Double Wishbone Suspension - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

The advantage of a double wishbone suspension is that it is fairly easy to work out the effect of moving each joint, so the kinematics of the suspension can be tuned easily and wheel motion can be optimized. It is also easy to work out the loads that different parts will be subjected to which allows more optimized lightweight parts to be designed. They also provide increasing negative camber gain all the way to full jounce travel, unlike the MacPherson strut, which provides negative camber gain only at the beginning of jounce travel and then reverses into positive camber gain at high jounce amounts.

The disadvantage is that it is slightly more complex than other systems like a MacPherson strut. Due to the increased number of components within the suspension setup it takes much longer to service and is heavier than an equivalent MacPherson design.