Since the nonlinearity and uncertainties which inherently exist in vehicle system need to be considered in active suspension control law design, this paper proposes a new control strategy for active vehicle suspension systems by using a combined control scheme, i.e., respectively using a genetic algorithm (GA) based self-tuning PID controller and a fuzzy logic controller in two loops. In the control scheme, the PID controller is used to minimize vehicle body vertical acceleration, the fuzzy logic controller is to minimize pitch acceleration and meanwhile to attenuate vehicle body vertical acceleration further by tuning weighting factors. In order to improve the adaptability to the changes of plant parameters, based on the defined objectives, a genetic algorithm is introduced to tune the parameters of PID controller, the scaling factors, the gain values and the membership functions of fuzzy logic controller on-line. Taking a four degree-of-freedom nonlinear vehicle model as example, the proposed control scheme is applied and the simulations are carried out in different road disturbance input conditions. Simulation results show that the present control scheme is very effective in reducing peak values of vehicle body accelerations, especially within the most sensitive frequency range of human response, and in attenuating the excessive dynamic tire load to enhance road holding performance. The stability and adaptability are also showed even when the system is subject to severe road conditions, such as a pothole, an obstacle or a step input. Compared with conventional passive suspensions and the active vehicle suspension systems by using, e.g., linear fuzzy logic control, the combined PID and fuzzy control without parameters self-tuning, the new proposed control system with GA-based self-learning ability can improve vehicle ride comfort performance significantly and offer better system robustness.