Sillyme

I'm looking at buying a 2011 GS coupe. I found a couple that are equiped close to what I'm looking for. One of them has the F 55 Selective Ride option.
My question is: In tour mode is the ride softer than the stock GS suspension without the F55 option? Or is it the same? I know that In Sport mode the ride is firmer.
I was just wondering what the difference is between the two modes.
I'm just not sure yet if I want the system or not.

Shrike6

You need to forget softer/firmer. The primary advantage is wheel control.
The ride is very good, but the handling is phenominal. Our 2011GS rides great in both tour and sports mode. Why else would they put it on the ZR1 and the Carbon edition ZO7? Handling!
Just go for it, the ride is great, but the handling is better!

c6miller

dealer gave me a new C6 2010 loner today with less than 200 miles it has the F55. I've switched from tour to sport mode several times and could not tell the difference in ride or handling.

mneblett

+1

F55 is all about using electronics to maximize wheel contact with the road and control of the body motion, not "soft or sport." In fact, the system could be sold with only one ride mode and it would be a substantial advance over prior suspension systems.

Search for the F55/non-F55 demo videos and see the difference in control MSRC gives (the vid with the non-F55 car going airborne over some whoops while the F55 stays planted and controllable is pretty impressive).

The tour/sport feature is just a result of the fact that they have the capability to use a different computer map to generate a different ride "feel" while doing the same sort of wheel and body management in both modes. Tour does seem to be roughly on par with the base suspension for "softness."

mneblett

I can easily detect a difference between settings on both my F55-equipped C5 and C6 -- but frankly that's irrelevant.

Even if I couldn't feel a difference, I'd stil get the F55 because it provides more controlled, safer vehicle dynamics due to its millisecond-level wheel position/vertical velocity/vertical acceleration reading, computer calculation of needed damping, and real-time, virtually instantaneous shock damping adjustment to achieve optimum wheel and body control.

bluez06ny

Not softer just better, less jounce, less lean.

Mike Green9

I have an '08 with F55. I will never buy another Vette without it!

The above posts are correct. It is not about soft or hard ride. It is about better control of the vehicle. It should be standard on all Vettes.

A recent experience on the benefits of F55 - There is a nasty dip on a nearby highway. Traveling at the speed limit, I would graze the air dam. Then one day I got smart, and flipped into Sport mode just before the dip. No more 'grazing'.

It's in my STS as well. Totally awesome suspension!

M....

phileaglesfan

200 miles isn't' enough. Did you switch it on rough roads or just cruising down the highway? Find a road that has bumps in it or better yet pavement expansion groves. You'll feel every single one in sport mode, in tour you'll still feel them but the sharpness is softened a bit.

Tour is really a bad description since the car still handles great. You'll just have more body roll. I was cruising up Beartooth Pass in Wyoming a couple years ago. I was in sport mode because it is a real curvy road. The rough pavement was too much for sport mode so I switched it to tour and it was a lot safer.

A big difference between F55 and normal shocks is that normal shocks have a lot more internal parts that wear out at different rates. F55 shocks generally just fail if they go bad which is rare. So a non F55 Vette with 60k miles probably has 4 shocks that rebound at different rates while the F55 are pretty much the same.

3GenVettes

In the past and over the course of both the C5 and C6 generations, I've had 3 vettes with the Z51 suspension and 4 vettes with the F55 suspension. I've put thousands of miles on those cars on many different road surfaces and those experiences have spanned 13 plus years. The GS with F55 offers the blend of those two suspensions from the factory for the first time. Therefore, it was on my shopping list to get a GS equipped with F55.

IMO the car has bit more refined feel with the F55. Just driving down the road you generally cannot tell any difference by switching between the modes. However, I've been driving down a concrete interstate going twack, twack, twack at every expansion joint then realized I was in Sport mode and switched back to Tour and the expansions joint sound and feel was immediately and dramatically reduced. I've also driven various road sections multiple times in one mode versus the other and noticed the difference in the response. Now there are certain areas were I switch to Sport as I approach them because I know that's how I'm going enjoy it to the max.

It is prohibitively expensive to add F55 after the fact, so either you get with the car or you never have it. On the GS the F55 is a $1,695 option cost, in comparison the nav is a $1,795 option cost. For me the F55 is more valuable option than the nav. Of course, it is not bad at all to have both. I've only had my new GS for a week, so I've only got a bit over 200 miles on it, but my initial impression is that I'd buy it again. I was never disappointed with any of my previous vettes with the F55 and I was never disappointed with any of my vettes with the Z51, so why not have both blended together.

Wayne O

You're right...the difference between tour and sport mode is not in the firmness of the ride per se. This is a quote from Darin Dellinger...Darin was one of the lead Delphi engineer's responsible for the F55 system: "...In the "tour" position, the MR controller emphasizes the sky hook algorithm when setting shocks and when set in "sport", it emphasizes wheel control."

Darin also told me that many of the system engineer's argued against having any user input (no tour/sport mode switch) as the system could be setup to do it all. Marketing execs ruled the day...we have tour/sport modes.

Here's your image:

ncvette_1FUNRIDE

I have had my 2010 coupe with the F55 magnetic selective ride for close to 2 years now. On a smooth straight road you would not be able to tell the difference when you switched modes no matter how sensitive your 'butt' is.

But the best way to feel the differences in the 2 modes is when you are on very uneven pavement, maybe a very wavy road or going over a 'rumble' strip, going over speed bumps at say 15-20 mph, or going around a sharp corner fairly fast. Under those circumstances I can definitely tell a difference.

I would say that the sport mode is more like what a Grand Sport would feel like, only not as likely to loose contact going over a bumpy road at speed. I would think that the Touring mode would still be a little more firm than the stock shocks would be.

The F55 suspension was a MUST HAVE for me when I ordered my car.

diyguy

This has been so many time on both C5 and C6 models. I've had 2 with F45/55 and one without. There is a reason it worked out like that.

The naysayers can claim it worthless all they want. Fantastic option. Like having two suspension systems. It does ride a little 'rougher' but it's supposed to.

Get it....

Schtuggie

Usually keep mine in Tour mode, but those days that you want to let loose and have a road to match your mood...the more you push it, the more you will notice the difference. Spend the $ and go for it!

LDB

Agree with the comments in the thread about the feeling of control, keeping wheels in touch with the road, and the recommendations to get F55. But I wonder if the reason some replies steered away from saying there’s a softness issue is because some on the forum have dismissed F55 as being a sissy option. That was particularly true before ZR1’s and Z06’s started having F55 as standard, and “real men” had to have Z51. I remember getting badly speared by the Z51 mafia after a favorable post on F55 back when my 05 was new. For my part, I’d say F55 is clearly less harsh, which turned around is a softness issue. The comment earlier in the thread about feeling each seam in a concrete interstate while in sport mode and not feeling them in tour mode is both true, and to my thinking, a softness issue. Without F55, you also feel them. So yes, F55 in tour mode is clearly and obviously softer than base or Z51 suspension, at least as measured by the “seam in the road” test. When I got my F55 C6 after standard suspension C4 and C5, the non-scientific “amount of grumbling from the spouse in the passenger seat about harsh ride” test also agrees with that assessment.

Shrike6

After reading some of the other posts, I realize that I didn't accurately express the difference in the tour setting. On really crappy roads, like with continuous expansion seams that constantly give you that "bam,bam,bam, bam,bam" which is really annoying and rattles you and the car, you still get most of the sharpness in "sport", but "tour" mutes it effectively. The difference between my 2006 Z51 and my 2011 GS with f55 is night and day. I wouldn't buy another without it. For just puttering around on good roads, the settings don't feel different unless you start blasting through corners, then you can tell.

jimmie jam

well said. I don't leave home without my F55.

LDB

Agree with revised assessment. I would add that at least in my case, since most roads are at least somewhat rough, and since even in tour mode the cornering power and agility of the car is awesome, and since mine is a daily driver spending most of its time on mediocre roads, it’s in tour mode most of the time. That does a great job of minimizing the harshness that goes with firm, sports car ride, without giving up very much of the agility. Then, when I’m on a good road, and am specifically out to have a fun drive on that good road, I can dial it up to sport mode to get the last bit of agility and handling that a car like the Vette offers.

C7Joy

That's a pretty fair summary.

frankgtb

just did 2500 miles in 3 days with an 06 a6 with f55

played with the switch constantly purposely driving over bumps and never noticed even a slight difference

magnetic shock fluid was all the rage when ferrari started using it but from what i read on the vettes its more a marketing tool than an improvement on the stopwatch or ride comfort

LDB

It wouldn’t be an F55 thread if it didn’t have a few posts saying that F55 is a worthless gimmick. I don’t know if those posts are from people who like to post BS just to create controversy, or are people who genuinely can’t tell the difference. If they can’t tell the difference, there are only two possible explanations (or three if you count the possibility that the car they are driving has a malfunctioning F55 system). The first is that they aren’t very sensitive to differences in ride and handling. The second is that their frame of reference is a Lincoln Town Car, or similar marshmallow ride. The difference between F55 on sport versus tour is indeed teeny relative to the difference between a Vette and a Town Car, and thus the sport/tour difference could be invisible to someone who was expecting F55 to result in (perish the thought) a Vette with mushy boulevard ride. But as indicated by most posts in this thread, the difference is more than sufficient for many Vette owners not only to notice it, but to strongly recommend it. And please notice that this post does not say you are nuts if you don't like F55. If you don't, you are certainly entitled to that opinion. The only opinion that in my view would be wrong would be an opinion that there is no ride/handling difference.