mcdream

Not sure if this is necessary since for me at least the front was already lower than the rear with stock settings. Theoretically if you change coding correctly then everything should be ok since when you raise or lower the car from MMI lights adapt to height change as well. Need to confirm this theory tho

MP4.2+6.0

Headlight leveling is controlled separately and takes its basic "orders" from the sensors on the suspension arms tell the control unit how high each end is. It just adapts as things go up and down. I changed mine differentially, in my case more in the rear; same net headlight positioning.

Separately, may be a good idea to check headlights anyway. I do so on all the Audi's I have owned.

* This assumes it's done w/ VAG COM. If instead it is done w/ lowering links that are of differential length for some reason, then you are modifying the sensor units. Now I would re check. Not many seem to use lowering links, especially w/ the VAG COM mod known for some years now.

bmwm750

I'll be doing this with VCDS when I'm home in a few days, probably not the worst idea to check the headlight leveling anyway, now that you mention it though.

bmwm750

OK, just got done doing this, and have a question. I used the "0011210" coding (for a 20mm front and 15mm rear drop), and after adaptation, both fronts match up within a mm or two of the 376mm expected measurement, but in the rear, the driver side will not go lower than 367 or 368, whereas the passenger will not go higher than 360 or 361, compared to the expected measurement of 363.

I did the adaptation 3 times, with a brief drive between each one. Is this close enough to just live with (visually I can't see a different from side to side in the back), or is this an indication that, for whatever reason, my car just won't go this low, and I should try coding it 5mm higher?

mcdream

Rear end is pretty hard to get right, small height difference shouldn't be a real problem but I managed to get mine about the right height after trying different methods. I found that lowering the rear end just a little bit didn't work well. I got all but one rear wheel to the right height. Tried lowering it few mm at a time but that didn't make much of a difference. After experimenting with 5-10 mm lowering and rising I got it correctly. Also rising one rear side and lowering the other at the same time seemed to help too.

MP4.2+6.0

1. I found on mine I just couldn't get consistent code settings from side to side, but that visually it was in the right place. So, I just went with that. Took several passes to get even nd to net height I wanted.

2. I remember other posts along the way from the early era of this where folks couldn't get it to more than a certain number of mm, so indeed backed it off some as you are thinking. FWIW, I also found ride started to go to h@#$ in general as I got aggressive on lowering it (only was testing; I didn't intend to set it there anyway, so I backed it off). I ended up down only about 10mm in the front and a bit more in the rear IIRC, though I could code it lower successfully. Reasons I settled there are mentioned in my reply today to an Audi 20" wheel post--netting to no lower body/ground clearance than a non sport A8 with stock 18's and 19's. I tried to find a happy median with the real world of gutter swales, parking curbs, etc. Years later, I think I got there. My C5 A6--even at a bigger RS6 tire diameter but otherwise at stock non-Sport ride height and with lots of resulting fender gap--hits underneath and bottoms its chin more than my A8.

bmwm750

I'm sorry, but could you explain what you mean by "rising one side and lowering the other?" Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you do the adaptation, you're supposed to be entering the actual values of ride height for each corner, so exactly what are you rising (I'm assuming you meant "raising" here anyway) or lowering?

bmwm750

Even after driving mine a bit, the rear is still off about 5mm side to side, but visually, it is indiscernible. I haven't actually found really any penalty to the car's ride from where it was before, even in Dynamic.

However, if I did want to raise the rear 5mm in hopes of getting it even, would I change the second digit in the coding, or the first? (I'm assuming that of the original "55" coding that the second is for the rear).

mcdream

Sorry about typos and stuff, had a nice hangover from last night when I wrote it. Anyway, theoretically you're supposed to enter the real values, but in my case I just gave it a little bit wrong values. Forget about getting the car to lower like 2 mm or so, minimum number that I saw any real difference with was 5 mm. With raising one side and lowering the other I meant that I told the car that one side was lower than it should have been (although in reality it was at the correct height) and the side I wanted to lower I told it was about 5-10mm higher than it actually was. I found out that even if I told the car to lower one corner like 10 mm, it didn't lower correctly (in reality it lowered itself maybe 7-8 mm). So I just played around with those values a bit until I got it right. In the end I got the values maybe 2-3mm off but that could just as well be measuring error, so I left it at that.

bmwm750

OK, so in my case, the rear driver side needs to go lower, while the rear passenger side needs to go higher. In order to "trick" the system's math into making this right, do I tell it that the driver side is higher or lower than it actually is? (Obviously vice versa for the passenger)