Your Driving Impressions On The Touareg Air Suspension Adjustment via Vag-Com

[volkswagendude]

As described here courtesy of Spockcat, Touareg Air Suspension Adjustment

I'm thinking of doing this, maybe in the spring time leading into summer. I will be doing significant highway driving in the summer time, on pavement, so I figured that it might make for a safer, tighter handling vehicle under those circumstances. However, considering our bad roads here, being at the same height as Sport Mode, but with the shock rates of Auto Mode instead of Sport Mode rates, on 20 inch mags, this mod makes sense to me.

I'd like to know who has done this(lowered theirs), and what are your before and after driving impressions as far how it affected the vehicles driving dynamics, characteristics at speed, handling on the curves, etc. Was it significant?

I'd also like to hear from any who may have raised theirs even higher over stock.

[volkswagendude]

Wow. In retrospect, this must surely be the most useless thread I ever posted up
Either that, or almost nobody here has ever tried this mod.

[volkswagendude]

Alright then. Seeing that I'm talking to myself in this thread , time to put a new spin on it. In numerous articles concerning the R50, it writes

"The car's extensive features also include an air suspension sport chassis: The so-called "Driving dynamics package with adaptive roll compensation" and chassis lowered by twenty millimeter supplements the "Sport" mode of the manually or automatically controlled air suspension by achieving a stiffer spring rate."

So does Spockcat's procedure of lowering by 20mm with the Vag-Com mimic what the engineers did on the R50 somewhat?

[Singh]

From what I can decipher it appears to be the same; however the auto mode might allow for a bit more roll than the sport mode, despite the Touareg being lower.
Perhaps Spockat can confimr this....

[DCC]

Originally Posted by volkswagendude

As described here courtesy of Spockcat, Touareg Air Suspension Adjustment

I'm thinking of doing this, maybe in the spring time leading into summer. I will be doing significant highway driving in the summer time, on pavement, so I figured that it might make for a safer, tighter handling vehicle under those circumstances. However, considering our bad roads here, being at the same height as Sport Mode, but with the shock rates of Auto Mode instead of Sport Mode rates, on 20 inch mags, this mod makes sense to me.

I'd like to know who has done this(lowered theirs), and what are your before and after driving impressions as far how it affected the vehicles driving dynamics, characteristics at speed, handling on the curves, etc. Was it significant?

I'd also like to hear from any who may have raised theirs even higher over stock.

Wouldn't lowering your air suspension equipped Touareg result in suspension geometry changes in the supposedly 'rest' or 'normal' position?
So is an alignemnt needed after a 20mm vagcom drop?

[ÜBERV10]

I had my a buddy at my local dealership drop my treg an inch.... love the feel, no issues whatsoever

[Green Egg]

UberV10 - your sig line says you have European Suspension settings. Can you give some detail as to what that is?

[blktouaregv10]

I am wondering if this will make the Touareg lower than the sport setting when it's in Sport mode? There doesn't seem to be much info on this except how to do it. I would love the look of a little bit lower vehicle overall. Does it lower each setting or just one of them? Anyone?

[volkswagendude]

Originally Posted by spockcat

You cannot drive on loading level (top pictures). But the picture just up two posts is regular auto level. This is about 1 1/4" below unmodified auto level. I haven't measured the other levels to compare them to stock but it should be 1 1/4" lower at all levels.

Given that stock sport level is 25 mm lower that stock auto level, and stock loading level is another 30 mm below sport level, I am running lower in modified auto mode than stock sport mode and as low as stock loading level when the car drops to modified sport level.

A chart would look like this:
Level - stock - modified (ground clearance in mm)
Loading - 160 - 130
+112 mph sport - 180 - 150
+80 mph sport - 190 - 160
Auto - 215 - 185
Offroad - 240 - 210
Xtra - 300 - 270

I have to put everything back to stock and put the stock tires back on for a service appointment on Wednesday. I think when I get the car back, I will only lower it 25 mm (1") as an 1 1/4" may be excessive given the above chart.

Courtesy of Spockcat from this link Slammed DUB on dubs


A question I asked regarding how VW lowered the R50, here's an answer from VDubfan in an other thread

Originally Posted by VDubfan

I think the 20mm difference is due to different hardware on the suspension setup. I believe a similar set of hardware can be found here.

$325. It would be interesting if someone can chack and confirm if that part# is indeed from the R50.

[mjw930]

Originally Posted by volkswagendude

Courtesy of Spockcat from this link Slammed DUB on dubs


A question I asked regarding how VW lowered the R50, here's an answer from VDubfan in an other thread

$325. It would be interesting if someone can chack and confirm if that part# is indeed from the R50.

Those links do exactly what the VAC-COM mod does except mechanically instead of electronically.

The suspension uses a sensot to detect the "height" of the vehicle relative to the suspension (the 2 points the links connect to). This sensor outputs a number, that number is stored when you go through the suspension level setting procedure in VAG-COM. In essense you electronically shorten the links when you put a larger number into the VAG-COM reference values.

To answer the original question, resetting the base value with VAG-COM will simply change the reference point. If you change that point by 20mm then every setting on the suspension will he 20mm different than they were before the reset. If you install the short links so they drop the truck 20mm then that 20mm is carried through to all the settings, just as if you did it in VAG-COM.

Those links were created for the Cayenne crowd because they don't have an equivalent to VAG-COM, I know because I used to own an '04 CTT

I hope this all makes sense, it's late and I'm tired.