WASHINGTON — Drivers sick of having to be vigilant for bone-jarring potholes could get some relief from high-tech car suspensions.
Ford is touting its latest vehicle equipped with 鈥減othole mitigation technology.鈥� The automaker said its 2017 Ford Fusion, when bought in the higher-end Sport trim, will be the first midsize sedan in its class to feature a suspension system this advanced.
The system is already available on Lincoln vehicles. An even more advanced system from Mercedes-Benz uses a stereo camera to scan the road ahead and adjust the suspension accordingly.
In the Ford system, the vehicle uses its normal array of sensors in a novel way to detect when a tire is going over the edge of a pothole.
鈥淲ithin milliseconds,鈥� the suspension is then stiffened up so the wheel doesn鈥檛 fall as far into the pothole, says聽Jason Michener, a chassis engineer with Ford. He says as a result the tire 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 strike the edge (of the pothole) as hard, so you don鈥檛 get that harshness and jarring feeling.鈥�
He likens the system to the human body preventing a fall after tripping on a stair.
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of like the car鈥檚 reflexes,鈥� he says. This system 鈥渞eacts to try and 鈥榗atch鈥� the wheel, so that it doesn鈥檛 go into the pothole and essentially trip up the car.鈥�
The adaptive suspension systems are especially useful on modern cars which use large-diameter wheels and low profile tires, which are less able to cushion against the shock of a pothole.
Michener says in the case of the higher-performance Fusion Sport, 鈥渢he wheels and tires just weren鈥檛 surviving”聽Ford鈥檚 durability testing, until the pothole system was added.
In all cars, a pothole sends forces that push the wheel backwards in relation to the direction of the vehicle.
If a tire has been so deformed by the impact that the metal wheel comes into direct contact with the pavement, 鈥渁ll of a sudden those forces spike exponentially,鈥� Michener says.
鈥淚nstead of having something that鈥檚 squishy, you now have a hard wheel meeting a hard road surface,鈥� which can lead to bent wheels and suspension components.
