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I'm about to bite the bullet here and do a rear conversion from airmatic to coils and shocks ....Arnott & Bilsteins.
Can I get opinions on how the ride and height will be. I'm on the fence of doing the change , but the way it is now I never know when the passenger side of the car will be up or down . I have a 2004 E320 4matic Wagon 80,000 miles on it and clean as a whistle. I do plan to keep the car for a long long time as a daily driver. ........ Let me hear it Fella's..................
Too bad no replies - I'm in a similar situation although I'm not convinced about going with a conversion kit yet. I have an '06 E500 sedan and my entire passenger side is down (had to get towed 100 miles back home to the tune of $800).
1985(W126)500SE, 1994(W124)E420 1991(R129)500SL and The Mothership 2009 CLK550
The Strutmaster coil spring conversion kit is the gold standard for this procedure, and it runs a grand USD, which includes an electronics module that will turn off the dash warming lights when the conversion is in place. This same topic was brought up a day ago in this forum, by pure coincidence.
For an idea of customer satisfaction with the Strutmaster conversion kit, visit Youtube, and search for the CONFORTI BROTHERS, who made a video describing their approval of the Strutmaster setup, in their W211 E550. The Strutmaster website has various versions for different Mercedes models, and selecting the right kit for your car will ensure that you have smooth sailing from there on out.
As discussed earlier the problem with both strut master and arnott on the wagon is they reuse the airbag rear control arm and an adapter plate to make it work with a coil spring. The very short spring has to be made much stiffer which ruins the ride quality of your wagon.
W211 factory rear coil spring 8.5 coils.
Arnott coil spring conversion 6 coils. If you look carefully you'll notice the top and bottom coil are folded in and touching the previous coil so that last coil isn't doing any work under load. Its just there to seat the spring since theres no spring seat in the Arnott design.. That leaves 4 coil doing the suspension work.
This is the factory lower rear control arm designed to work with coil springs on the W211. The spring is seated inside the control arm so the entire length of the spring can work.
Airbag suspension cars used this control arm where a single bolt holds the air bag between the 2 forks.
Both Arnott and Strutmaster half *** the conversion by reusing the airbag control arm with a shorter coil spring and an aluminum block adapter in between. It sort of works but ruins the ride quality. If you're going to do a coil spring conversion, get the control arms designed for coil springs and proper springs to go with it.
1985(W126)500SE, 1994(W124)E420 1991(R129)500SL and The Mothership 2009 CLK550
Hello Tjts1 . From a theoretical standpoint your mention of the shorter spring length used in the Strutmaster coil spring conversion kit makes perfect sense, yet, in the Youtube video posted on this very subject by the Conforti Brothers, regarding the coil spring conversion they carried out on their E550, mention was made of the fact that the rear suspension of their vehicle wound up sitting too high, after that conversion, necessitating a complaint to Strutmasters, who were then was kind enough to send the Conforti Brothers a slightly shorter set of springs for the rear of their E550. That anecdotal account does seem to contradict the notion that such coil spring conversions may be problematic due to the replacement coil springs being a tad too short.
I confess that my knowledge on this subject is not based on personal experience with Strutmaster coil conversion kits for the E550, but that said, I have researched this subject exhaustively via the University of Youtube, in preparation for the day when I eventually track down an affordable 2009 W211 E550, which I plan to convert immediately from air to coil springs, regardless of the condition of that dicey stock air suspension.
To answer the OPs question all the information I posted was for a wagon. The wagon runs shorter shocks and springs than the sedan to facilitate it's wide flat load floor. I looked into a coil spring conversion for my wagon and talked to two people who got the arnott coil spring conversion and both were unhappy with the ride quality. One actually switched back to rear airbags. If you look at the wagon rear coil spring conversion strutmaster offers it looks identical to arnott. That is very short coil springs adapted to work with the airbag control arm. If I ever go to coil springs I'm doing it the right way with coil spring control arms from a base V6 sedan and appropriate springs.
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