Air Suspension for my 4Mo?
- Thread starter Martin Jones
- Start date
AMG! Why???? Loving that jack though. Was pleased with my bottle jack till I saw this, now trying to work out how I can liberate a set of airbags and an air cylinder from one of the fire engines at work, without it being noticed.
T6 Dave's Dad
Member
I promised Id do a full review of my air ride kit so whilst Im sat on the train heading north to York races I thought I'd put finger to keyboard......
I got the van in May 16 and had it converted straight away by Ed at Celtic Motorhomes. It was due in for air ride straight after the conversion but we delayed it a few weeks as we were going away to France for 2 weeks and on advice of the installation company it was a risk not worth taking getting stranded in France if there was any teething problems. He said in the past 20 installs he remembered one had a small leak on a connection which was quickly solved. On return from France the van went straight into Matt and Scott and Stanceduk for the install.
The System:
I've got HP Drivetech struts and bags which are effectively Bilstein struts combined with HP Drivetech bags. I think they are considered about the best on the market. I've got a Viair 440C compressor, 5 gallon single tank with 3/8 inch air lines. All of that lot is fitted underneath the van and out the way so it doesnt take any space inside the van although the tank does sit in the spare wheel well so now have a emergency tyre repair kit in the van (much like many new cars). Management system is the AirLift 3P system which is operated either on a small credit card size display fitted to the dash or via my iphone through a bluetooth app (which is very useful). Again, this system and the Accuair I think are considered about the best in the market. I upgraded to include a water trap and a silencer for the compressor.
Total cost was about £3,500 plus £850 fitting.
So 1 year in and c4k miles traveled how do I find it...... I bloody love it and think its fantastic!!
Reliability
I have had no issues with it at all. Its never let me down and I've never run out of air even when showing off with it going upo and down (many people fit twin tanks).
Ride Quality
The ride is very good. Its much like I imagine standard bilsteins are, firmer ride but less body roll so to my tastes, a much better ride than standard shocks. There is no banging and bottoming out as long as you drive at sensible height. You dont feel the need to 'pot hole dodge' as the suspension soaks up bigger bumps. If you drive really low then it does get a it bouncy and the tyres can catch on the arches on compression.
Convience
Its really easy to use with 5 preset ride heights which for me are basically: 1 fully aired out (van essentially sitting on tops of tyres front and back); 2 just rolling (can roll forward and back but wont turn so I can reverse straight back into my garage); 3 low drive height what I use driving around empty 4 higher drive height (fully loaded with camping gear and the bikes on the rack) 5 high (for driving across camping fields and the like which is about standard height maybe a little higher). In addition each corner is individually adjustable up and down.
For me I love it because:
I can get the van low enough too get in my garage (van height just rolling is 186cm to the top of the poptop)
I can self level on uneven camp fields for a good night sleep
I can 'air out' and look cool when parked
Great ride quality
Any negatives?
The compressor, even with the optional silencer, is still too noisey. You dont hear it on range rover so dont understand why we need to put up with that. Would prefer the iphone app to work without having to have ignition on. But that's probably it.
Would I do it again, Yes I probably would BUT it is a lot of money and a big luxury (for which my wife reminds me of every day).
My Vans in this months VWt if you wanna take a look
All just my opinions, if they help anyone, then great.... happy to provide any further details I might have missed.
I got the van in May 16 and had it converted straight away by Ed at Celtic Motorhomes. It was due in for air ride straight after the conversion but we delayed it a few weeks as we were going away to France for 2 weeks and on advice of the installation company it was a risk not worth taking getting stranded in France if there was any teething problems. He said in the past 20 installs he remembered one had a small leak on a connection which was quickly solved. On return from France the van went straight into Matt and Scott and Stanceduk for the install.
The System:
I've got HP Drivetech struts and bags which are effectively Bilstein struts combined with HP Drivetech bags. I think they are considered about the best on the market. I've got a Viair 440C compressor, 5 gallon single tank with 3/8 inch air lines. All of that lot is fitted underneath the van and out the way so it doesnt take any space inside the van although the tank does sit in the spare wheel well so now have a emergency tyre repair kit in the van (much like many new cars). Management system is the AirLift 3P system which is operated either on a small credit card size display fitted to the dash or via my iphone through a bluetooth app (which is very useful). Again, this system and the Accuair I think are considered about the best in the market. I upgraded to include a water trap and a silencer for the compressor.
Total cost was about £3,500 plus £850 fitting.
So 1 year in and c4k miles traveled how do I find it...... I bloody love it and think its fantastic!!
Reliability
I have had no issues with it at all. Its never let me down and I've never run out of air even when showing off with it going upo and down (many people fit twin tanks).
Ride Quality
The ride is very good. Its much like I imagine standard bilsteins are, firmer ride but less body roll so to my tastes, a much better ride than standard shocks. There is no banging and bottoming out as long as you drive at sensible height. You dont feel the need to 'pot hole dodge' as the suspension soaks up bigger bumps. If you drive really low then it does get a it bouncy and the tyres can catch on the arches on compression.
Convience
Its really easy to use with 5 preset ride heights which for me are basically: 1 fully aired out (van essentially sitting on tops of tyres front and back); 2 just rolling (can roll forward and back but wont turn so I can reverse straight back into my garage); 3 low drive height what I use driving around empty 4 higher drive height (fully loaded with camping gear and the bikes on the rack) 5 high (for driving across camping fields and the like which is about standard height maybe a little higher). In addition each corner is individually adjustable up and down.
For me I love it because:
I can get the van low enough too get in my garage (van height just rolling is 186cm to the top of the poptop)
I can self level on uneven camp fields for a good night sleep
I can 'air out' and look cool when parked
Great ride quality
Any negatives?
The compressor, even with the optional silencer, is still too noisey. You dont hear it on range rover so dont understand why we need to put up with that. Would prefer the iphone app to work without having to have ignition on. But that's probably it.
Would I do it again, Yes I probably would BUT it is a lot of money and a big luxury (for which my wife reminds me of every day).
My Vans in this months VWt if you wanna take a look
All just my opinions, if they help anyone, then great.... happy to provide any further details I might have missed.
Sounds wonderful......................maybe one day
It is a big investment, but you certainly get some big bang for your Bucks.
I could easily be temped one day
I could easily be temped one day
We have the VB 4c air suspension fitted to our T6 camper. This one adjusts ride height on each corner independently to hit the correct ride height as the load varies.
It also has autolevel so when you're parked up on a camping field it auto levels the van.
What's the range like on VB, i.e. how low and how high? Pics greatly appreciated. Also are the tank and compressors mounted underneath and if so where? Can't seem to find out much detail on their website.
The auto level feature of the VB is particularly attractive (even if the controller is butt ugly), is it effective/reliable? My concern here is you only seem to be able to adjust back/front as opposed to each wheel independantly? Have you ever encounter a situation where there isn't enough travel in one of the wheels to auto level and if so did it just max out or go back to flat settings?
I'll take some pics when I can but I don't have any to hand. The car park crawler mode goes extremely low but you can't drive at normal speeds in that mode. The lowest full driving mode they term 'sport' - I guess you can ask your installer how low they're willing to set that. Apart from that, there's normal driving mode and a hi-rise offroad mode for low speeds only.
The installation is extremely neat, the only bit obviously visible looking underneath is the air tank and this is very near a rear wheel so you're not really losing any ground clearance. The air lines and wiring are well tucked away.
The autolevel does adjust each wheel independently so it can cope with side to side slopes as well as front to back. If there isn't enough travel, it will just max out and level as far as possible. It also has a mode to tilt the whole thing sideways to drain water tanks (obviously only when stationary!).
The controller isn't pretty but you can choose where in the cab to stick it so you can have it tucked away. It does tend to beep at you when driving off (probably to let you know it's still adjusting heights) which can be annoying but you probably just ignore it after the first few times.
The installation is extremely neat, the only bit obviously visible looking underneath is the air tank and this is very near a rear wheel so you're not really losing any ground clearance. The air lines and wiring are well tucked away.
The autolevel does adjust each wheel independently so it can cope with side to side slopes as well as front to back. If there isn't enough travel, it will just max out and level as far as possible. It also has a mode to tilt the whole thing sideways to drain water tanks (obviously only when stationary!).
The controller isn't pretty but you can choose where in the cab to stick it so you can have it tucked away. It does tend to beep at you when driving off (probably to let you know it's still adjusting heights) which can be annoying but you probably just ignore it after the first few times.
