I got an unpleasant surprise in my S last evening when I backed out of my parking space at a local restaurant and the nose of the car literally fell off the parking bumper, leaving some unwanted (and I think undeserved) scrapes on the bottom of the front air dam. I was the sole occupant of the car the whole time; since I didn't touch anything nosing into the parking spot, I'm left to conclude that the air suspension lowered the nose of the car while I was eating dinner. [You may take any jokes about the size of my dinner entree and stuff 'em.:biggrin:]
Since the car rides pretty low I've been trying not to run the nose over parking bumpers at all. Judging by the scrapes, in this case the overhang was perhaps three inches and the vertical drop was probably a little less than half an inch.
Anyone else had a similar experience? Do you think that I should have been able to predict this behavior? I thought the whole idea of the air suspension was to maintain a given ride height under different load conditions, dynamically. Does the software change the suspension height setting automatically when the car comes to a complete stop and/or is put into Park? I think if anything it should go from Standard to High, not the other way around.
I guess my takeaways are:
1. The nose of the S is a looong way forward from the driver's position.
2. I need to add a checklist item to raise the suspension to the highest position before before parking the car in a space with bumpers, and
3. Verify the suspension height setting before backing out of a parking spot.
I hope that by posting this I may save other owners from a similar 'owee' experience with their beautiful new cars.
Since the car rides pretty low I've been trying not to run the nose over parking bumpers at all. Judging by the scrapes, in this case the overhang was perhaps three inches and the vertical drop was probably a little less than half an inch.
Anyone else had a similar experience? Do you think that I should have been able to predict this behavior? I thought the whole idea of the air suspension was to maintain a given ride height under different load conditions, dynamically. Does the software change the suspension height setting automatically when the car comes to a complete stop and/or is put into Park? I think if anything it should go from Standard to High, not the other way around.
I guess my takeaways are:
1. The nose of the S is a looong way forward from the driver's position.
2. I need to add a checklist item to raise the suspension to the highest position before before parking the car in a space with bumpers, and
3. Verify the suspension height setting before backing out of a parking spot.
I hope that by posting this I may save other owners from a similar 'owee' experience with their beautiful new cars.