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Smart Air Suspension: Worth it?
- Thread starter Patrick W
- Start date
CHG-ON
Still in love after all these miles
I love mine and am very happy I got it. Especially for the adjustable height. Very important where I live in the mountains.
Yesterday we test drove cars both with and without SAS, the ride in the SAS car felt more like a luxury car, the coils felt more like a performance car. Our preference for "feel" is the SAS, while maintenance-wise we are thinking the coils are less likely to need service. Since we're hoping to get an inventory car, we will go with other options as the deciding factor, but certainly will consider that SAS has added value for us and is not a "wasted" upgrade if available.
Just got my P85D with coils 2 days ago. This car doesn't sit any lower than any other premium luxury sedan that we've had. There is absolutely no need to raise the car over speed bumps or driveways. The ride quality has been wonderful. Just the right amount of road feel without being too rough or too soft/disconnected.
Snow Drift
[Off-Road Assist] Activated
Back from the dead. Help me out with a dumb question.
The standard suspension is coilovers or Non-GPS air suspension? ...and the option is for GPS enable Air Suspension?
The standard suspension is coilovers or Non-GPS air suspension? ...and the option is for GPS enable Air Suspension?
MassModel3
Member
The standard is coil suspension. With SAS, Tesla enabled auto adjusting with GPS location about a year ago for all vehicles via software update version 6.0. Do a Google search for "Tesla firmware log" and you can find everything that took place via software update.
Last edited:
Snow Drift
[Off-Road Assist] Activated
Our P85 has air suspension. I originally was leaning towards not getting air suspension due to longevity/durability concerns (we plan to keep our car a long time), but in the end, the CPO car we decided to get had so much going for it, we decided not to hold the air suspension against it.
Now that we have it, I'm really glad. In normal day-to-day driving, its really not something you need to fiddle with, but there are always driveways that will cause the nose, tail or belly to drag. People who post here saying "you don't need air suspension unless you drive in the snow" are probably people who aren't too bothered by scraping the underside from time to time. I personally hate to rub the underside of any car I drive, so whenever I see a situation where I'd be worried about scraping, I raise the car.
Whenever we scrape on a new driveway, we just set the suspension on very high and we never scrape there again. I also appreciate the self leveling feature as well for carrying heavier loads (people/cargo).
The air suspension components are from Bilstein. I drove an 85 loaner with coils (21" wheels, same as our car) over 300 miles, I'd be hard pressed to be able to tell the difference in ride and handling.
So, if you're like me and you never want to scrape the bottom, and you're tech-minded enough to remember you have the ability to raise the car, get the air suspension.
Now that we have it, I'm really glad. In normal day-to-day driving, its really not something you need to fiddle with, but there are always driveways that will cause the nose, tail or belly to drag. People who post here saying "you don't need air suspension unless you drive in the snow" are probably people who aren't too bothered by scraping the underside from time to time. I personally hate to rub the underside of any car I drive, so whenever I see a situation where I'd be worried about scraping, I raise the car.
Whenever we scrape on a new driveway, we just set the suspension on very high and we never scrape there again. I also appreciate the self leveling feature as well for carrying heavier loads (people/cargo).
The air suspension components are from Bilstein. I drove an 85 loaner with coils (21" wheels, same as our car) over 300 miles, I'd be hard pressed to be able to tell the difference in ride and handling.
So, if you're like me and you never want to scrape the bottom, and you're tech-minded enough to remember you have the ability to raise the car, get the air suspension.
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