If you are in the market and looking for something to swap out your car’s default suspension, you’ll come across two major options: air suspension and coilover systems.
To determine the type of configuration that you decide on, you need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each configuration.
- Coilovers
Customization is also added by coilovers in car suspensions. Like the name implies, this is basically metallic springs that are wound round shocks. They swap the shocks and stock springs in a vehicle. They bring quite a number of mechanical benefits along with the enhancement of the car’s appearance.
Coilovers provide a high degree of customization compared to the stock suspension in a standard car. As a start, they can be used for reducing the ride height of the car, so that it looks cooler and its center of gravity is lower. A decreased car’s corner of gravity guarantees a uniform weight distribution during the ride. It aids in decelerating, braking, and turning off curves. With coilovers, you can also increase the preload of your springs, which would result in decreasing roll. Moreover, it prevents the movement of wheels inside the arches so that track ride becomes smooth.
- Air Suspension
Air suspension is custom-added to most cars but now also comes in as a standard on many modern vehicles. Air suspension offers a lot more than providing dynamic ride-hide adjustment. An air suspension replaced the steel springs and dampers with an air cavity enclosed in a rubber chamber. So the air gets compressed and when the car drives over nicks and bumps,. An Air setup provides additional perks Coilovers and they are not limited to the sport segment only. Air suspensions are also preferred in SUVs, pickup trucks, and off-roaders.
Air suspension provides dynamic ride height adjustment, i.e., you can change your vehicle’s ride height on the go. This offers a lot of flexibility in their use case and implementation in a vehicle. It can be used in a sports car to lower height with just a push of a button for track use. On the opposite, it is also used in off-road vehicles to raise their height when challenged by a bigger obstacle. Modern air suspension, in response to the added weight through passengers and luggage, reacts and raises individual pressures correspondingly to regain the exact same ride height. This offers almost the exact same handling experience even when loaded with luggage or passengers
So to sum up this argument, voilovers provides its users with height adjustment, better track handling, etc. But air suspension, in addition to the services offered by coilovers, provides much more flexibility and gives manufacturers a wider domain of implementing it at the expense of added cost and reduced reliability.