ZF Chassis Fitness Tracker: An 'Oil Life Monitor' For Car Suspension Parts?

Motor Trend

10-07-2025

It's a regular occurrence on America's crumbling infrastructure these days—you're driving along and when suddenly there's a hole or obstacle you can't avoid. The noise is scary loud, you watch the dash, but no tire-pressure warning comes on. Did that damage anything? At this year's IAA auto show in Munich, Global mega supplier ZF is introducing a Chassis Fitness Tracker system that will be able to inform drivers whether they need to pull over immediately, book a service visit ASAP, as soon as convenient , or whether there's no need to worry. And by continually monitoring all such chassis bumps and bruises accrued over time, Chassis Fitness Tracker can leverage AI to predict the likely failure timing of various components and recommend their timely replacement.
ZF's Chassis Fitness Tracker, debuting at the IAA auto show, uses AI and sensors to assess and predict chassis component wear and damage. It integrates with ZF's holistic chassis controls and can communicate road data for maintenance. It's part of ZF's advanced vehicle dynamic systems.
This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article Read Next Software Defined Feature, Hardware Enabled
Chassis Fitness Tracker is just one of many features that OEMs can pick and choose from among ZF's suite of holistic chassis controls envisioned to be capable of running on the centralized computer architecture rolling out on most new vehicles now being launched. This system can accept input from existing chassis sensors in use today, but it is optimized for a new ZF hardware offering: the Smart Chassis Sensor. Integrated into a ball joint, it's able to measure acceleration internally in all three dimensions to determine the relative movement of the vehicle body. It thus replaces numerous external sensors, some of which currently employ vulnerable external straps and levers. It entered series production this year on the Cadillac Celestiq. Can Chassis Fitness Tracker Extend Suspension Life?
The sensors informing ZF's Chassis Fitness Tracker are essentially mapping the surface of the roads the car drives down. ZF has studied business models for aggregating and selling this information to infrastructure maintenance organizations via V2X communications. This can in turn lead to improved roadways that are less damaging to the suspension, which might help everybody's tires, shocks, and bushings last longer. CubiX Tuner Chassis Controller
Rivaling similar offerings from other suppliers, ZF's CubiX Tuner is a user interface that makes it easier for engineers to tune their brand's particular ride and handling characteristics into a centralized computer architecture that may employ components shared across various brands or models. The idea is that once zonal architecture centralizes control of all chassis functions—damping, steering, braking, spring rates, stability control, even pitch-, yaw- and roll-control—all systems can operate in harmony. This allows the envelope of potential vehicle dynamic behavior to expand. Comfort mode can be more comfortable and less likely to induce motion sickness, while sport driving modes can permit more sportiness. By-Wire Steering and Braking
ZF also announced it is supplying the steer-by-wire system we covered extensively in the Nio ET9, and that Mercedes-Benz has signed a contract to apply this system to an undisclosed future product. Electromechanical brake-by-wire is also offered. Each of these systems—as well as ZF's sMOTION active chassis system (we've covered it on the Porsche Taycan and Panamera) bring with them additional sensing to better inform the Chassis Fitness Tracker and the promise of further expanding the envelope of what CubiX can accomplish in the programmable vehicle-dynamics realm.