Hi
Heres a question for the geeks!
What should the force/ extension curve look like for the rear damping system of a 95 wagon? Accroding to my knowledge, it should simply be an exponential graph.
In practical terms, it should mean the the back end of the vehicle, when loaded by hand and then released, should simply return to its rest position without any oscillations.
The reason for my inquisition is that my wagon, bounces twice before coming to rest (harmonicly damped oscillation). The car is Starmarked, yet the dealer, who is normally great with me tells me its okay.
Subjectively, the car bounces around and feels like a Lincoln/ Mercury!
I have also owned a 300Te which was unlike this E320 (only 44K miles) and had no such problems until one of the accumulators in the sel-leveling suspension system began to fail- car began to bounce like a bucking bronco.
Any ideas on this ????
Thanks
farrukh

I'm not a geek, but I do know what to do if something's wrong and I can't get satisfaction. I'm almost certain that '95s were tuned the same as earlier cars, and given the low-ish miles on your car something's gotta be wrong. If your dealer''s service dept. rep has been for a ride and won't take your complaint, call MBUSA and ask for your regional "service and Parts Operations Manager". That person will get you taken care of I assure you.

Best of luck Farrukh!

------------------
All the best, Michael
500E
300TE

Farrukh,

the European Car magazine ran a series of articles a few months back on suspension tuning, and one of them showed those graphs you are interested in.

it turns out (from the article) that the ideal setup is a slightly underdamped system, where the oscillating mass slightly overshoots the normal position and then returns quickly to normal, the objective being to return the tire/wheel to normal position as quickly as possible without sacrificing ride quality as much as possible. This is exactly the 2-bounce scenario you are explaining with your car.

when you say that your car bounces around like a Lincoln/Mercury, at what speed does it do this? Slow or highway? Remember that the damping force is also dependent on the speed of the object being damped.

i've always marvelled at the Benz cars' ability (especially the large ones) to drive over speedbumps at high speeds like it was nothing, and you could see the body floating through the bump, and the wheels only bouncing once after that.

i also read about the later Benz models having "digressive" shocks, which in fact reduce the damping effort as the speed of the unsprung (wheel/suspension) mass increases, contrary to common practice. Can anyone comment on this?