Hello all.

For a couple years I've had a 2014 E350 Convertible (70k miles) with the 321 ($1490) Sport Package:

•18" AMG twin 5- spoke wheels1 (standard on E 550)
• Perforated front brake discs with painted calipers (standard on E 550)
• Driver-selectable Manual mode for transmission (standard on E 550)
• 3- spoke flat-bottom sport steering wheel (standard on E 550)
• Sport-tuned AGILITY CONTROL® suspension (E 350 only)
• Multicontour front seats • Rubber-studded aluminum pedals)

I find the ride intolerable. Purchased the car online and had it shipped to me, so never had a chance to drive this one. While the car checked out mechanically during a pre-purchase inspection, I'm totally disappointed in the firmness of the ride, and it is so much firmer than my previous CLK430 Cabriolet with the sport suspension.

I've looked and looked and can't seem to find what parts to change that will soften things up. I assumed it would be the springs, but I'm told the spring part #'s are the same for sport vs non-sport equipped cars. My front springs have 3 red dots and 1 white dot.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what parts need to be changed to get rid of the "Sport-tuned AGILITY CONTROL® suspension (E 350 only)" from the Sport Package? I don't want to lower the car or anything like that. Just soften it up a bit more like the "base" car without the Sport Package. Car is great otherwise.

Thanks in advance.

 

no,

My 2012 E350 sport also had a too firm ride. While this may not help much my fix was to lower the tire pressure 2 psi front and rear. Not a huge difference but enough for a very small price. I have the original Michelins with the staggered size tires from to rear on 18" AMG sport wheels. Hope this helps.

 

I know most of the bumpy ride I have is due to the low profile tyres on rubbish roads. With 35 on the front and 30 on the rear, fitted to 19 inch wheels there just isn't much free play to work with. I guess I have just got used to it after nearly 6 years.

 

These cars in general seem to have a very rough ride. I've driven cars with larger wheels and much less rubber that didn't have such a harsh ride but it does make up for it in handling and stability. With the stock 18's I would see if you could possibly size up the aspect ratio maybe that will give a softer ride (possibly get some michelins or something comparable).

 

What tires do you have? Are they run flats by any chance? I had a BMW 335 with a suspension I hated until I swapped out those damn RFs. They are horrible and have no feel. Way too harsh.

 

My '13 E350 Coupe had the sport suspension it was too stiff imo, but dropping tire psi down pretty much fixed it and I always run less psi anyway so it worked out. I forget but I think I had them at 28/26psi front/rear? I got rid of it some 6+ months ago so I forget. My current car, E550 with same sport pkg, is also rather stuff but not as bad. My new problem is when set it where I want (~30/28) it trips the TPMS and I got tired of clearing that every time I drove. So currently I have them just above the trigger threshold which is ~32 psi but it's annoyingly stiff. So now I need a way to adjust or trick the TPMS. Anyone have ideas on that???
I'm reminded of how much difference psi makes whenever I get new tires, but this is the psi most people run...

When it comes to tire psi I usually start with the tires max psi and max load #'s, then check or est the actual load on each wheel and adjust psi accordingly. Most people think the max psi on the sidewall is what you're supposed to set it to, then they have a harsh ride. An extreme example would be my truck which has 33 BFG mudders which have a combined tire weight capacity of 8900lbs @ 35psi. The truck weighed ~3200 so I ran 11/9psi front/rear. That's a bit lower than the math but it's what worked best after some experimenting. When off roading I set it to 6/4. Most people will disagree with my theory on psi but that's how I do it and it's always worked for me. You do have to test your new psi to be sure it's safe, which I do by pushing the car to it's limits to see if the tires are holding. Like 24psi in the E550 cost me cornering G's and probably not safe for the same reason, but the ride was amazing as was rear wheel traction. Braking seemed fine, maybe better, but hard to tell. Cars I've had without anti lock brakes always stopped better on the low side.

I had an older CLK320 which had super gushy oem shox where the nose of the car would rise and fall quite a bit on gas/braking, so I put in Bilstein shox which fixed it. Maybe 10% stiffer than I'd would've wanted but for that car you only have two choices above stock; the one I got and one much stiffer which I can't imagine. Bilstein are frikkin awesome and I use them in everything I can, and technically they're adjustable but some years ago they altered the way they put them together which makes them much harder to take apart. There are literally millions of valve settings you can use in them, and while I know 99.99% of people aren't going to do that, I'm one of the .01 so it is an option.
Once my oem CLK shox were out I would say, by the looks of them, they were made by Bilstein. Point being I could've just changed the valving but the new ones were $300 vs a lot of work to revalve so I was ok with it, but if nothing exists for your car then revalving is a great option.

 

Do you not just reset the values in the instrument cluster after adjusting your tire pressures?