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We deal with air suspension every day here at the shop, but out there in the rest of the world we have a new thing hitting the market: Adaptive Air Systems. What is this concept and how does it compare to the kind of stuff that we do?
Well, let’s find out.
What is adaptive air suspension?
Adaptive Air Suspension uses an air bag instead of a coil spring to support the weight of the vehicle, and the amount of pressure inside that air bag can change with the load being carried, on the fly, and/or for different situations. For example, some new GMC trucks have this feature. It allows you to adjust the ride height of your truck for easier exit and entry, to increase ground clearance, or to lift even higher on some models.
Unless operated manually, these systems use data from the vehicle to determine how to adjust the suspension. For example, Audi has an Adaptive Air Suspension that will lower the vehicle at speed so it gets better MPG. It can also stiffen the suspension when going into corners so the vehicle doesn’t lean and stays flat for better handling. Since these systems can have access to all of the data the car produces, they can use all sorts of factors to make decisions. It can be a very complicated setup.
There are a lot of different reasons why you would want this in a vehicle. Improved handling is one, as is extra payload capacity and better fuel mileage. And if you can manually adjust the setup, you can usually tweak your comfort settings as well. This means you can have the performance you want on the track, while riding back home smoothly.
How is Adaptive Air Suspension different from what we do?
Our air suspension customers tend to fall into one of two camps: standard kits and digital ride height air management setups. The former is the original form of air suspension for the custom vehicle world. You have valves, lines, switches and all of the things you need to lift your car or truck up and down. But you do this all manually; you’re the person hitting the switch, and there’s no computer doing the work for you.
Digital ride height air management setups have preset heights, like you’ll find in an Accuair e-Level+ setup. You have ride sensors that learn how high or low the vehicle can go, and then the ECU determines three heights for you to drive at. You can adjust these presets too, which allows you to dial in exactly how high (or low) you want to cruise.
So what’s the difference between our stuff and Adaptive Air Suspension? Not much, really. An Accuair kit can dynamically adjust the suspension as you drive, ensuring you’re at the same height no matter how much you load into the vehicle. It will raise and lower to your preset heights if you want, too. Now it won’t raise or lower to improve handling/MPG or dynamically adjust stiffness as you turn, but if you’re going to a track you can do so beforehand. And a lot of your suspension tuning with our kits comes down to your shock absorbers, and most of those are manually adjustable, not via a switch or knob.
Update your ride
You can take your vehicle into the future with one of our air suspension kits. Drop us a line, hit us up online or come by the shop and talk to us about what we offer. We’re here to help. All you have to do is ask.
