I have a 2012 Vantage S and while installing a Coilover suspension I noticed about 1/2 inch of ride height discrepancy in the front. This would be measured from the ground to the center of the wheel arch. After looking at some pictures I noticed it was this way with the factory suspension...

The car measured with all Coilovers at the same preload and alignment settings to factory spec:

Low right front by approximately 1/2 inch in comparison to the left front
Low left rear by approximately 1/4 inch in comparison to the right rear

This is extremely odd and thought to myself that somehow I have a bad frame... Keep in mind I own a BMW race car and have installed several suspensions in the past, so this is not an install issue. I went to the Aston dealer and noticed the new Vantages on the showroom floor had the same problem. We measured them to confirm and my dealer is reaching out to Aston Martin on this topic but I am not getting much response on this request...

Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy? Any resolution to the issue? - as adjusting the preload for ride height with such a discrepancy can not be suitable... I am having some shims made that will be placed between the shock towers and the shocks. I will then test to see what solution creates the best corner weights for the car.

Just wondering if others have seen this issue and can advise a resolution? Any Vantage racers or track guys out there with knowledge on this?

Thank you!

 

Interesting find Montana. Other than the ride height discrepancy, how are you liking your nitrons?

 

Could it be to compensate for the weight of a driver? I've seen that on some vehicles.

 

I do like the Nitron product. If I was going to do this again I would have purchased the AMR strut mounts, gone with Motion Control shocks and Hypercoil Springs. I am in the southeast and MCS is closer for service and support.

The true test of this suspension will be in May when I get some track time on them.

 

Wise thought and one that I considered but the weight of the driver does not have that much effect on the ride height. Once the weight of the driver is in the car it only effects ride height in the front of 1/16ish of an inch. This can obviously be adjusted appropriately with preload to be sure you have proper corner weights.

 

When I had my lotus it was the same, about 10-20mm of difference on each side, and it was to compensate for the weight of the driver and drive train component on the driver side.

When you sit in the car, the driver side will actually be lowered by about 10mm (for the lotus).

Also when measuring ride height, one should measure from ground to a hard point in the chassis, the body panel might be un even for multitudes of reason, even across different cars.

 

When you adjust the preload for the weight of the driver, you are adjusting the suspension while there is 100-200 additional lbs on it, but once the driver steps out, the car will sit higher, no?

 

You are correct. However

1). When I step out of the car it only raises 1/16 of an inch on the drivers front
2). the drivers rear is lower than the drivers right
3). I do understand your measurement rules and I have the same but there are not many places to accurately measure on this make - I typically just measure the rake, then corner weight as the ride heights are very similar with the same preload on both sides. One would think the fenders would not be off by that much on such a high quality machine (Not only mine but the new ones as well)

It will be interesting when I get it on scales. Perhaps on stock/softer springs the ride height would fluctuate more as I am running 575lb front and 625lb rear

I would love to hear from someone who has already been through this to hopefully save me some time on how to properly set up a Vanatge.