutes just to get out of the car), something odd we did notice is that she is more comfortable on the rear seats, seems like the car feels less bouncy in there.

if you didn't yet, check all your struts and springs, sometime dealers forget to remove little bumpers they use for delivery (so car won't jump around while sitting on the truck), happened many times. Sometimes that makes ride harsh and bumpy....

samt2497 said:

Hi! I do really love the car handling overall, but right now my wife is pregnant, where we live there is a lot of potholes and the road is bumpy so the ride is kinda uncomfortable for her, is there anything that can be done to get a more smooth ride?

It's a Civic 2017 Hatchback EX-T

Click to expand...

Make sure the tires are inflated to 32 psi and no more. I keep mine at 34 but it makes for a rougher ride.

cant imagine any car that would be comfortable for pregnancy, other option is hooking up a trailer with a bed in it

Hondaman_MI said:

Make sure the tires are inflated to 32 psi and no more. I keep mine at 34 but it makes for a rougher ride.

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This.

I also inflate at 34psi just to give an allowance; very slightly better acceleration and fuel economy too.

32 vs 34 does give a very noticeable difference in ride quality though.

W1NTER said:

This.

I also inflate at 34psi just to give an allowance; very slightly better acceleration and fuel economy too.

32 vs 34 does give a very noticeable difference in ride quality though.

Click to expand...

I do 34 also for fuel economy. Roads in the northern states here are awful though, with potholes and raised bumps from the thawing and unthawing.

I've got an '18 Sport Hatch with the 18" wheels- I find the ride punishing at times.- I like the handling but living here in the Northeast where the roads have been pummeled by the winter, and there seems to be almost no damping. i knew this when I bought the car but it's bothering me a bit lately. I'm going with 16's and some meatier tires

dc2turbo said:

It's a pretty smooth ride already. best thing to do is get 16" wheels to have more sidewall on your tires.

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X2

Update: This Saturday I did hit a pothole at 30mph, the tire... it's just garbage now, in a matter of seconds I found my self with a flat tire, had to use the spare tire.

The Sunday I changed the tire to a new Yokohama, and now the ride is kinda better, feels so smooth, no sounds at all, seems like my tire already had issues which is odd because it's the first time I did hit a pothole like this, so just to keep in mind, the cause for a bad ride could just be a bad tire.

Some details:
- No issues with alignment, got it checked, the car survived pretty well the asteroid level pothole.
- The suspension is in perfect state.
- The car is in a perfect state, the only damaged thing was the tire.
- The bad tire was a Continental 215/50 R17 91H, which is now worth nothing it got slashed on the side
- The new tire is a Yokohama 215/50 R17 95V.
- The continental is OEM.
- The Spare tire doesn't have any grip at all, on a slight rain it was hydroplaning, the VSA system was fighting to keep the car in control.
- Avoid wet roads on a spare tire

I'm surprised how well this car does keep in control no matter what happens. It's the first car that I can really trust in any scenario.



Attaching images of flat tire, and spare crap.
Will try to get the video from the dashcam later

Our stock tires are horrible for road noise when you are on anything but smooth blacktop.