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It seems all luxury cars have active suspensions now, so it's not a fair comparison to "non-active" cars. But I was recently driving a mid-2000 Mercedes E-class over the same roads I normally travel with an Acura TL and Mazda 6 of the same vintage and I was astonished at how smooth the ride was in the Mercedes.

Granted, I wasn't racing, so maybe the trade-off would be clear if I was plying each car at the track. But I'm not a passive driver, and the Mercedes did not have the "land-yacht" feel of older American luxury cars. It felt as connected to the road as the other cars, and I didn't notice more excessive roll or dive.

So what I'm wondering is: What accounts for the Mercedes' better ride? Is there something expensive that can be put in a non-active suspension that improves the ride without sacrificing handling?

My understanding is that all of these cars use the same independent suspension at the wheels, and the same sorts of springs and dampers connecting to their unibody. The particular cars I'm comparing even have roughly the same tire profiles. I'm assuming that since many tens of thousands of each model were produced that every advantage that could be "tuned in" without using more expensive parts would have been. So what could Mercedes, with more money, do to smooth out the ride that Acura and Mazda couldn't?

feetwet
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3 Answers3

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Assuming they were the base models, the two cars you mentioned (Acura TL and Mazda6) are both Front-Wheel Drive (FWD), while the Mercedes is Rear-Wheel Drive (RWD). The FWD cars, having both their engine and transaxle mounted over the front wheels, have a front-biased weight distribution, requiring stiffer front springs to control the weight. The higher spring rate required to retain a responsive steering feel will result in a stiffer ride.

Noise dampening will also play a role in how you perceive the ride quality. Sound insulation and robust equipment will add to the total curb weight of the vehicle. As such, the Mercedes is the heaviest of the cars you mentioned, weighing in at ~3900 lbs, while the Acura clocks in around 3700 lbs, and the Mazda at 3200 lbs. Maintaining a high level of steering feel despite the extra weight is simply a matter of tuning.

Mercedes notoriously sinks 10,000,000 £ a day (or whatever the German equivalent is, I only understand freedom units) into its Research & Development (R&D) department. Seeing as they are still in business, you can bet they have devised some pretty clever ways of making their cars feel as premium as their image suggests.

Caution: Impending sarcasm - "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

It's also possible, though slightly improbable, that Mercedes pulled some kind of VW style software trickery to specifically sense your keister in the seat, and soften the suspension just so you could pose this very question, gaining them internet notoriety, which is paramount to getting more money from those computer savvy millennials. Come to think of it.. how do we know you don't work for Mercedes!?

MooseLucifer
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As noted here:

The smoothness of the ride is determined by the ability of the suspension to respond to changes in the road surface without affecting the body of the car. The ratio of sprung to un-sprung weight will greatly affect this.

Until every unsprung component is made from the lightest exotic alloy or composite, a manufacturer could invest in lighter materials for unsprung components. Just look at the cost of wheels: Moving from steel to Mag/Al alloy to forged alloy to carbon fiber you can almost add a zero to the price of each step.

Community
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feetwet
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A tuned suspension would provide a smoother ride. That would be built into the design of the car at an early stage. "Cheaper" cars would have the extra "engineering time" to do this.

It's not an expensive component, it's a more thought-out part of the design.

tlhIngan
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