Why so much hate for air suspension?

[George10]

End of the day airride is great if your into shows.. Want to have your car low without scraping everywhere and decent enough handling for the road

Coilovers.. If your into a half decent ride height and not into all the scence stuff.. Coilovers are not made to slam your car on its ass (decent ones anyway), thats why it damages peoples cars,tyres etc.. There not for looks there for handling

For me its coilovers i am into racing/ trackdays etc and for anyone like me airride just doesnt make sense, everyone is into different things but i just dont get the whole skam the car as low as possible when at a show.. It doesnt even look good

Yeah that's basically spot on 

[GTI-Ross]

For me, its just the biggest waste of money you can spend on a mod. All your doing is making the car a bit lower? How does that justify £2000+?

That could be spend on some serious mods,  whether it be Big Turbo conversion, a really decent set of coilovers, 4 brand new tyres, brand new TBE, BBK....etc...

[George10]

For me, its just the biggest waste of money you can spend on a mod. All your doing is making the car a bit lower? How does that justify £2000+?

That could be spend on some serious mods,  whether it be Big Turbo conversion, a really decent set of coilovers, 4 brand new tyres, brand new TBE, BBK....etc...

So everything you've listed there is something you would do? Maybe most people don't care about doing
A turbo upgrade. Quite a few show cars are running some serious power so they have the best of
Both worlds.

 As people have Said it's not for everyone's taste , but it's the mod they've chosen, especially for a show car as it's the  best mod you can do.

[GTI-Ross]

For me, its just the biggest waste of money you can spend on a mod. All your doing is making the car a bit lower? How does that justify £2000+?

That could be spend on some serious mods,  whether it be Big Turbo conversion, a really decent set of coilovers, 4 brand new tyres, brand new TBE, BBK....etc...

So everything you've listed there is something you would do? Maybe most people don't care about doing
A turbo upgrade. Quite a few show cars are running some serious power so they have the best of
Both worlds.

 As people have Said it's not for everyone's taste , but it's the mod they've chosen, especially for a show car as it's the  best mod you can do.

Im not actually sure what the point of this topic is, you ask people to tell you why there is so much hate, we tell you and then you defend it 

What do you want people to say?

And plus, having Air is not best of both worlds. a Big turbo, BBK and KW V3's coil-overs is 

[JoeDarKa]

Its all relative on what you want / need. A massive bhp car would be wasted on me as i spend my life crawling through traffic. I would like a low car with air suspension that looks good.

[sub39h]

I take it from your initial post that you think air is better handling than coils. As I mentioned this is factually wrong - or at least every major sports car manufacturer seems to think so. That doesn't make it sh*t, it just means that it is categorically not the performance option. Nobody is suggesting that show cars don't have big power, but I really don't see the point in having big power and then a compromised suspension set up.

Also Ross is saying that £2k is a lot of money for suspension. The money you'd save from getting coils is money you could spend getting more power and overall a higher performance car. You've said you don't agree with me that this is a performance site, and yet everyone seems to be mentioning performance. I wonder why that is the case.  

[th3_f15t]

Here's my 10p.

Air ride has an ease and practicality that coilovers try to highlight as their selling point: height adjust ability. Air ride does this from the comfort of your drivers seat with the push of a few buttons, where as coilovers involve a morning on the drive way to change the ride height. What coilovers do have is better handling credentials, a good kit (with some time invested) will transform any chassis, the mk4 Golf being a good example of such effects.

Price wise, for a decent set of 2-way adjustable coilovers you're looking at nearly £1400, where as the cheapest air ride is the wrong side of £2000. Each have plus points and each have negative points, for myself it's coilovers that won out as I can't afford air ride and ultimately I want pure handling over all others.

As for the "which handles better", that's a subjecting and relative term: Air ride "handles" better in everyday life than coilovers in a sense whereas coilovers would "handle better" on a track. Reviews/research endorsed by a company for PR reasons will always be bias, regardless of their claims otherwise.

[MC71]

Yeap air suspension has its place in the modding world, why shouldn't it, we all change a plethora of different things on our cars for various different reasons, be it show or go.

Not my thing, I don't understand it but that may be my age I suppose (42). As to air being a better performing suspension than coils......hmmmmmm.  What if you watch a video on UFO's, the Yeti and the Loch Ness monster.....do you believe that to be true too?

Why do you care what peeps think? I care more about the turd I'll give birth to later than I do what you (or anyone else) think of my car or mods. Do what you want, it's your car and a lovely one it is.

Add a pole to this thread.....

Yes its great, I love it
No its sh*t, I fu*king hate it

 

[th3_f15t]

Third option:

I care more about the turd I'll give birth to later than I do what you (or anyone else) think of my car or mods. Do what you want, it's your car and a lovely one it is.

[GTI-Ross]

For me, its just the biggest waste of money you can spend on a mod. All your doing is making the car a bit lower? How does that justify £2000+?

That could be spend on some serious mods,  whether it be Big Turbo conversion, a really decent set of coilovers, 4 brand new tyres, brand new TBE, BBK....etc...

So everything you've listed there is something you would do? Maybe most people don't care about doing
A turbo upgrade. Quite a few show cars are running some serious power so they have the best of
Both worlds.

 As people have Said it's not for everyone's taste , but it's the mod they've chosen, especially for a show car as it's the  best mod you can do.

Im not actually sure what the point of this topic is, you ask people to tell you why there is so much hate, we tell you and then you defend it 

What do you want people to say?

And plus, having Air is not best of both worlds. a Big turbo, BBK and KW V3's coil-overs is 

^^^^ Yeah but why ask and question and then disregard what people are saying (maybe not disregard, but try to convince us it worth £2500+ when its not)

[th3_f15t]

Air ride is pricey because there's high demand and little supply. 2 major companies own the market, with a third just popping into Performance VW now. Look at how many coilover companies there are...

Monopoly. As soon as 4-5 companies make good air ride the price will drop down and then it may be worth asking this question again.

[Pikey Motorsports]

im just glad this mk5 forum isnt airride city lol

[MC71]

^^^^  Luckily enough all the scene queens are on Edition38, thank fu*k. Only need to be 12 with minimal pubic hair and an ill fitting pair of jeans to roll on there.

[Nodz]

think we need and air v coilovers v manual v dsg v dv rv super thread

 

You missed GY f1 v ps3 v PSS

This isn't primarily a performance website at all. Yes the majority of people are more performance based but no where does it state this is a performance site.

Not strictly true, it started as a mk5 gti owners site and the mk5 gti is a performance hatch/drivers car so this is technically a performance site.

Over the years this place has developed into mainly anything VAG but still has a bias to performance. There are build threads of people who have put air on their cars (Big Al being one iirc) but mainly it's performance threads.

No one here has anything major against someone putting air on a car and will appreciate the work gone into doing it but as you said many are performance bias

[TommyR]

To be honest I appreciate static lows far more as it's more difficult to achieve what they do... Not just rock up to a shop get an install and notch, then go trophy chasing like some of the scene queens