[tubaprde]

Hello everyone. My question is regarding the suspension height settings on our cars.

The parking garage that I park my car in at work has 3 tall speed bumps. Instead of risking bottoming out, every morning I raise the sl55 to level 2 and leave it raised until I leave at the end of the day and I have traveled over the speed bumps on the way out. Does anyone know if my daily raising and lowering of the car adds a lot of stress/wear/tear to the suspension/leveling parts? Will the abc suspension wear out faster b/c of the everyday use? For the same reasons I always tell my wife to raise the car if she fears that it will scrape the front facia when going up/down a steep curb. What do u guys think? What has your experience been with this? FYI. My car is an '04 with 32k miles and has had no supsension problems so far Thanks

 

[bobterry99]

Does anyone know if my daily raising and lowering of the car adds a lot of stress/wear/tear to the suspension/leveling parts?

When you drive your car the suspension is continuously making adjustments to adapt to the road and vehicle dynamics. Your manual adjustment is just adding one more to thousands upon thousands the system has probably already made and makes not an iota of difference.

 

[tubaprde]

good to hear! thanks for the info, makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Montreal-Collector]

Adjusting Ride Height

good to hear! thanks for the info, makes perfect sense to me.

Up here in Montreal we have some very rough roads with rim-killing pot-holes and some mighty speed bumps that do a number on our front lips.

I asked my mechanic this exact question and he stated as above that this is not putting extra wear and is infact good for the ABC system. He does however advise that the car not be stored for over 24 hours in the 2 light highest height position setting as this can promote strain on the system.

 

[bobterry99]

He does however advise that the car not be stored for over 24 hours in the 2 light highest height position setting as this can promote strain on the system.

I believe this advice is silly. The only "strain" on the system when the car is idle is the hydraulic pressure within the struts and their feed lines created by the force of gravity pressing down on the chassis. If the car is raised the only consequence is that the struts hold more fluid; the pressure within the system is the same as if the car were lowered.