Merlin1

Update.
Car at dealer today just been told one of the rear suspension units is leaking air from valve.
New suspension unit on order due to arrive/be fitted in the morning.

Merlin1

New near side rear suspension unit appears to have fixed the problem

jumpman726

That's good to hear. Thanks for keeping us updated.

dspogreev

Having the same issue - extremely bumpy and rough ride on my C400 with airmatic. Took car more than 6 times to MB service, at first they replaced middle console that i paid 350 for, that didn't fix issue, then i took it back - car is driving so hard my head hurt, they said issue was with "pins" - have no clue what this is but entire airmatic suspension completely locks and is as hard as it can be. no luck second time, brought third time - they are looking at me like i am crazy, took them for test drive and service guys said that car is driving fine - NO, it's not! i drove car for a year and it was fine, it's not fine anymore... story continued, car spent several weeks in service center, more than 6 trips to service no luck... they keep saying that computer shows no errors and computer is so smart that it knows everything and that means i have no issues at all and pretty much implying that i am dumb human who doesn't know better... damn! what a customer service! Car shakes so much that my hands get numb from steering wheel vibrating while driving on freeway for 20+ minutes - that is electronic steering that's not connected to column so shouldn't happen at all, yeah, i am the one who's dumb and computer is "perfect" [sarcasm] Verdict: 6+ trips to service, almost 8 months of frustration trying to resolve it, no resolution, loved MB all my life but so sick of this issue, makes me hate my car and the brand... i actually took it to two different dealerships, two foreman were involved and best thing they could say: oh, it's driving hard because you have run flats - nope, why it didn't drive like this first year? then second excuse was: "oh it's airmatic suspension - it's so smart that it adopts to driving conditions that's why it's hard" - nope, that's not what airmatic description is, actually airmatic supposed to do exactly opposite... i have no clue what to do, i loved this car, i bought it with every single feature/package i could get because i planned to keep it for as long as i can so i got everything i wanted or could but i guess i got some garbage that no one can fix. WHAT DO I DO NOW? any ideas are appreciated. I sort of blame steering recall software upgrade since it started right after upgrade but reading this thread sounds it could be something else?

ManiacGT

Sorry to hear of your woes, perhaps try pestering MB customer services or another dealer?

I do have to point out a couple of observations. The steering is connected to the column/rack. It has electric power assistance not steer by wire afaik. Also, airmatic on the C is not fully adaptive and if you drive it hard it will stiffen, though on rough roads and slow driving it is supposed to be soft (personally I find sharp bumps on my 19" run flat tyres to be very harsh).

S500Sport

I was wondering, is there any literature on the C43/C450 suspension out there? Can someone link it?

Thank you.

Mike5215

When you set the various ride heights...Lift, Comfort, Sport, Sport +... does the car respond? If you put the car in park and change the settings, can you take a tape measure and measure the height (and post them)? AirMatic is essentially a load-leveling air spring in lieu of a fixed steel spring.

Ride quality is relative to ride height which in turn is determined by the amount of air being maintained in the springs. The system relies on sensors at each front wheel and one on the rear axle to continuously report the ride height to the controller. The controller in turn can quickly inject air from a pressurized reservoir, or vent air out, as needed to maintain ride height. If the load changes (like when you're filling the gas tank) and causes the car to drop, AirMatic compensates and restores the selected ride height.

Lift puts the most air in the springs, then Comfort etc. If the car is responding to height commands, AirMatic is functioning normally.

If the car will hold a selected height, it's likely not an AirMatic problem. On the other hand, if there's a leak somewhere, the compressor will run non stop trying to compensate but the system won't throw any codes until the compressor burns itself out and fails.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding the AirMatic on this forum maybe because it's the first time it's been offered on the C, but the system has been around at least sixteen years. It's a fairly "dumb" system as far as an active suspension is concerned. It's not "adaptive" in the way that a transmission ECU or engine ECU can "learn" your personal driving style and alter its mapping. It has no adaptive mapping, and almost no mapping at all, other than to automatically lower itself past a given speed. It doesn't know that yesterday you drove on a really bumpy road so today its going to perform differently.

It only knows two things, in real time: How high the car should be riding, and how high the car is actually riding. It has exactly one trick in its bag: to manage the amount of air in the air spring chambers. If you get into a turn and the body starts to roll, the ride height on one side goes high, and the other goes low. AirMatic compensates by adding air to the low side and evacuating air from the high side to level the car out. No mapping, no secondary control over the attached hydraulic strut's resistance or rebound. Just more air or less air, as conditions dictate.

Mike5215

Here's where my AirMatic car sits on Comfort:


Good deal of clearance between the wheel and fender/quarter.

Merlin1

UPDATE: Well it didn't and what they actually changed was the shock absorber, yes it was better but not right. I took car in again a couple of months later and was told couldn't find anything wrong but agreed it did bang over bumps but was perfectly safe.
So a year on, car has been in today for service and they found that the shock absorber was leaking oil so are again fitting a new on, under warranty, I'm not hopeful but we will see.

Merlin1

traveller78

I own a C200 with airmatic. I had a broken damping solenoid on the rear left strut. While waiting for the new one to be delivered, I drove the car as per normal on my daily commute. As rightly pointed out by some members here, the airmatic does have a default mode for failure. Meaning no damping, hence the rock hard feel when driving in an airmatic malfunction mode. This probably its default mode since the strut is telling the ECU that 1 strut has failed.

I have a question though, in the normal sport mode, does your airmatic feel floaty while going through corners? I have this feeling that it is not really planted and tends to dip into the corner.