XC90 Air Suspension Over Bumps
 

Hi Guys,

Anyone here with an XC90 or possibly XC60 with air suspension notice it has some sort of double rebound when it comes off of a speed bump - noticed it tonight in Power/Dynamic mode when going over a speed bump pretty slowly (10mph).

Anyone else notice their air suspension acting funny on the end of the hump or maybe there's just a ditch there that the wheel is hitting at the end of the hump which is unsettling the 22" wheels, not sure.

Thanks anyway!

Mine is quite smooth over bumps with no rebound effects. (xc60)

Did you have it in Power/Dynamic mode whilst testing?

I'm thinking it being in a firmer mode was what made it rebound, normally quite settled over most bumps but these speed humps upset it on the down part and again wasn't going fast only 10-15mph.

My rebound was nasty (not when you drop in the hole but when you bounce back out of it). Sounded really bad. Now it’s not terrible though not as good as standard suspension over broken ground. Three things changed:
- my dealer told me they tweaked something in suspension to make it more comfort. I think that was a placebo.
- I think my suspension broke in a bit.
- I could swear it was noticeably better once they fixed my low battery problems by replacing charging control unit and the battery (stop start and aux heater worked no problem since too)
- they have my tires on the bottom of the range for pressure. I think that made the biggest difference. It improved noise too and didn’t hurt handling or braking.

If you definitely do not have battery charge issues, experiment by lowering tyre pressures and give it some time to break in. It will never be as smooth over broken road as standard but it is night and day vs what I had originally and probably not something I would notice now. It is still fidgety as hell around town but almost all air suspension cars are.

Its the first time I've noticed it handling in a negative way and it was just over some rather worn full length speed humps which have small ditches at the end of the hump which I think catches the suspension out a bit.

I was in power/dynamic mode so it was already a bit firmer. Will have a chat with the dealer when it goes back in there - it is an R-Design on 22" alloys so I'm guessing its going to be a bit crashy no matter what.

It was just the weird noise I got at the other side of the speed hump when the car was coming back down, don't normally notice noises like that, just think these humps might have been worn on the downside though and with it being in power mode it was already set to a firmer setting.

Mine make a noise like tapping on the base of a Tupperware container, as the suspension rebounds off the speed bump. It’s more noticeable from the front near side than the offside, but definitely an odd sound.

I notice it equally, well slightly louder on the offside but I'm sat there so I'm guessing its the same noise on both sides and yeah that is the noise it makes you described it really well!

Its when the speed bump flattens out but I've noticed it only does it on speed bumps that are quite angled, if it is a smooth curve back to the normal part of the road it doesn't make a noise.

So I'm guessing this is just a character trait of Volvo air suspension then - do you get the same noise in all modes?

Might try it in a different mode other than Power/Dynamic and see what it does!

So, I have been testing different drive modes, over the same section of speed bumps. There are 10, relatively benign bumps, over a half mile of road, in a 20 limit.

Each bump will cause the suspension on the front to knock, as I described, in Comfort mode, but when I change to dynamic, the knock goes away.

Im going over them again tomorrow, just to confirm.

I’ve noticed a noise but generally it is on the downdrop when my wife drives over them at a speed I consider too fast.

S

It's perfectly normal. We're not talking about cotton :D or something like that... and bigger wheels make it even more noticeable.