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Air suspensions have come a long way in the last few decades. While in the past, they were reserved for high-end luxury vehicles and special applications, air ride systems have become much more common. 

In addition to appearing on more and more cars every year, you’ll now find more options for installing an aftermarket air suspension to your vehicle. With all these options in front of you, we thought we could help make things a little more clear.

What Is an Air Suspension?

An air suspension is an active suspension system that uses pressurized gas to adjust the resistance of a vehicle’s struts. It’s known as an active suspension system because it uses ride height readings to adjust to changes in the road surface and weight distribution of the vehicle. The result is a smooth ride that helps keep the vehicle at the appropriate ride height at all times.

Types of Air Suspension

You’ll come across several types of air ride systems throughout the industry. Some are more common than others, and each type has its own ideal applications.

Convoluted Air Suspension System

This type of air suspension employs large, robust rubber bellows to provide a high level of support and resistance. Their sturdy construction and bigger air bags make them especially useful for heavy-duty applications, such as work trucks and other hauling vehicles.

Coil Spring Bellows Air Suspension System

These air suspensions use both coil springs and air bags to do the job of the suspension. The combination of the two results in a highly-stable ride and exceptional drive quality. Coil spring bellows air rides benefit from the combination of the support of mechanical springs and the adjustability of their air bags.

Rolling Lobe Air Suspension System

The design of rolling lobe air springs allows them to fit into tighter spaces. Due to their size, they don’t offer the same weight capacity as other, larger designs. However, that smaller size makes them especially useful for sedans and other smaller vehicles that want the benefits of an air suspension.

Electronic Air Suspension System

Electronic air rides feature advanced technology that allows the system to automatically control a vehicle’s ride height. Sensors mounted at each wheel constantly monitor the height of the body relative to the road, sending those readings to a suspension control module — also known as an electronic control unit or ECU. Using those readings, the ECU instructs the system to adjust the pressure in the air springs to account for changes in the ride.

This automated system creates a smooth, consistent ride for drivers, but it also allows them to adjust their ride height on command. As a result, drivers can select the optimal ride height for the type of driving they’re doing, from soaring down the highway to navigating challenging off-road terrain.

Should You Add an Air Suspension To Your Vehicle?

Adding an air suspension to your car or truck fundamentally changes how it operates, meaning it’s a decision you shouldn’t take lightly. That said, between the advantages an air suspension offers and the high-quality, affordable options now available, there are a lot of reasons to consider it.

Advantages of Air Suspension

Installing an air ride system on your vehicle has some notable upsides that include:

• Improved ride: Air suspension systems offer a premium ride quality by providing advanced damping and support for the vehicle and, by extension, the driver.
• Adjustability: With an air ride kit on your vehicle, you can adjust your ride height up or down as needed. This allows you to choose the ideal ride height for different driving scenarios.
• Increased support: Being able to adjust the air suspension pressure in your suspension also means that you can beef up the support when you need to carry heavy loads or additional passengers.
• Decreased wear and tear: By doing a superior job of distributing weight evenly across the suspension, air rides can help reduce the toll driving takes on your vehicle, thereby extending the lifetime of other components and systems.

How To Pick the Best Air Suspension Kit for Your Vehicle

If you’ve decided that an air ride might be right for you and your vehicle, the next step is to find the right one. These days, you’ve got a lot of options, so it’s good to know how to pick an air ride kit that fits your vehicle and your needs. The right kit can add function and comfort to your ride, but the wrong one can leave you with a new set of problems. 

Air Suspension Kits: What To Consider

Most air suspension kits look pretty similar, especially in online photos. But even minor differences from one kit to another can have large consequences. Make sure to consider all of the relevant factors before making a purchase and committing to a kit.

Vehicle Fit

First and foremost, you need a kit that fits your vehicle properly. Ill-fitting suspension parts can be uncomfortable and inefficient to drive on, but they can also reduce your vehicle’s performance to the point of being dangerous.

You should see the specific make, model, and model-year range listed in the product description. This must match the details of your vehicle in order to provide suitable fit and function. Note that some vehicles employ air struts on all four wheels, while others may only feature them on the front or the rear.

Type of Air Suspension Setup

You’ll likely come across two types of air suspension setups when you look: replacements and upgrades. Replacement kits and components are just what you’d expect — parts that are designed to come as close as possible to matching the fit and function of the OEM component.

But you also have the option to upgrade your car’s air ride with advanced features that aren’t common on factory vehicles. Kits like the AccuAir Ultimate Air Suspension Package are a step up from stock systems, providing a more robust set of components and enhanced use features such as a Bluetooth-enabled suspension controller. 

The choice here is between maintaining your current ride quality — or, more accurately, restoring it to its original form — and improving it with upgraded components and new features. We’ve got both.

Air Suspension Component Quality

Your car’s suspension is one of its primary safety systems. It’s responsible for helping you steer and stop the vehicle, among many other things. That means you need to be able to trust that your suspension components will hold up under use.

In many cases, there’s no way to tell from photos whether a provider is using the right materials for the job. However, one thing you can do is look for companies that provide a warranty with their kits. This is a sign that a company is willing to put their money where their mouth is, and that they’re confident that they won’t have to send out a lot of replacement kits to satisfy warranty claims.

Air Ride Kit Provider

Unfortunately, the popularity of air suspensions means opportunist companies looking to make a quick buck have entered the market. Many of them push inferior, low-quality products to get to the lowest price point possible and still make a hefty profit. 

The top names in the industry got there by providing consistently-reliable products and treating customers well. It may be tempting to save a few dollars on air suspension parts from a company you’ve never heard of, but those savings won’t matter if your kit doesn’t perform as promised and you can’t get help from the company that sold it to you.

Look for companies that offer the following:

• Simple return policy
• Online contact forms or email support for easy communication
• Large and expanding product selection
• Supplemental parts (and not just the main components or complete kits)
• Product warranties

A good air suspension provider stands by their products and holds themselves accountable to their customers. Each of the above is a signal that a company takes their customers’ satisfaction seriously.

Air Suspension Installation

Once you have the right air ride kit for your vehicle, you’ll need to have it installed. This should be an easy, straightforward job for your favorite neighborhood mechanic or any other ASE-Certified shop. In other words, you shouldn’t have to pay a fortune for shop labor. If one shop gives you a quote that sounds high, call around and get some others to compare.

Another option is to install your air suspension kit or components yourself. This is somewhat more complicated than installing passive coilover struts, but it should be a manageable job for anyone with even a little experience working on cars. 

Your Best Air Suspension Option

At Airsuspension.com, our focus is on providing the absolute best air suspension solutions possible at reasonable prices. We offer both replacement air ride components and upgrade kits from the most respected suppliers in the industry. 

Every product comes with a 30-day, no-hassle return policy. That means that if you aren’t completely satisfied with your air ride product for any reason, you can return it within 30 days for a full refund.

Get air suspension parts you can depend on from a provider you can trust.