I know I've seen this on here before, but am unable to find it searching through the forum.

How exactly does the CATS System work? I understand that over a certain speed the car lowers itself? What speed? What else does this system do? Is it impacted by sport mode? DSC? How does it interact with the suspension system?

Thanks for your help,

Eric

 

CATS uses motion detectors in the car to decide if it needs to firm up the shock abosrbers, either LH or RH, or front or rear depending on the motion of the car. There are only two settings, hard and normal. There is a long description in my Jaguar Technical Notes of 2003.5,but it's late and I'm going to bed ! Those who fit steel coils lose this feature.

 

Check the document attached to post #4 in this thread:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-switch-73487/

That is the overview from JTIS and gives a pretty good description on how it works in an XK. The XJ is similar but has the added aspect of the air suspension, which the XK doesn't so I'm not sure about the lowering at speed part.

It is not connected to sport mode at all, unless you do something like the mod described in that thread.

 

OK, it's morning and I've had my coffee !

In my Technical Notes, CATS is also called 'Adaptive Damping' which gives the main clue as to the functionality. It is designed to improve: -

• control when accelerating or braking
• car stability when making lane change manoevres
• stability and comfort when cornering.

The dampers are switched between 'Soft' and 'Firm'. The electronics are contained in the Air Suspension Module (ASM). The system is fully automatic and gives no visual indication of operation such as switching between settings.

Whilst the dampers are switched in pairs, the notes imply that dampers can be switched individually too, but this is not specifically stated, just that the system will switch settings depending on the state of the vehicle.