Raj1471

I was getting the dreaded "Vehicle rising..please wait" message when starting the car after it sat parked overnight but it would soon inflate the rear air springs (mostly the droopy left rear) and I would once again put off the air spring service that I knew the car needed. I would hear the compressor pump cycle on and off randomly while driving to maintain the air pressure but still tried to delay the inevitable. Well as luck would have it while driving recently I got the "Malfunction" message on the dash and felt the left rear of vehicle noticeably lose its dampening ability while driving. Immediately the "Vehicle rising...please wait" message was displayed. Well at this point I was driving @ 60 mph on a parkway near my home and felt the vehicle riding dynamics degrade but not to the point that I thought I would have to pull over and call a tow truck. I was able to drive the car home safely and now knew that there was no prolonging the air spring service. I read as many of the previous posts and detailed directions by the members here (shout out to member T100T for his detailed directions) relating to working on the air springs and watched as many YouTube videos on the subject as well prior to lifting the car up on my QuickJack. The bottom of the left rear air spring was a bear to get out...I live in NY where salt, sand and brine is copiously spread out at even the hint of snow lol. I was eventually able to hammer out the air spring from the bottom and noticed that the recess had rust and road grime/dirt in it which prevented the air spring from coming out easily. I chose the Arnott air springs (part #'s A-2791 for the left and A-2790 for the right) as the replacement for the oem equipment from the previous positive reviews it received and the cost factor vs. MB labeled parts. I replaced only the left air spring this time because of time constraints and because of how long it took to get the rust frozen air spring out. I will replace the right air spring this upcoming weekend. All told it took approximately 3 hours to replace the rear which included freeing up the rusted in air spring. After the new air spring was fitted, the next morning I noticed that the ride height on the rear was uniform and that the vehicle didn't have any messages regarding the air springs. I expect that the right side will require less time as I am now familiar with the procedures involved. If anyone is in the same situation and needs advice/tips on how to tackle this job, don't hesitate to message me and I will provide any help that I can. Once again a great big thanks to the members here who make this forum an invaluable resource for diyers like myself!!

BenzV12

I'm glad it worked for you and also appreciate your sharing it with the forum members as well. Such topics and members are what make a forum a forum to me. Valuable members make the forums great

AllPhonesAretap

You have a quickjack so some time before you go in, ideally, 24 hours+, take the wheel off, lift the car up and attack every single thing you're going to touch with wd40 and rust penetrant. they're not a meme they really help, be very liberable in application, try to work some into the hole where the strut goes into the control arm, you know the one where you have to hold a nut and turn the bolt? if that doesn't work buy the replacement nut/ bolts ahead of time and prepare to apply heat