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I have a 2005 E500, base model RWD. A month after I bought it one of the air springs up front had a leak, turns out the owner got reman Arnotts, so they had a lifetime warranty and all I had to pay was labor, still $400, but less than both parts and labor. Strut replaced, car drives well and good for a few more months. Now I'm here, 9 months down the line, and I suspect the car may have air line leaks somewhere up front. Whereas before only the leaking strut's side would fall down overnight, the entire front end of the car comes to rest on the parking block overnight, sometimes during the day as well as little as 4 hours after parking the car. My icarsoft scanner confirms as much with a simple code claiming "There is an Airline Leak" or something to that effect in just as blunt terms.
Anyway, my mind has already been made up about converting the car, I always had it in Sport 2 mode anyway so ride quality is not my concern so much as reliability. What I want to know is that since the wagons only had partial air suspensions in the rear, would it be possible to convert only the fronts to coil springs right now, and then convert the rears down the line as they're currently working fine? From my reading the front and rear are independent of each other as far as the air supply is concerned, as well as the rears having their own level sensor, but will removing the front air springs and level sensors compromise the rear's performance provided all stays the same in that region of the car? I can live with error messages for the time being. I'm already constantly pestered by SOS teleaid reminding me that it calls home to tech that no longer exists since it recently decided to phone home again and leaves a persistent white error on the dash. My E500 is the silver one, my dad's was already converted at all 4 corners prior to him purchasing it. I've always envied how connected I felt when driving his car, a feeling my car doesn't have. Even in sport 2 it feels detached from the road to me.
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