MBDanwec

Hello all,
I'm familiar with the mechanics of air susp vs adjustable dampers, mostly the ability to change ride height, but have some questions if anyone had experienced both, would love some first hand input.

Looking at two almost identical e450 wagons. One has ABC, and the other with a couple more interior perks (Vented seats and HUD, as far as I can see. I'm not sure if they're part of packages that include other things here in Canada)

Questions:
With the wagon, is it just a change to the front struts since the rear is air anyhow? From a reliability perspective, half the compenents are already there no matter what....

I have a small concern about the bottoming out I've read about with the sport suspension, but I'm a sport oriented driver anyhow. (Too bad the C43 wagon is just too small and rough for my 2 hr highway commute)
Does the ABC at the same ride height have the same likelihood to bottom?

Lastly, does anyone know how the firmest rides in sport+ compare performance-wise between air and steel? One firmer or more controlled than the other?

Thank you,

superswiss

The Air Body control suspensions main feature is that it has all around level control to always insure consistent ground clearance. The suspension will automatically compensate for load etc. so it will be much less likely to bottom out as you always have consistent suspension travel even if you load up your wagon with tons of cargo. The Air Body control suspension also has adaptive damping, so you get Comfort, Sport and Sport+ settings and the damping continuously adapts to the driving situation giving you overall a better ride and let you adjust it.

The sport suspension on the other hand is not an adaptive suspension. It doesn't have Comfort, Sport and Sport+ mode. Compared to the standard suspension, it is also lowered, so much more likely to bottom out. The sport suspension has what Mercedes dubbed selective damping. The suspension has two damping settings, but you have no control over it. It automatically goes between the two settings based on how hard you corner. Driving straight it is in the soft setting to provide comfort, but as soon as it detects higher body movement such as in corners, it temporarily goes into the firmer damper setting to reduce body roll and as soon as you drive straight again it goes back to the softer damper setting. As said you have no control over it. The suspension doesn't change when you switch from Comfort to Sport to Sport+. It always behaves the same. It's a passive system.

I'm not a fan of the selective damping suspension, at least not in the older models. I have recently driven a new W206 C300 a few times which has the same type of suspension and its now better sorted than it was in the W205, but it still isn't an adaptive suspension and the driving mode has no effect on it.

It's hard to compare these two suspension in terms of firmness and ride comfort, because one is adaptive and the other one is not and the air suspension has three driver selectable modes vs the sport suspension having no driver selectable modes. Overall the air suspension will give you a better ride and more consistent ground clearance to avoid bottoming out.

MBDanwec

Thanks for the reply! That's very informative, I didn’t know that the steel adaptive susp on the MB wasn't user selectable with the different modes, I just assumed it would be, as that's pretty normal....

That being said, all else being equal with the exception of no HUD (Not a factor for me) and no vented seats (That one is a little more important...) I'll be leaning toward the wagon with ABC. I can replace components myself anyhow.

Cheers,
Dan

JTK44

Check out posts on ABC: it is the one item that seems to fail, go wrong or just plain wear out, usually around 60,000 miles.

This is true on the E wagons and S class.

Just my $.02.

superswiss

That's kind of a fundamental issue. The more complex a machine, the more that can fail. With a simple fixed coil suspension the shocks will eventually wear out and leak. An air suspension adds compressor, airbags which are additional parts that can wear out and leak. Add adaptive dampers, then you have valves and electronic modules that can fail and wear out. It's the nature of the best. The simpler the machine, the more reliable.

What a lot of people don't consider is that if you buy a $100k car used for a fraction of the original price, it will still have $100k car problems. In fact as a used car buyer you will be carrying the brunt of the wear & tear expenses the older the vehicle gets.

MNIAW

Here's a counterpoint on the ABC on a 2017 E400 wagon with 60,000 miles on it. I've had no issues at all with it. Yes there are a fair number of posts on the leaky system components but:
(1) Usually, it's a slow leak and the system will overcome the slow leak after a couple of minutes
(2) People don't come on these forums and post that their ABC is working as advertised. I suspect the majority of owners are experiencing the same as I am - no issues

On the HUD...don't discount the value of that option. I almost never look down at my "gauges" to check for speed, cruise control data, etc. You can also put your audio data and nav instructions in there (not all at once, though). The only downside is that it's hard to see when wearing polarized sunglasses but I live in Vermont so it's not that sunny all that often.