mgiara

Has anyone replaced their airmatic with traditional shocks and struts?
eBay is saying that many of these fit (I know, likely not reliable info). I'm down to be the guinea pig if not.

KlausPA

The ones in that link look exactly like the ones installed in my S212 from factory. I would imagine they fit any W212.

cetialpha5

Kind of expensive for used struts and springs. Get the Bilstein struts from Rockauto. The spring will be a bit trickier as normally you just look up the part on EPC but EPC will tell you to get the airmatic. I suppose you could look up an E350 with the same springs. You'll need the whole package though which would include the strut mount and bearing plus the cover and bump stop. Probably almost the same price as that used strut assembly.

ChrisHimself

No but you can use the chinese-made stuff you can buy on amazon/ebay. I've seen these work. as far as longevity who knows but I've been installing customer-supplied gong farmer parts on S430/S500 for a while now and I haven't heard back from thse people for 2 years. Thats about all the data I have

Would i recommend you do this with bushings/control arms/brakes? No. On something like a shock? Maybe experiment a little before you go installing the wrong parts on a car. You'd also need to dupe the cars electronics since they'll see a fault and it'd be trying to level itself with data from the headlight level sensor