s4master1

drive an A8 with new shocks and then drive one with 70k of average road and driving conditions, and you will see the difference big time.
I always recommend my customers to replace them at 80k, but two things happen or at least one of them.
they sell the car before that mileage (mostly based on my own suggestion) or the springs fail before that.

Mike_k

I've driven the newer cars. Absolutely no difference in the way they drive compared to my 04' on it's original struts/ air springs. I know what bad dampers feel like and it just doesn't have that feeling.

Eric5412

I drive an A6 with the optional air suspension, 2006 52k. I feel that the ride quality has degraded over time, nothing significant, but noticeable to me. And at ~$1800 per corner I am in NO rush to replace them anytime soon.

Is it possible that air suspension, by design, would feel "softer" and maybe be more forgiving of a weak/shot dampener than a traditional steel spring? Maybe that would explain why it would be difficult to feel when the dampeners are bad.

Edd W

One benefit is that the air springs have no potential energy to disipate and convert back into kinetic energy, so the theory is that the dampers have less work to do.

Edd W

I agree, that dampers will have a longer life than on a car with steel springs, be they coils, panhard rods or leak springs, they all put more work on the damper.

The main job of a damper is to disipate the energy in the spring from being compressed by a bump. This energy simply is not there in an air spring so they only have to control body movement.

mishar

Not really. All springs convert kinetic into potential energy and vice versa. That creates harmonic oscillations. In the ideal world, once started, they would last forever. In a real world springs have internal resistance that converts that energy into heat and dumps oscillations. Different springs have different dumping. Leaf springs have high internal friction and can be used without additional dumpers (shock absorbers). Air springs must be accompanied with dumpers. A8 shock absorbers are simply better than regular ones so they last longer. That's big part of $1500 price. If they were engineered for third and on owners shocks and springs would be separate assembly and cost fraction of that money.

Mike_k

Another thought is that the D3 was being introduced right in the heyday of the Allroad which was notorious for air suspension issues. I think they knew they couldn't have their flagship car dropped onto it's frame every other week. :-)