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Adaptive Suspension Damping… Real or Ruse? Which one do you have? Find out fast!

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Many new Model S owners are unhappy with the adjustable ride control in their cars. They feel no difference between Comfort and Sport. Others THINK that their systems are working… but can you be sure?… the “placebo effect“ is strong. When you select “Comfort“, it’s easy to convince yourself that the ride just got smoother. … even though it didn’t. To settle this issue, I performed an objective, technical analysis of the operation of my car’s suspension. This analysis PROVED what many have suspected… Adaptive Suspension Damping is NOT providing the range of ride comfort levels that the Model S/X is capable of. In my car, and many others, 5 of the 7 ride comfort settings result in the same ride… maximum harshness!… with “Sport“, ironically, being the softest! (Although still very harsh). In order to get this issue resolved, it is essential to understand how many cars have the problem, and to be able to identify them unambiguously. Fortunately, during the course of the investigation, I discovered a startling fact about the system’s user interface that directly reveals whether the system is working or not! The answer is there for the reading in the numbers labeled “percent damping“ on the “show suspension info” screen. I don’t understand why or how Tesla made this mistake, but these numbers are mislabeled. They are NOT % damping, but actually Pulse Width Modulation Duty Cycle readings! (Refer to my video for technical explanation
) PWM Duty Cycle is the “bottom line“ in this system. It is the actual electronic signal that controls the variable shocks… making them stiffer or softer. A 100% duty cycle will make the shocks as soft as possible, and a 0% duty cycle as firm as possible. Think of these numbers as “percent softness“. With this in mind, you can tell precisely how the car will ride just by reading them. For instance, if “Comfort“ results in 0% Softness, you know you’re in for a harsh ride! This whole issue is a software error. Service will tell you that ”your vehicle is performing according to specification“ because it doesn’t give them any error codes. That just means that the hardware is working properly. But the problem is real, and I’ve double checked my analysis… So, go check your numbers right now! It will only take a minute. Here’s what to do: while stopped, go to the Suspension menu, select ”show suspension information“, step on the brake to activate the system. Read and record the upper left number (Left Front Compression) for each of the 7 ride modes… Comfort, Sport, and under Advanced, each of the Ride Comfort settings from Soft to Firm… in that order. You only need to record the numbers for Left Front Compression. Record the numbers like this: Comfort 0, Sport 28, and Ride Comfort 0,0,4,8,20. (These are my numbers). If you have a working system, you will have larger percentages for the softer settings. Now, POST YOUR NUMBERS! Include the model of your car (S or X, LR or Plaid) and the delivery date. It’s very important to understand how many cars are affected by this bug, and when it started. PLEASE HELP! I’ve been working on this for six months… I believe that the only way to get it resolved is to show Tesla the magnitude of the problem. Thanks!
 
I'm not sure I agree with your process for determining if it is working or not. I believe these values are not static, but dynamic and change with the road surfaces encountered while moving. While my car was sitting still, the values of Left Front Compression changed.
My numbers on my 6/2020 build Tesla S LR+ are: Comfort 0, Sport 12, and Ride Comfort 0, 0, 8, 16. I then put Ride Comfort back to Soft (Handling on Comfort also), and went back and checked the numbers on Comfort, and the first "Auto Ride Comfort" setting had gone from 0 to 4. Again, I do not think a static test with the car in Park would be reliable of the changes to these settings while moving.
 
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Many new Model S owners are unhappy with the adjustable ride control in their cars. They feel no difference between Comfort and Sport. Others THINK that their systems are working… but can you be sure?… the “placebo effect“ is strong. When you select “Comfort“, it’s easy to convince yourself that the ride just got smoother. … even though it didn’t. To settle this issue, I performed an objective, technical analysis of the operation of my car’s suspension. This analysis PROVED what many have suspected… Adaptive Suspension Damping is NOT providing the range of ride comfort levels that the Model S/X is capable of. In my car, and many others, 5 of the 7 ride comfort settings result in the same ride… maximum harshness!… with “Sport“, ironically, being the softest! (Although still very harsh). In order to get this issue resolved, it is essential to understand how many cars have the problem, and to be able to identify them unambiguously. Fortunately, during the course of the investigation, I discovered a startling fact about the system’s user interface that directly reveals whether the system is working or not! The answer is there for the reading in the numbers labeled “percent damping“ on the “show suspension info” screen. I don’t understand why or how Tesla made this mistake, but these numbers are mislabeled. They are NOT % damping, but actually Pulse Width Modulation Duty Cycle readings! (Refer to my video for technical explanation
) PWM Duty Cycle is the “bottom line“ in this system. It is the actual electronic signal that controls the variable shocks… making them stiffer or softer. A 100% duty cycle will make the shocks as soft as possible, and a 0% duty cycle as firm as possible. Think of these numbers as “percent softness“. With this in mind, you can tell precisely how the car will ride just by reading them. For instance, if “Comfort“ results in 0% Softness, you know you’re in for a harsh ride! This whole issue is a software error. Service will tell you that ”your vehicle is performing according to specification“ because it doesn’t give them any error codes. That just means that the hardware is working properly. But the problem is real, and I’ve double checked my analysis… So, go check your numbers right now! It will only take a minute. Here’s what to do: while stopped, go to the Suspension menu, select ”show suspension information“, step on the brake to activate the system. Read and record the upper left number (Left Front Compression) for each of the 7 ride modes… Comfort, Sport, and under Advanced, each of the Ride Comfort settings from Soft to Firm… in that order. You only need to record the numbers for Left Front Compression. Record the numbers like this: Comfort 0, Sport 28, and Ride Comfort 0,0,4,8,20. (These are my numbers). If you have a working system, you will have larger percentages for the softer settings. Now, POST YOUR NUMBERS! Include the model of your car (S or X, LR or Plaid) and the delivery date. It’s very important to understand how many cars are affected by this bug, and when it started. PLEASE HELP! I’ve been working on this for six months… I believe that the only way to get it resolved is to show Tesla the magnitude of the problem. Thanks!
I’ve had 2 service appointments regarding my “adaptive” suspension on a ‘21 Refresh MS. Was brushed off both times.

“Working as expected”
“Within spec”

The ride comfort is absolutely atrocious for a $100K vehicle. And along with the addition of the center horn module that was supposed to be coming, I’ve just given up.

Hopefully someone finds a solution.

My numbers are:
‘21 MS LR Refresh
Comfort -0
Auto - 0,4 (it changes while parked)
Sport - 28
Advanced - 0, 4, 4, 8, 20
 
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Maybe it's something exclusive to the refresh S. Given how shoddy the rest of the software is, I wouldn't be surprised if it's awaiting a software update to be truly functional.

The difference between Comfort and Sport on my 2019 Raven S is definitely noticeable. After seeing the complaints on here, I drove up and down the same (bumpy) road on Comfort and Sport. Definitely noticeable.
 
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I'm not sure I agree with your process for determining if it is working or not. I believe these values are not static, but dynamic and change with the road surfaces encountered while moving. While my car was sitting still, the values of Left Front Compression changed.
My numbers on my 6/2020 build Tesla S LR+ are: Comfort 0, Sport 12, and Ride Comfort 0, 0, 8, 16. I then put Ride Comfort back to Soft (Handling on Comfort also), and went back and checked the numbers on Comfort, and the first "Auto Ride Comfort" setting had gone from 0 to 4. Again, I do not think a static test with the car in Park would be reliable of the changes to these settings while moving.
You’re right Dave.. the values aren’t static… that’s the “Adaptive“ part of Adaptive Suspension Damping working. This system starts with a “base comfort percentage“ and ADDS to it as the road gets rougher. That part of the system works fine. I’ve monitored it on the oscilloscope while driving. (See my posts in the “Show of Hands“ thread.). It typically raises the “comfort percentage“ by 10 to 20 percent while actually hitting big bumps, and then goes back to the base percentage. As to the question of whether bigger numbers are firmer or softer, note that the system ADDS to the number to SOFTEN the ride on rough roads. This is why it’s so difficult to grasp what’s going on here… everybody EXPECTS the ride to be STIFFER when they select “Sport“, so when it goes from 0 to 12, it’s hard to realize that bigger numbers are SOFTER, not STIFFER... it’s completely bass-ackward! The ONLY thing wrong with this system is the settings of the base numbers. If they’re right, everything else is fine. That’s why we only need to know those while stopped. Knowing what we do about this system, we can predict that a “working“ system’s base values will be approximately: Comfort 85, Sport 20, Ride Comfort 100 80 60 40 20. (NOBODY wants 0). Simply inserting these numbers into the code would ”unlock“ the suspension system and allow it to function as advertised. I can’t IMAGINE why they won’t do it. So far, I haven’t encountered anyone who’s car has a working system as proven by the numbers!
 
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Maybe it's something exclusive to the refresh S. Given how shoddy the rest of the software is, I wouldn't be surprised if it's awaiting a software update to be truly functional.

The difference between Comfort and Sport on my 2019 Raven S is definitely noticeable. After seeing the complaints on here, I drove up and down the same (bumpy) road on Comfort and Sport. Definitely noticeable.
If you still have the raven, I would be very interested to know what numbers it shows.
 
I have a 2021 pre refresh, so raven.
In the "damping settings" section below the suspension data, making the ride comfort firm increases the %, making it soft decreases the %.

Not sure if that helps your analysis but it sounds like you expected the inverse.
 

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My car is an MS Long Range, built Dec 2021 and delivered Jan 3, 2022. I had replied a few months ago in one of your other threads about this. I had said that i cant tell the difference between sport and comfort and the ride is too harsh. (like you). OK - so i went to the garage to get the numbers. Mine are 0,28,0,0,0,12,20. once i wrote down those numbers i did touch those advance settings again, and this time the '0' right before 12, started alternating between 4 and 0! wierd. But, anyway, my numbers are similar to yours, but not quite identical. I sure hope you, or some of us, can convince Tesla Service to take this seriously and fix our cars!
 
You’re right Dave.. the values aren’t static… that’s the “Adaptive“ part of Adaptive Suspension Damping working. This system starts with a “base comfort percentage“ and ADDS to it as the road gets rougher. That part of the system works fine. I’ve monitored it on the oscilloscope while driving. (See my posts in the “Show of Hands“ thread.). It typically raises the “comfort percentage“ by 10 to 20 percent while actually hitting big bumps, and then goes back to the base percentage. As to the question of whether bigger numbers are firmer or softer, note that the system ADDS to the number to SOFTEN the ride on rough roads. This is why it’s so difficult to grasp what’s going on here… everybody EXPECTS the ride to be STIFFER when they select “Sport“, so when it goes from 0 to 12, it’s hard to realize that bigger numbers are SOFTER, not STIFFER... it’s completely bass-ackward! The ONLY thing wrong with this system is the settings of the base numbers. If they’re right, everything else is fine. That’s why we only need to know those while stopped. Knowing what we do about this system, we can predict that a “working“ system’s base values will be approximately: Comfort 85, Sport 20, Ride Comfort 100 80 60 40 20. (NOBODY wants 0). Simply inserting these numbers into the code would ”unlock“ the suspension system and allow it to function as advertised. I can’t IMAGINE why they won’t do it. So far, I haven’t encountered anyone who’s car has a working system as proven by the numbers!
I spent most of yesterday while driving in the city looking at my suspension numbers. This is what I currently suspect based on that info.

First off I believe you're not correct that a higher number means softer. In the comfort setting the percentages alternated from 4 to 12% with some spikes up. In sport all of the numbers are higher and there is less variance in the percentages then there wasn't comfort I believe what is happening is the percentage is the amount of resistance in whatever direction the car is providing when you hit a bump in comfort it does not make it softer because it is initially already soft what it's doing is stiffening the suspension to prevent excessive body roll to absorb the impact but not allow the car to over roll as a result.

So in the comfort setting the suspension is initially mushy and when you hit an excessive bump the suspension stiffens during the compression to prevent it from overcompressing and then immediately returns the value to the standard value once the bump is over in the sports setting that variance is much less as the goal is to keep the suspension tight all of the time.

Basically while driving the comfort setting had a wider percentage range which explains the greater movement it's allowing to properly absorb the bumps on the road. Sport was a much tighter range which also makes sense.

This is not my current theory but one explanation that I considered was that using the advanced setting may break the software in a particular way. I've never enabled the advanced setting and theorize there may be a software issue where enabling the advanced setting has a bug in it. I considered one option for you guys is to reset the car to default and see how it works using only the comfort and sport settings and not using the advanced tab.

I also want to add that in both cases once driving in either setting they all return to zero when I come to a stop. I don't currently believe the numbers are probably useful while sitting still and you need to drive and look at the way they move.

If I were to try to summarize I would say that comfort number should be low with a lot of variance in their displayed range when driving. When you hit a bump the number should Spike up which shows the car slowing the direction depending on whether it's compression or rebound. All this makes sense to me because as we are driving and we hit a bump that's above the road the car allows an initial compression with low resistance but as the compression continues it begins stiffening the movement in that direction to prevent it from compressing too much. That is the adaptive nature of the suspension I believe.

What we do need is some physical way to measure the car's body roll or body movement which would not be subjective. If I mounted my phone horizontally and used some sensor app to measure my phone's rotation I could then drive on a particular road and change from sport to comfort. This should show a greater movement of the car's body in comfort than sport. There should also be smoother curves of the body roll then sport which I would expect to have sharp spikes that return to neutral.
 
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I spent most of yesterday while driving in the city looking at my suspension numbers. This is what I currently suspect based on that info.

First off I believe you're not correct that a higher number means softer. In the comfort setting the percentages alternated from 4 to 12% with some spikes up. In sport all of the numbers are higher and there is less variance in the percentages then there wasn't comfort I believe what is happening is the percentage is the amount of resistance in whatever direction the car is providing when you hit a bump in comfort it does not make it softer because it is initially already soft what it's doing is stiffening the suspension to prevent excessive body roll to absorb the impact but not allow the car to over roll as a result.

So in the comfort setting the suspension is initially mushy and when you hit an excessive bump the suspension stiffens during the compression to prevent it from overcompressing and then immediately returns the value to the standard value once the bump is over in the sports setting that variance is much less as the goal is to keep the suspension tight all of the time.

Basically while driving the comfort setting had a wider percentage range which explains the greater movement it's allowing to properly absorb the bumps on the road. Sport was a much tighter range which also makes sense.

This is not my current theory but one explanation that I considered was that using the advanced setting may break the software in a particular way. I've never enabled the advanced setting and theorize there may be a software issue where enabling the advanced setting has a bug in it. I considered one option for you guys is to reset the car to default and see how it works using only the comfort and sport settings and not using the advanced tab.

I also want to add that in both cases once driving in either setting they all return to zero when I come to a stop. I don't currently believe the numbers are probably useful while sitting still and you need to drive and look at the way they move.

If I were to try to summarize I would say that comfort number should be low with a lot of variance in their displayed range when driving. When you hit a bump the number should Spike up which shows the car slowing the direction depending on whether it's compression or rebound. All this makes sense to me because as we are driving and we hit a bump that's above the road the car allows an initial compression with low resistance but as the compression continues it begins stiffening the movement in that direction to prevent it from compressing too much. That is the adaptive nature of the suspension I believe.

What we do need is some physical way to measure the car's body roll or body movement which would not be subjective. If I mounted my phone horizontally and used some sensor app to measure my phone's rotation I could then drive on a particular road and change from sport to comfort. This should show a greater movement of the car's body in comfort than sport. There should also be smoother curves of the body roll then sport which I would expect to have sharp spikes that return to neutral.
Please see the thread “Plaid Suspension Accelerometer Test Readings in Comfort and Sport Modes” nearby. He does just what you suggest. His results show that Sport IS softer than Comfort.
 
My car is an MS Long Range, built Dec 2021 and delivered Jan 3, 2022. I had replied a few months ago in one of your other threads about this. I had said that i cant tell the difference between sport and comfort and the ride is too harsh. (like you). OK - so i went to the garage to get the numbers. Mine are 0,28,0,0,0,12,20. once i wrote down those numbers i did touch those advance settings again, and this time the '0' right before 12, started alternating between 4 and 0! wierd. But, anyway, my numbers are similar to yours, but not quite identical. I sure hope you, or some of us, can convince Tesla Service to take this seriously and fix our cars!
Thanks for your help! The twitching of the numbers is the result of the system continuously reading the analog pulse width and converting it to a percentage to display on the screen. Analog electronics always involves slight moment to moment variations.
 
Please see the thread “Plaid Suspension Accelerometer Test Readings in Comfort and Sport Modes” nearby. He does just what you suggest. His results show that Sport IS softer than Comfort.
What I need to illustrate is that is not the case for me. As I said earlier the difference is not subtle at all. I drive in Chicago and always switch to comfort because it handles the rough roads significantly better than sport which is always a stiff ride. I wish I could take you for a ride because there is no way you would miss that it's working exactly as intended.

I think whatever test you're saying the other guy did is maybe on a Model S that is not functioning correctly. If there's some physical way that I can show that the car is cushier with comfort on just let me know!

I think there's enough information to know that there's something wrong with some of your cars. The people here that fielder system is working seem to agree with me that the difference between the two modes is stark and well-defined.

I do think it's worth resetting the car to defaults and seeing if sport and comfort work as intended as long as you don't go into the advanced screen.