<p>This paper proposes a systematic approach to lateral stability analysis and coordinated control to address the issue of lateral instability in sport utility vehicles (SUVs) with air suspension systems under specific driving conditions. Firstly, a three degree of freedom dynamic model is established to accurately represent the lateral dynamic behavior of an air suspension SUV, taking into account the nonlinear mechanical characteristics of both air springs and tires. To analyze the stability of this high-dimensional, complex system, center manifold theory is employed for dimensionality reduction. Subsequently, a qualitative analysis of the reduced-order system is conducted, deriving the necessary and sufficient conditions for the system to undergo saddle-node bifurcation. Based on this, phase plane analyses are performed under four different operating conditions to reveal the mechanism of lateral instability in air suspension SUV under specific driving scenarios, providing a basis for weight distribution in the coordinated controller. The coordinated control strategy incorporates two sub-controllers: an active front steering sub-controller designed using a nonlinear model predictive control algorithm, and a direct yaw moment control sub-controller designed using the adaptive second-order integral terminal sliding mode algorithm. The two controllers cooperate to control according to the collaborative rules to maintain vehicle stability Hardware-in-the-loop simulation results demonstrate that the proposed coordinated control strategy, compared with traditional controllers, can effectively enhance the lateral stability of SUVs equipped with air suspension systems under various operating conditions.</p>