Test drove a RS5 SB (former owner of a S5 SB)
 

Curious if others who have either purchased or test driven a RS5 SB found the drive to be a bit harsh. Please don't think I am knocking on the vehicle. It is gorgeous in every way but I was surprised the drive felt harsh. What are your honest thoughts, any buyer's remorse. Are you happy with the drive. I truly welcome your feedback.

It's a higher performance car. It wouldn't surprise me if its tuned a bit more for a harsher ride for better dynamics. Curious, why did you give up your S5?

You have to be more specific. How was it configured? The RS5 can be had with two different suspensions. The standard suspension is a fixed suspension, meaning it doesn't change between the modes. The optional Dynamic Ride Control suspension, which is part of the Dynamic package, can be adjust from Comfort to Auto to Dynamic, so the question is what suspension did you test drive and if it had the DRC, what mode did you drive in? On top of all this is the tire pressure, which unfortunately can be all over the place. Incorrect tire pressure will mess up the ride and in my experience, dealerships are not great at inflating the tires properly. I can tell you this, I took an RS5 Coupe on one of my favorite 200+ miles canyon loop and yes in Dynamic mode, the DRC suspension is pretty harsh and bouncy on less than perfect roads, but in Comfort mode for a performance car it's quite comfortable. I have no experience with the fixed suspension in the B9 RS5, but I suspect it's somewhere between Comfort and Dynamic of the DRC suspension. But expect the ride of cars at this level to be on the firm side of comfortable.

Like mentioned by others, you probably had the suspension in Dynamic setting, which I personally won't ever use on public roads. Auto mode is the perfect setting for the RS5 SB, I feel the ride is much better than even the fixed sport suspension in my A5 SB S-line

I would love to test drive one, but am too afraid it will make me want to get one.

I feel like most companies slap on rock hard suspension to equal sporty. I remember the older Merc c43 with zero suspension travel was "sporty".

The main goal for the suspension of a sporty car is chassis control. Specifically reducing body roll, squat and dive. The expectation for a sporty car is that it stays somewhat flat around corners, doesn't try to dig the nose into the pavement when braking hard and doesn't point the nose at the sky under hard acceleration like you are trying to leave earth. This is primarily achieved by stiffening the springs, sway bars and the damping, but that goes completely against what's needed for more comfort. Stiffer sway bars for example ensure the car stays flat, but they restrict independent suspension travel at each corner, so if one wheel hits a bump, the stiffer the sway bar more of that impact is transferred to the wheel on the other side and the less comfortable the impact is. Comfort and dynamic handling are at complete opposite ends of the suspension design spectrum. Adaptive suspensions try to give you both, by relaxing some of the components when in comfort mode for a less stiff setup and tighten it up in the sport settings for better chassis control, but there's only so much that can be done. Most of these suspensions only control one aspect, and most often that's the damping. The springs and sway bars stay fixed, so they need to be somewhat of a compromise to provide comfort as well as dynamic handling and the suspension electronics can help by changing the compression and rebound characteristics of the dampers, but comfort mode is always relative to how stiff you want it in the most sporty setting. The stiffer the most sporty setting is, the stiffer comfort mode is also. Comfort mode on those suspensions doesn't mean it can go from F1 car stiff to Buick comfortable by simply pressing a button.

Air suspensions on the other hand change the spring rate and the damping rate, so they are capable of a wider range between the comfort and most sporty settings, and then there is the suspension that McLaren puts in their higher end series, which doesn't have a sway bar and instead has active components at each corner that control body roll, squat and dive and can make the ride super comfortable in comfort mode. They are the most comfortable riding sports cars that you can currently get for when you are not trying to channel Nico Rosberg, but it's all a matter of complexity and cost.

No buyers remorse for me, almost 5 months in. Very stiff on public roads in dynamic settings. It’s a no go in most of New England.

I use auto or comfort for suspension. When in those modes its not as smooth of a ride as my E500 was with air suspension but its pretty close.

Very nice commentary superswiss.

I purchased a Porsche Macan GTS which is my current daily.