What are the advantages and disadvantages of air suspension?

1, advantages:

One advantage of air suspension is that it can automatically adjust the hardness of the spring. When driving at high speed, the suspension will automatically harden, which will bring better support to the vehicle and make the vehicle run more smoothly. When driving at low speed for a long time, the suspension will automatically soften, which will bring better comfort to drivers and passengers.

The benefits of air suspension are different from those of ordinary suspension composed of spring and shock absorption in the traditional sense. The height of the car body, the stiffness of shock absorption and the response speed to the longitudinal impact force are all fixed, so it cannot be adjusted according to the road conditions when encountering different road conditions. According to these conditions, the air suspension can be adjusted independently and make corresponding changes.

2. Disadvantages:

Its disadvantage is that the cost of purchase or optional installation is high, and the maintenance cost is also high. Although the technology continues to improve and the cost of air suspension is also decreasing, compared with the common spring suspension, its cost is relatively high, and it is difficult to popularize it to low-end cars. And the more sophisticated things are, the more likely they are to be damaged. If the air suspension suddenly breaks down during driving, the vehicle may lean to one side, which is also a safety hazard.

Its disadvantage is that the manufacturing process is complex and there are many parts, which leads to high product sales cost. Generally, only high-end cars will be equipped with air suspension, such as Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Volkswagen Phaeton. However, the high cost will naturally lead to extremely expensive maintenance costs in the later period, and the replacement of a single air shock absorber together with the working hours will often cost tens of thousands of yuan.

Generate background:

Since the birth of19th century, air suspension has experienced a century of development, and has undergone many changes, such as "air spring-airbag composite suspension → semi-active air suspension → central inflation and deflation suspension (that is, ECAS electronically controlled air suspension system)". It was not until 1950s that it was applied to trucks, buses, cars and railway vehicles.

At present, almost all foreign advanced passenger cars use air suspension, the proportion of heavy trucks using air suspension has reached more than 80%, and the application of air suspension in light vehicles is also rising rapidly. Some cars are gradually equipped with air suspension, such as Lincoln in the United States, Benz300SE and Benz600 in Germany. In some special vehicles (such as instrument vehicles, ambulances, special military vehicles and required container transport vehicles, etc. ), using air suspension is almost the only option.