(Newswire.net — October 1, 2019) — Air suspension vs coil springs. which one wins the battle? In today’s transportation industry, more and more shippers are looking for improved methods to protect their cargo integrity, being the air suspension the hottest system in the market. However, after decades of testing each transportation technology available, it became clear that air suspension is not 100% foolproof as people said, and it even rekindled an old, decade-long battle: Coilovers Vs. Airbags: which is the real deal then?
Air Suspension vs Coil Springs
In order to put this debate to an end, this article will explain to you a little bit more about the air vs coil suspension car dilemma and shed some light on each transportation method. Hopefully, it will finally clear your doubts, and even help you choose the best suspension system for you.
What’s a Suspension System?
Before moving forward, let’s clarify what suspension systems are and how they exactly work; it’s imperative for you to understand their functioning so you can get a clearer idea of how airbags differ from coilovers.
Basically, suspension systems are technologies rooted in special compressors that automobiles utilize to handle expected and unexpected driving conditions. They’re composed of tires, shock absorbers, linkages and more that connects the wheels to the vehicle and allow for a unique kind of motion between the two, thus supporting road handling and ride quality. To put it in simpler terms, suspensions support the weight of the truck and absorb the road movement during your driving, being airbags and coilovers the most popular options among heavy-application vehicles.
Coilovers Vs. Airbags
As its name implies, air suspension rides utilize airbags instead of your standard steel springs. The trucks use air compressors as their braking system, from which the air-ride suspension get the air for their flexible, rubber-like air-spring bags to create a spring-like motion during your driving.
Coilovers, on the other hand, utilize semi-elliptic leaf springs to cushion the cargo load. This is the most common suspension type among trucks and even common automobiles, and is made of a conjunction of steel strips joined together to act as a single unit.
Which is the best?
Although many people recommend air suspension bags for careful freight transportation, a series of trials made in order to evaluate the ride smoothness of each system, which included ride quality at the front and at the rear of the trailer, resulted in the air suspension rides being less smooth than the coilover rides. This doesn’t necessarily mean that airbags are “worse” than springs; it simply means that the myth of them being the best choice is not true. They’re a ride option, but not the only one, nor the superior one.
Both suspension rides provide the proper damping levels needed to get the trailer back to their state in the shortest amount of time during a ride change, but the springs work faster, require less maintenance and last longer than airbags. Springs are not the “best” in the market, but are certainly more reliable than airbags, that’s for sure.
Does air suspension have springs?
Air suspension systems actually replace an automobile’s coil springs with air springs. They’re tougher and utilize plastic bags to act as the coil springs, but truth be told, that’d be the only difference between the two.
Can you drive a car with bad suspension?
The question is not if you “can” – practically speaking, of course you can –, but rather if you “should”, which is a big no, no. Bad suspension can damage your vehicle and create an unsafe driving, as they support the weight of your car and allow smooth rides. Don’t take them for granted: if you detect something wrong with your suspensions, change them immediately.
So, to put an end to this air suspension vs coil springs debate, you could say that the air suspension system is not bad, but not the best as people say. The air vs coil suspension car trials proved that airbags aren’t more efficient than springs, and that they even contain some small flaws. In fact, in this coilovers vs airbags article, you could even appreciate that springs were everywhere – air suspensions even utilize springs! – so it was clear from the beginning that springs are the best way to go.