Cars × Engineering
Valveless: How Iron Dust and a Magnetic Field Replaced Every Moving Part in a Shock Absorber
Marcus Thorne · Apr 10, 2026
Inside a MagneRide damper, there are no mechanical valves, no shims, and no moving parts in the piston. Carbonyl iron particles suspended in synthetic oil form chains in a magnetic field, changing viscosity in under a millisecond. Here is how it works and why GM, Ferrari, and Lamborghini chose it.