When you go to the autoparts store and they ask you "does your car have hard or regular suspension?", what exactly does this mean? Does hard suspension mean my car has 4 pot brakes? I usually tell the person it has X number of lugs and tell them what the brake pad looks like. 100% of the time they give me the correct ones.

 

Didn't the "sport" models come with stiffer suspension? I think that was it. Don't know for sure though.

 

for the S4 cars there was the hard suspension (which used heavy duty stabilizer bars and the 4 piston brakes) and the standard suspension which had the single piston brakes.

as far as parts guys the cars break down as follows:

The Base, SE, Luxury, 89-90 GTU all had the standard suspension.

While the Sport, 88 GTU, Convertible, Turbo and GXL had the hard suspension.