For those who have driven both Gen 4 and Gen 5, how noticeable are the improvements in ride comfort and cabin noise? Toyota mentioned chassis and suspension updates—do they actually translate into a quieter or smoother daily drive?
I am recovering from a broken back that happened over a month ago. I don't feel any comfort in my ride. In fact, it hurts every time I drive over a bump.
I'm not sure if it's caused by the cold temperatures on the shock absorbers. But quality shock absorbers should work well in cold temperatures.
Get well soon! Put everything you got into your physical therapy schedule so you get better! Most people don't realize that getting healthy again versus a lifetime of debilitating chronic pain is mostly defined about hard they go with their PT discipline!
Decent struts / shocks normally have bypass ports that permit oil flow around a damping shim stack, when temps go low and increase viscosity. However lots of OEM struts / shocks have only the most rudimentary damping to juuust satisfy engineering briefs. Off-road racing shocks can even tune for specific damping during bypass as well, to keep performance consistent despite ambient temps. But for most milquetoast, non-high-perf AWD dampers... colder means stiffer, at least until the oil warms to baseline temp (determined during design). Worn shocks can have damping oil even more viscous due to particulate clogging ports and increasing resistance to flow. --- I remember having to assemble Yamaha XVS650 V-Star 650 cruisers for the showroom of my dealership. They initially came with no damping oil in the front forks, in order to satisfy some regulation (which chg'd later)... so a big bottle of beer-coloured oil were strapped into the crate for tech to prep... The oil they used, was fish oil -- literally, waste fish oil of sufficient performance characteristics w/ certain additives, to become the de facto 650 V-Star's fork oil (at least during mfr). When some of these bikes came in years later for fork seals... holy HELL that organic oil was rancidified into a literal room-clearing bomb, as soon as that fork cap came off. Choking back heaves as I cleaned the parts, re-assembled w/ a synthetic oil and fresh seals and test-rode. 100% better ride vs. a new V-Star 650, exact same everything else. Yamaha got something that satisfied the ground floor of engineering brief but least-expensive... and it were effing fish oil. Not sure if that applies to car dampers... but given hugely greater volumes than motos don't see why they wouldn't, since customers would just chuck an old one & never break open an OEM shock or strut for repair
