2007 E550 airmatic issue
 

As of today my passenger rear corner is completely bottomed out. Driver side rear seems low as well but it’s not completely dropped.

I pulled the wheel, trunk liner, and checked the junction block near the rear diff. Sprayed some soapy water but didn’t see any obvious problems. Once it’s started it raises back to normal and then takes about 30 minutes for the passenger rear to bottom out.

Any reason to think this is anything other other than a rear air spring? Looks like I’d have to do both sides for a parts cost of around $625. Hopefully I can do the work myself.


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High probability that its the rear bags.

After watching this video, I removed the old air line fitting while installing the Arnott rear spring. Now with everything back together, I can’t get the air line to seat/lock into the new voss fitting they provided. I’ve been at it for hours total. I bought both sides so I tried the fitting from the other air spring as well. I’ve tried a bit of oil, grease, eventually trimmed the air line down a couple mm with a razor etc. No matter what I do, the air line just slides out of the new fitting. I can’t press it in any harder. Has anyone else run into this?

Did you put the Voss fitting into the air spring first, before putting the air line into the Voss fitting? The air hose has a slight notch towards the end, that is what holds it in the voss fitting. If you've trimmed the end of the air hose, that may be why its not holding into the voss fitting now.

This may be helpful. It's not the greatest quality but he gets the job done.

What options do you have now? Epoxy it to the fitting?

Yeah the fitting is in the spring and then I removed the white clip. I tried getting the line in for quite some time before trimming the end. The end had some lines worn in from the old fitting so I thought maybe that was what was holding me up. It seems like the line is probably getting stuck on the collar at the end of the fitting. I’m not sure why this is so difficult.

Do you mean epoxy the collar onto the line?

Ended up getting it. Not sure what changed. I had tried the locking collar both ways and had no luck. This last time the collar seemed to seat better and finally the hose went in further. Passenger side is aired back up and seems to be holding. Time will tell if I still have issues or a new leak from that line.

I guess I’ll start on the driver side. I think I’ll just be reusing the oem fitting this time to save some headache. I’m going to attempt to remove the oem reservoirs as well. Also on the passenger side, I noticed a washer had fallen out but I’m not sure from which bolt. I think I only removed 4 bolts in total so I’ll try to be more aware of where it is on the driver side, then I’ll put it back on in the passenger side when I’m sure of where it goes.

I had a similar issue with my arnott rear bags. I could get the line all the way in, but if I pulled on it with any amount of force it would just pull back out. I ended up getting pissed and running out of time, shoved it in and called it a day. Its been nearly a year and its holding fine, hasnt leaked a drop. I spent more time messing with that damn air line than I did replacing the bags :wall:

That is amazing how it stays in place. You figure with all that air pressure going through that small air hose, it would pop out easily. But somehow it stays in place.

Same here on the time spent. I’m surprised it’s staying in for you if you can still pull it out by hand. On the driver side I reused the oem fitting which wasn’t particularly easy either. It didn’t really want to spin. I’ll see how it holds up overnight and decide if I need to use a new fitting. Hopefully not.

How do you like the Arnott rears? I’ve read mixed reviews about them being harsh, great, and that they disable the ADS. I believe the ads (comfort, sport1, sport2) are a function of the shocks so I’m hoping that still works. I’m assuming they’ll be more harsh due to lack of reservoirs but hoping not enough to notice.

its been about 6 hours now and it’s still raised. One side appears to be a bit higher in the rear but I have t taken measurements. It might be that my garage slants a bit to the middle.

The ONLY complaint that I have with them is the fact that mine make noise. On my set anyways, the upper holes for the retaining stud were bigger than the plastic bushings. So they tend to move around a little bit and make a slight clunk noise when going over larger bumps or half curbs (like entering a complex). I cant say for the harshness as my car is also lowered, so it doesnt ride all that great anyways. I dont think they are any harsher than the stock bags though.

The rear bag also has nothing to do with the ADS. That all works just the same.

This was my exact thought. I was pretty well pissed by the time I decided to just shove it in, tighten the fitting down and call it good. Its not been any issue though. *knock on wood*

Car was still raised this morning. Took a quick ride and seems to be okay. Didn’t notice any clunking or difference in ride quality. Instructions indicated I should get an alignment after the new air bags were installed, but nothing I removed seemed adjustable and it appears to be the same as before so I think I’ll skip the alignment for now.

ADS is in the shocks not the air bags; for the fronts since they are strutts new arnotts do not use ADS.

Arnott rears are good; I've had them installed for a few years now. About 30k miles on them. Great ride.

Took the car out for a while and it felt fine. When leaving the store though, I realized the car is sitting much higher. Particularly in the front. I didn’t change anything other than the rear bags though still I’m not sure why that would be. I normally have it in sport 1 and it is now and the raise function is off. I did try the raise function and it raises up further and goes back down as expected, but I would say there is nearly 2” more wheel gap in the front than there was before. Is there some kind of reset or relearn procedure? I had the battery disconnected during the swap.