The 2024 Honda CR-V comes with Amplitude Reactive Dampers as standard, here's how it works
Arvind · Dec 16, 2023 05:00 PM
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A car’s suspension system is crucial in ensuring a smooth and controlled ride by managing the interactions between the tires and the road surface. A softer suspension setup offers greater comfort, whilst a stiffer setup generally aids handling performance.
Thus, manufacturers try to strike a perfect balance, mostly because traditional dampers only have a single ‘setup’ for all conditions, but what if you could have more? That’s what Honda achieved with the Amplitude Reactive Dampers (ARD) fitted as standard on the 2024 Honda CR-V; here’s how it works.
However, in case you're wondering about maintenance cost, ARD is a purely mechanical setup, there are no fancy electronics or actuators required to change settings, it remains a passive damper but with a sophisticated twist in its design.
Typical shock absorbers feature a piston valve encased within the reservoir tube, which moves up and down within oil or gas. How the single piston moves up and down within the oil/gas medium generally determines its characteristics. The ARD system uses two pistons, a main piston and a secondary, called the Amplitude Reactive Valve.
Left: Normal shock absorber with single piston valve. Image, Right: Honda ARD with second piston
With two pistons, ARD offers a wider range of operation and essentially adapts based on the vibration frequencies from the road conditions.
For instance, road bumps will trigger lower damping forces, thus only one of the two pistons would react to provide a soft and compliant response. However, during tight cornering which produces higher and faster damping forces, the secondary piston activates to provide a firmer response and sharper handling.
It's essentially the best of two worlds rolled into one without the need for active suspension, which is also insanely expensive to replace. Honda's ingenuous ARD technology is typically found only on luxury vehicles, and in the aftermarket suspension industry for high-performance applications.
The benefits of the Honda ARD system are easily experienced on the road. Despite weighing more than its predecessor - mainly due to stronger crash safety structures and new components - the 2024 CR-V is soft and compliant in the city and surefooted and grippy in the corners, especially during quick direction changes.
Arvind can't remember a time when he didn't wheel around a HotWheels car. This love evolved into an interest in Tamiya and RC cars and finally the real deal 1:1 scale stuff. Passion finally lead to formal training in Mechanical Engineering. Instead of the bigger picture, he obsesses with the final drive ratio and spring rates of cars and spends the weekends wondering why a Perodua Myvi is so fast.
