Machined Car Suspension Parts Manufacturing

Machined car suspension parts are a vital part of global automotive manufacturing supply chains. Car suspension part manufacturing for OEM automotive brands depends upon the smart application of advanced technologies to make high quality front and rear car suspension parts, upper and lower control arms, wishbones and other vital chassis components.

Why are car suspension parts CNC machined?

There is more than one way to manufacture car suspension parts. Auto components are CNC machined or stamped, which includes forming and welding, to obtain a finished suspension component. For control arm manufacturing, both methods require an additional stage to insert a control arm bushing.

• car suspension parts
• front suspension parts
• rear suspension parts
• control arm bushings
• lower control arms
• upper control arms
• car suspension wishbones

Machined car suspension parts achieve a high strength to weight ratio with consistent quality control and fewer stages than other suspension component manufacturing processes. This can make it easier to automate production.

• High strength to weight ratio for lightweight suspension parts
• Can be easily automated with robotic manufacturing lines
• Designs can be modified and revised rapidly
• Can manufacture complex shapes that are difficult to stamp and form from sheet metal

CNC machined car suspension part manufacturing allows you to make small numbers of components cost-effectively and include modifications to your design without significant changes to the production workflow and processes.

CNC machining has transformed the automotive manufacturing industry since it became a standard component manufacturing method in the 1980s. We can now make specific shapes that are difficult to manufacture by stamping and forming and manufacture exact replicas of car suspension parts to specific engineering tolerances.

Machined car suspension parts are easy to modify and prototype

Subtractive manufacturing using tools to cut the desired profiles and forms from a blank or billet makes the design easy to modify without incurring additional expensive tooling costs. This is an advantage for prototyping over stamping and forming processes, which require retooling of dies to make changes to the design.

• Subtractive manufacturing enables rapid prototyping
• No expensive tooling or dies required
• Easily include new design features & optimizations
• Excellent for innovation and refinement of designs with testing labs

Prototyping is quicker and simpler with many CNC machined car suspension parts because it is easy to update the CAD design to make changes and convert this into a new program to cut a revised prototype. When a prototype that meets the exact engineering requirements is manufactured, it is easy to replicate this production version by uploading the instructions to any number of compatible machines.

When combined with a comprehensive quality control and testing facility, meeting International Automotive Task Force (IATF) standards, machined car suspension parts can be rapidly manufactured, tested, refined and redesigned while maintaining the highest levels of engineering quality and reliability.

How do car suspension part manufacturing methods compare?

Front suspension parts, rear suspension parts, lower control arms, upper control arms, wishbones and associated chassis manufacturing components can either be machined or manufactured by stamping and forming. Comparing these processes, we find five main features and benefits for car suspension part manufacturing.

• Machined car parts are cost effective for short to medium production runs
• Stamping & forming is cost effective for high volume manufacturing
• All modern car suspension component manufacturing relies on digital technology
• CNC technology enables rapid design modification and upgrades
• CNC machines can manufacture lightweight, high strength car suspension parts

Machined short production runs are cost effective

Machined short production runs are more cost effective than stamping and forming because the tooling required for stamping and forming is an expensive outlay, requiring custom manufacturing of dies and forms. This makes it sensible to investigate CNC options for short production runs.

Stamping & forming is cost effective for high volume production

Once a stamping and forming line is set up with the correct tooling it can be used to rapidly manufacture large numbers of identical parts to a high level of reliability as long as it is monitored and maintained correctly. If any design changes are required, however, it will require retooling and recommissioning of the line and process stages.

All modern car suspension component manufacturing relies on digital technology

In the modern automotive engineering world, where CAD, CAE and CAM have become dominant forces in auto component design, engineering and manufacturing, both stamping and forming and CNC machining rely on digital design and production methods to achieve consistent quality results for critically important components.

Subtractive machining enables rapid design modification and upgrades

Subtractive machining demonstrates clear advantages over stamping and forming for the ease with which designs can be modified and adjusted for new auto models and requirements as well as the comparative lower cost of smaller production runs compared to stamping and forming.

Machining of lightweight, high strength car suspension parts

Machining enables high strength, lightweight components to be made in a variety of alloys and in shapes that are difficult or impractical to form from sheet metal processes. For this reason and the others highlighted above, CNC subtractive machining is likely to remain one of the two dominant manufacturing processes for car suspension parts into the foreseeable future.

SH Auto Parts CNC machined car suspension components

SH Auto Parts runs parallel robotic production lines for CNC machined car suspension components at our Smart Factory in Taiwan, quality certified to IATF 16949 standards. SH Auto Parts manufactures auto components for global brands and we have a highly experienced team of designers and quality managers as well as a fully equipped state of the art quality testing and engineering facility. Contact us to discover how we can help you manufacture your machined car suspension component designs.