Smart Air Suspension: what does it mean and is it installable later?

[BertL]

Eh, while all of that sounds nice, I'm not interested in purchasing another car with an ICE. Also, and I'm not trying to offend you, but I have a very hard time believing anything MB is doing is better than autopilot in my Tesla.

Also, and this is obviously highly subjective, but I have been to two different MB dealers in my life and NEITHER of them had a single sales person willing to lift a finger to help me. I guess I didn't look wealthy enough... It's a shame too because I really wanted an S Class before I got addicted to an electric drive train... Yet another reason why I have grown to loath the traditional dealership model and can't wait to see the day, hopefully in my lifetime naturally, when they all to belly up...

Jeff

I love my MS, but also owned 5 different Lexus for 20 years (RXh hybrids for 10) and also had a 2014 MBZ that were both sold to consolidate to my MS this past Fall. We all have opinions, but I must agree with what is likely Ulmo's broader thought -- that as much as my Tesla has a lot going for it, both my Lexus and MBZ were far more refined in what they provided the day I brought them home than my MS is in many regards. Sure, my MS is a super-fabulous BEV that others don't compete with and it has the ability to provide OTA software updates, but with the exception of Autopilot these days, a lot of other features on my MS are being left in an incomplete state and its not providing the features I expect today compared to what the competition provides -- or even compared to some things my even older 2006 Lexus RX400h had going for it. There is another thread here on TMC discussing that, so I won't take us too far off-topic.

OTOH, I do completely agree with you about Tesla's online ordering model. I much prefer it, than ensuring I dress up a bit more and think through my intro speech to gain a bit of cred with the other luxury brands before I first go into one of their dealerships.

 

[SD Diver]

Please forgive a newbie question - can't seem to find this in the manual and searching "smart air suspension" shows far too many results. I have the SAS on my just delivered CPO P85+. I have it set to lower at 65+ mph. It doesn't. When exceeding 65, if I manually set to low, it will stay that way for about 10 seconds then go back to standard. What the heck am I doing wrong? Is this an issue that will require service? TIA!

 

[zambono]

Some other arguments against air suspension, from the last time I researched this:

• Lowering the car slightly reduces your wind resistance, and has a slight improvement at highway speeds (not at slow speeds). IIRC, we're talking 2%-3%. If range is a concern, I'd spend the money on a bigger battery (which helps range at all speeds, not just highway).
• Ride height with standard suspension is essentially the same air on high. You can get a little more clearance on very high, but not much more than coils. People who talk about raising the car for speed bumps or steep driveways are, by definition, driving cars with air suspension, and probably have it set low.
• I'm sure someone will disagree, but air suspensions are probably one of the most fragile components of modern cars. Every single person I know (including myself) who has had an air suspension has had an expensive failure (>$1000) late in the car's life (ie, post-warranty). While the cars are too new to know for sure, I highly doubt Tesla has found a magic potion for making air suspensions reliable. If you plan to keep the car after the warranty is up, I'd think twice about it.

If it's a concern, test drive both. Try to get an extended test drive with the one your leaning towards, and make sure you don't have ground clearance issues.

Won't disagree I won't purchase and air or hydraulic fluid suspension because they become maintenance nightmares. They loose pressure, leak, pumps fail and when you are looking at the parts they are like $3k a shock even if it was a $2500 option at the beginning.

 

[jmsurpri]

Yes, that would be awesome. Someone on the forums stated that the Tesla air suspension doesn't have the reactive time. That might be true today and/or it might be partially true today.

As it happens, I test drove both a Spring (Standard Suspension) Tesla (an S85) and a Smart Air Suspension Tesla (a 70D), on the same bumpy roads, back to back, and found that the springs were less bumpy and more comfortable! I was absolutely floored; I was not expecting that result at all. To me, if I do not need Smart Air Suspension (and they never upgrade it to Magical properties known to a few in the Mercedes universe), I would absolutely prefer the springs as more comfortable, and that would validate saving $2,500 if savings were my goal. If I'm trying to go cheap, this has now become a very easy choice.

I have the SAS and consider the ride quality way too harsh. I have 19" wheels. I test drove a car with 21" and SAS and it was very smooth and nothing like my car. If you search for ride quality here you will see that most people feel the quality is better than coils. I think the few here who think the ride quality is bad have real problems with the suspension system. Perhaps quality control at Tesla is not good, or maybe its just bad installation. Unfortunately it's hard for Tesla to diagnose ride quality. I brought mine to the SC and the roads around the SC were smooth enough where you couldn't feel any issues. I went on a trip recently where the roads were absolutely horrible. I literally felt as though my car was going to fall apart. I have never ever in my life been in a car that performed so poorly on bad roads. I need to find roads like that around my SC.

Before giving up on SAS, I would try to find another car to test drive with SAS and see if the ride quality is any better.

 

[mspohr]

Someone made reference to the Mercedes "Magic" air suspension. It is very different -- much smarter -- that the Tesla air suspension. It involves forward looking sensors that map the texture of the road surface and if it encounters ridges, potholes, etc. it will actively manage each wheel actively as it gets to that so that you don't feel them. People I know who have driven one say that potholes disappear, as do other things that would normally jolt you. The anology they gave was that the car felt firmly on the road but the road always felt like smooth, like newly paved asphalt.

I've been driving S class Benzes for over 20 years and for many years was with MBCA as their technical director for our region. MB typically shares its technology with whoever wants it, but when they brought out their active air suspension they said they weren't going to do so for 3 years. that was about 2 years ago. Given that the Tesla air suspension components have MB parts numbers on them, when I ordered my P90D in July I got the air suspension in the hope that when the 3 year period os up I'll be able to upgrade to the MB version. Roads around here are terrible -- I'd love to have the MB version. Time will tell.

Thanks for this useful information. I am a bit confused by the discussion here. My understanding is that the "air suspension" controls the ride height (air adjustable) and provides a smoother, quieter ride due to the much lower mass of air vs coil. It seems to me that potholes and such are managed by the shock absorbers which is a different component of the suspension. I don't think the air suspension has any shock absorbing capability but it has separate shock absorbers the same as the coil suspension. Is this wrong?

 

[mspohr]

Won't disagree I won't purchase and air or hydraulic fluid suspension because they become maintenance nightmares. They loose pressure, leak, pumps fail and when you are looking at the parts they are like $3k a shock even if it was a $2500 option at the beginning.

I was just browsing replacement parts costs for my older Land Rover (which fortunately does not need replacement air suspension parts... yet) and you can get replacement OEM air springs for about $500 and aftermarket units for $350.
Interesting that they also sell a four wheel coil spring conversion kit for about $1000 so it looks like it's possible to go from air to coil (but not the other way).

 

[Kdmn]

I have the SAS and consider the ride quality way too harsh. I have 19" wheels. I test drove a car with 21" and SAS and it was very smooth and nothing like my car. If you search for ride quality here you will see that most people feel the quality is better than coils. I think the few here who think the ride quality is bad have real problems with the suspension system. Perhaps quality control at Tesla is not good, or maybe its just bad installation. Unfortunately it's hard for Tesla to diagnose ride quality. I brought mine to the SC and the roads around the SC were smooth enough where you couldn't feel any issues. I went on a trip recently where the roads were absolutely horrible. I literally felt as though my car was going to fall apart. I have never ever in my life been in a car that performed so poorly on bad roads. I need to find roads like that around my SC.

Before giving up on SAS, I would try to find another car to test drive with SAS and see if the ride quality is any better.

I confirm your remark here. I have a 2016 85D with SAS and 19" wheels and was totally disappointed with the ride and suspension quality coming from an Audi with air suspension. Then changed my wheels to 21" which improved the ride significantly! To me SAS is tuned for the 21" wheels but even then it is not great, probably given it does not seem to have variable damping do it can't compare to more mature air suspension systems.

 

[Ulmo]

I was just browsing replacement parts costs for my older Land Rover (which fortunately does not need replacement air suspension parts... yet) and you can get replacement OEM air springs for about $500 and aftermarket units for $350.
Interesting that they also sell a four wheel coil spring conversion kit for about $1000 so it looks like it's possible to go from air to coil (but not the other way).

There's some recent competition in this area for non-Tesla air spring repairs from Arnott Industries; they have new aftermarket designs for most of the air spring automobile marketplace that are not only less expensive, but pretty good quality (with significant advancements in the last few years), and in many cases, much less expensive to install, turning it from an insanely expensive labor proposition into a relatively easy DIY project for DIY people. (I believe Arnott has both air springs and conversion kits to non-air springs, but not 100% sure about that; I've only used their air springs.) I already know my indie mechanic doesn't like Arnott because my indie can't bill as many hours, it's so much easier (literally 1/10th the labor for an experienced mechanic, and the difference between can do and can't do for a DIY'er and even more of a ratio for time due to simplification). But, since this is a Tesla forum, and Tesla so far has been pretty aggressively anti-indie and anti-DIY, and doubtless Arnott doesn't make or sell anything for aftermarket Tesla repair, this benefit probably doesn't yet confer over into Tesla except as a small impact on brand competition at original car sale price. So, the maintenance headaches from Tesla air are still a consideration, as long as Arnott doesn't offer any decent usable aftermarket solutions (which is probably within a few years of when a healthy indie repair marketplace starts up for Tesla, which currently doesn't exist). It's kind of like European sunblock for USA consumers, or Tesla Energy products for USA consumers: theoretically better, but not actually available (without going to extremes).

 

[globile]

Maybe this has been addressed elsewhere, but how exactly does geofencing work?

Can you draw an area on the map where you want these settings to be applied, or is it on a specific location?

How would you go about marking a whole area, say a housing condominium with speed bumps, where you want suspension to be high?

Thanks!

 

[mspohr]

Maybe this has been addressed elsewhere, but how exactly does geofencing work?

Can you draw an area on the map where you want these settings to be applied, or is it on a specific location?

How would you go about marking a whole area, say a housing condominium with speed bumps, where you want suspension to be high?

Thanks!

It remembers the locations where you have manually raised the suspension so the next time you drive there, it will automatically raise the suspension. (If you don't want it to automatically raise in that location again, you can delete the location from its memory.) It does not have the ability to let you draw on a map.