I know this is frowned upon, but I ordered all four coil overs struts including module for under 2,000 and I really cannot tell the difference in ride quality, what I do know is I'll never have to worry about any suspension failures forever and can drive cross country without any worries, it's not for everyone but it works and it's a great piece of mind for anyone that's ever thought about it. My suspension was slammed up front one morning and I pulled the trigger and never looked back. 06 flying spur.

 

Hello @sam08861 ,
Sorry I did not see this sooner.

If I were you I would be contacting Vigor again to get the straight answer as to the OEM original factory designed variable active dampening, as your use of the term "continuous dampening" kind of gives the company a gray area to not be straight with you, as a "fixed dampening valve" is always dampening, just at a fixed rate, not variable.

The air bag portion of the strut controls the height and cushion of the ride to a degree, that always remains, the active dampening valve inside the strut itself is what gives the four settings of comfort to sport, or as you said, "soft, medium, sport", without active dampening you no longer would have these settings, or they may still be in the menu, but would do nothing regardless of what setting you choose.

I wrote Vigor also, below is my email to them, and their response, the response came from Sheldon, and he stated that they are "non-active (fixed) dampening", not the response that you received.

The give away to me was that they listed the same strut for all models, the base GT, the Speed, and the Supersports, along with the Flying Spur, anyone doing a search will find that the Speed and Supersports have different struts then the base GT, as is shown by the different part numbers.

This practice of selling these struts without disclosing the non OEM design of active dampening is, I think fraud or at least deception, I mean really, why even put the wire and plug on the strut, just as are-not did, if not only to deceive the buyer, a simple stand alone plug in resistor would do the job of fooling the suspension control module, not fooling the buyer with a wire coming out of the strut to look the OEM design.


Johnny

Email to Vigor

Hello,
In reference to the 2004 - 2010 Bentley Continental GT air suspension struts with active variable dampening, do your struts retain the factory designed oem active dampening, as we all know that the air portion of the strut is ride quality and to lift the vehicle to it's one highest level setting, as the Bentley GT and flying Spur's only have two settings for height, that being "Normal" and "Raised", the four setting of the active dampening range from comfort to sport, and these setting have to with the active dampener valve inside the strut body itself, So, does your strut retain the electronic oem active dampening, or is it a fixed dampening valve with a resistor inside the strut to fool the suspension control module into thinking that oem factory designed strut is installed on the vehicle ?

Also, you list the 2004 to say the 2010 GT along with the Flying Spur's to all have the same struts, but you also list the Speed and the 2010 - 2011 Bentley GT Supersports to have the same as the base GT or Flying Spur, that is not correct, the 2010 GT Supersports has different suspension struts that are a firmer sportier strut, with different active dampening valving and mapping.

I may have answered my own questions, as by your company listing all as using the same strut, I get the feeling that you may be selling a basic fixed dampening strut with the resistor to fool the suspension control module, but I will await your response before making any decisions on any needed future purchased.

Thank you.

Johnny


Vigor's (Sheldon) response.

Hi Johnny,


Thanks so much for your email. I've checked with our manufacturer just now and based on what they said, our strut is non-active (fixed) dampening.


The second part i have to double check with our technician department and you might be right. Thanks for pointing out this to us, we will make sure the information is up-to-dated.


I hope that answers your questions. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have more questions, Johnny!

​

Best Regards,

Sheldon

Vigor Air Suspensions

 

Thanks Johnny,

So far, the overall experience has been not so great with Vigor to be honest.

I had a niggling suspicion that wasn't the end all, given the brevity of my question and the responses. To be fair, I was a bit hasty in that I'd hoped to have received and installed them this past weekend, based on their information. A number of things have changed since I placed the order.
-

• Originally the listing stated 3-5 days shipping nationwide with no indication they would be shipped from overseas. This now states 7-15 days
• There used to be a picture that stated CDC "Continuous Damping Control" was preserved. This is no longer one of the pictures in the product listing.
• Currently the product is stuck in customs, which I don't blame Vigor for, but had they disclosed these were overseas parts and long lead times, I would not have ordered these.

Awaiting product delivery, which has been 'clearing customs' for the past 5 business day with no delivery date. Upon shipment the ups tracker stated Nov 29th delivery, but this has changed several times back to no date yet.

At this point, waiting for the product to get here, but do have a bit of buyers remorse given the numerous inconsistencies. Given the lowish cost, perhaps a lesson learned, but contemplating seeing if I can cancel the order for a refund.

Sam

 

As an update, the air struts from Vigor arrived last week and I've swapped one out and all is well, including the ride control, but hard to tell with only one swapped. Will swap out the 2nd and test again this weekend to see how this behaves and post some pictures when I'm back home this evening. I suppose one could put some voltage to the pins and listen for any oil valve movement inside the non-airbag portion of the strut, but I didn't try this, assuming it would be hard to detect. Might try to measure resistance and see if there are differences between OEM and non OEM.

Visually, they appear to have a few differences, indicating that they aren't from the OEM supplier.

Since there was no core charge/deposit, going to have my originals rebuilt so that I can get peace of mind and will be ready for any potential future failure.

edit... the pictures. You can see a few differences... Name on OEM fill valve is embossed "VOSS", nothing on aftermarket, slightly different mounting bolts, bridge clamps, weld points on auxiliary reservoir, etc.

 

I've just ordered a pair of the front suspension struts for my GT, I decided to go with the Aerosus, based on the recommendations. The Bilstein ones look great, but are more than double the cost over here. Whilst was was shopping, decided to pick up a new set of air suspension struts for my Land Rover Discovery 3 ( LR3), the prices were reasonable, and if they are good enough for my Bentley, they should be fine for the the Land Rover.

 

I did the same on a my 2005 GT and I don't regret it one bit.
@Tommy305 , are you getting all of the dashboard errors or did they have the module to turn them off? My only complaint is the error messages on the dashboard.

 

I got RMT in my 06 Flying Spur and also in my 14 GTC Speed. In both cases they are not in for a long time so I can't speak to durability. But they seem to act and perform exactly as the OEM's. And, yes they have variable dampening (plugs into OEM harness on top of strut) and appear to perform just like the old one. They should as RMT is rebuilding OEM's or so they claim. Time will tell I guess. Fortunately they are fairly easy to replace.