Air suspension and wheels

[Wifeb4Life]

Hi, Sorry put this in the wrong section, try again.

I'm looking for an My next Audi to be all about comfort and i know in that respect i should be looking at the A8 but I've fallen in love with the A7 shape obviously shares the A6 platform/engines .

So the options i'm looking for are no more than 19" wheels and the adaptive air suspension (with the bitdi) as this seems to be the perfect comprimise of comfort, sport and speed.

I test drove a cat D A7 which had 18" wheels and adaptive air suspension and setting the individual settings to all comfort except engine/gearbox & engine sound (too dtnamic) was like perfect, sounded great, went like a stinker but was like riding on a fluffy cloud even on bad roads.

However looking around only like 1 out of 10 cars i find have the air suspension and i thought this would be so much more popular of an option as who wouldn't want an option that allows you too raise the suspension for comfort & getting over rough bumps and curbs and then being able to lower the ride if you want to push it around fast tight bends? Best of both worlds.

Anyway who has got adaptive air suspension? Is it worth having it or not? And how much does tyre size make the difference?

Cheers

 

[fingermouse]

I haven't but find our s line comfortable on 20s with sports suspension. So might be the wrong person to comment lol

 

[Jakes2514]

I have air suspension on mu Allroad and must say I like it. I do however have 55profile 18" wheels as well so they absorb allot of the road noise.

I think and this is my understanding, the air suspension only replaces the shocks/springs on the car. The tyre profile will make a huge impact on the amount of road noise that is transferred via the suspension assembly into the body of the car.

My old A4 with 19" 35 profiles and s-line suspension you knew exactly about every bump in the road.



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[Ad72]

My allroad on 19's and air suspension is less impressive. It does a great job of bad surfaces and is a dream on smooth tarmac BUT on poor motorway surfaces it feels jittery. I put a lot of it down to the low(ish) profile tyres and air suspension not being able to react in time.

 

[Wifeb4Life]

So it's a mixed bag so far and it sounds like the tyre choice makes more of a difference than the air suspension.

I believe the air suspension automatically lowers into dynamic when you are going over 70mph so to improve economy so maybe thats why it feels jittery on bad motorway surfaces but fine on actually fine on slow bad surface?

 

[Jakes2514]

That is correct the car drops itself at high speed and may have an influence.
In the longterm tough you may be better off with standard suspension with the electromagnetic shocks instead of airbags and have larger profile tires to soak up road noise.


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[Ad72]

It does drop at motorway speeds to the lowest dynamic setting 1 but only if in auto or dynamic mode I think. I've tried running it in allroad mode which keeps it on setting 2 at motorway speed with little effect. If going for air suspension again I'd stick to 18's for comfort. I've read a report on an A6 where they describe the allroad ride as jittery and another where they prefer standard steel springs over the air suspension


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[jojo]

20s is OK ride comfort, 19s much better and more agile. Running S-Line optional sports suspension on my Avant.

 

[evans1089]

However looking around only like 1 out of 10 cars i find have the air suspension.

Cheers

Wouldn't be mine on ebay would it?