German suspension vs American ... ?

[Gasser64]

Somebody school me on the finer points of german vs american suspension. I heard someone sum it up, or at least a large portion of it summed up as:


They rely a lot more on the spring, than we do. We rely more on the strut/shock absorber. And that this is why their cars will tend to ride a good deal smoother, and why ours make that "Pow!" sound when you go over a bump sometimes. You know the sound. When nothing is wrong with the suspension, but you went over a bump that is a bit too big or a bit too fast. Is there any truth to any of this? What are the main differences? It does seem that as a general rule, german automobile suspension is considered to be superior to american. Most people will talk about better ride quality, as well as better handling.

[quikag]

Mag ride really is the best overall IMO. It just has a wider breadth of capability and ride comfort than most any other suspension set-up.

Other suspensions are really car dependent. Some good German, Japanese, and American suspensions and some bad ones.

[garycrist]

Lots of spring, high pressure gas shocks and lots of caster.

[AnthonyS]

This question is pretty damn generic and unfocused. The Germans are pretty good at tuning some oddball suspension tech to get great handling and ride. I think they just pay more attention to details than we do. US cars actually tend to have better suspension tech underneath them. Design wise the Corvette and new Mustang have ideal suspensions compared to Porsche's and BMWs, but Porsche and BMW just tune their stuff for a wider variety of conditions. In the US it's more of a mixed bag. Too soft or set on roadcourse kill like the GT350 and (R) and Corvette Z06 or Grand sports..... Germans high end cars tend to do it all fairly well which is why they get so much praise in the press. Doing it with struts, torsions bars and compromised designs is just impressive. In the US we go with race proven unequal length control arm independent because it's the best. In the US on econo cars though any old shit will do. The Germans pay attention to even their low end cars (Mercedes 200 and 300 series, BMW 1,, 2 and 3 series, and the Audi A4 for example. In the US on cheap shit its all about profit margins damn the ride or handling. But cheap US cars are much cheaper.

It's the old saying, you get what you pay for.....