V6 Amarok Handling on Wet Roads

[Ozsko]

V6 Rok, my money is tending to a wheel alignment issue and toe out being where toe out is not supposed to be. My son had his Golf worked on and then complained of it being weird in the wet (he raced superkarts/sprint karts for many years) so we got it checked and it had a huge amount of toe out. Toe out gone, problem gone.

[V6 Rok]

Why do I get a feeling that you just drive little bit faster in the wet than you should.

There are differences in 4 and the V6 and it’s not just an extra 70kg for the V6. It looks like stabiliser bar might be different, the centre of gravity will be different too, just open the bonnet on both and see where the engine seats.

What is your dealer saying to your roadhadling issue?
Mine is 2.0L not a V6 the ARB full bull bar fitted, which would put even more weight and even more at the front, almost worn out road tyres and there’s no noticeable understeer in wet even at higher but still LEGAL road speed, so I doubt that the V6 would be any different, especially when someone claiming at the low even just rolling speeds, unless there’s something wrong with yours.

It's a ute and is driven accordingly. To give that some context, I bought my last ute new and it was sold with about 160 K on it. It still had 70% of the original front brake pads left and had 95K on it's set of Pirelli ATR's that still had plenty of tread left to breeze through a RWC for sale. I'd happily let my wife drive that old ute in the rain but wouldn't let her drive the Amarok in the rain.

I've not discussed the wet road issue with the dealer as it's a bit pointless until we get some more wet weather to be able to demonstrate the issue.

I have a mate that's had 3 Amarok's and still has two currently. He bought his first when they were released and ordered it with the ARB bar that was going to be unavailable for a few months. The deal was that he'd bring it back to the dealer for fitment once available from ARB. He drove the ute as is for near 3 months before the bullbar was ready and he could get a suitable time for fitment. He was of the opinion that it spoiled the way the car drove to some degree and has not fitted a bar to the other two. I didn't drive either, so can't comment on the differences but thought it was interesting as this bloke isn't particularly fussy about suspension/handling.

V6 Rok, my money is tending to a wheel alignment issue and toe out being where toe out is not supposed to be. My son had his Golf worked on and then complained of it being weird in the wet (he raced superkarts/sprint karts for many years) so we got it checked and it had a huge amount of toe out. Toe out gone, problem gone.

Yes, I believe it's a geometry issue or simply the tyres. I hope to get an alignment next week.
If it still seems to be an issue, I'll look into if the sway bar differs from the 4cyl as Transporter mentions above. Assuming the 4cyl one is smaller in diameter, that would help the understeer issue.

[V6 Rok]

Swaybar on the V6 is 28 mm. I'll check the size on my mates 4cyl when I see him next.

[V6 Rok]

It's too hot here today to do much so curiosity got the better of me and I've done some wheel alignment measurements. Camber measurements will be accurate but the toe in/out is harder to measure accurately but would be within a mm either way and is definitely toed in. Can't really measure castor without making up some tools so no castor measurements.

Camber is -1.4 degrees on both sides
Total toe in is 1.5 mm

I'll still be getting a proper alignment but the above tells me there's no major issues with the alignment. Seems to be a fair bit of negative camber and the only spec I could find says -0.83 to +0.17 for the 4cyl Amarok. It also lists 0 to 0.34 for toe in which I'm assuming is degrees of toe in not mm of toe in.

[V6 Rok]

We had some rain this week so I got to try out an increase in tyre pressure. I've upped the VW recommendations by 25% which seems to be a noticeable improvement and will try a bit higher again. These Conti's are still far from grippy tyres but the extra pressure has taken away the pucker factor I was experiencing originally. I'm still waiting on the official wheel alignments specs from VW.

[brad]

Front
caster 3*50"-5*50' A bit more (~20') on the LHS to counter road camber
camber -0*20' +/- 30'. Why you'd go positive I have no idea. I'd want -30'
toe (in) 0-10'

Rear doesn't appear to be adjustable (I've never looked under an Amarok so have no idea what the rear setup is).