weimingmri

Five month, 5000 miles , airmatic's air compressor was busted . Dashboard shown airmatic malfunction , vehicle swung and bumpy than usually.
Dealer changed an air compressor , and provided a free service 1 .

Any one met such fualty air compressor before?

oknish

Quite a few airmatic failures of front suspensions were reported in the initial builds of GL. However, it seems that the problem was fixed in later builds. Looks like yours might have been an exception. Sorry to hear about it but looks like dealer did you right.

nantucketsleigh

Rear suspension on mine went at 2500 miles. November 2006 build. Dealer said airmatic compressor failures have become common across MB lineup.

amgbg

What does the dash display when there is an airmatic problem? My wife said she has seen on the dash a picture of the car with an arrow pointing up and the word malfunction showing up. It has happen several times last week and I have yet to see it myself. This moring I noticed a weird sound from the front right side of the car, so I made an appointment at the dealership. Is this the airmatic suspension?

amgbg

weimingmri

I think so . I had the same sign on dash

vinceching

no, it is the air compressor that failed which is causing that loud sound.

you can make the airmatic malfunction warning come up more quickly by pushing the raising button and then trying to lower it. it will come on in a few mins once the computer figures out there is something wrong.

amgbg

The GL just came back from 1 day at the dealership. They said the airmatic compressor was leaking oil and had to replace it. I hope we don't have to have it replaced every 10K miles.

amgbg

Underwhelmed

We got the diagram of the car with the 'up' arrow and the word "malfunction" on the display yesterday at about 7500 miles. Car seemed to drive ok butI made an appt at the dealership.

Anyone know if it is dangerous/damaging to drive it short distances?

Anyone know how long it takes to fix?

Blk04cobra1

Unfortunately this has been a common fault on the GL's...it's an easy fix and normally takes less than a day if the parts dept has one in stock.

vinceching

its not dangerous to drive on. but should be taken to the dealer asap

WordSmith

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I've heard of a problem like this. I wonder where MB is getting their compressors.

nantucketsleigh

My compressor leaked fluid and shorted out some relays etc. When the compressor went my GL would bottom out easily and slightly scraped the undercarriage on my mild driveway incline. I had my GL flat bedded to the dealer because it was borderline drivable and was not really safe to operate at speed beyond 45 mph.

WordSmith

Oh boy! This is the worst one I've heard.

amgbg

Our car was a Jan 07, so I am surprised that we had to have the airmatic compressor replaced. (9900 miles). What is the difference between the one they replaced and the one we had installed in the car when we first got it.

I hope this new last forever.

amgbg

HoustonRider

I've had my 320 for about 3-4 weeks /3300 miles.

I noticed last week that the rear is feels like its bottoming out when I go over even the smallest speedbump, or speed dip (about 5 mph) and it feels rougher than normal.

I'm taking it in on Monday to have the Driver mirror replaced (its not going back to its correct position after it unfolds).

I know they are gonna tell me they've never heard of it, but I'll have my computer handy.

Is the front and rear two separate compressors? anyone?

WordSmith

I don't know for sure, but I noticed when the GL rises, it alternates front and back during the process, in steps. Both ends do not rise at the same time. This leads me to believe that it's one compressor.

captlst

Ours just went at 16,000 miles. The malfunction light came on with the arrow and then a few days later we got the slammed look. The front of the car is slammed and the car had it's *** in the air. The ridw was horrible as well. You could feel the rubber bushings smashing together when you went over a bump...... The car had been in the shop for 4 days while they order parts. As common as this is you would think they would stock the parts. I am having fun in a loaner C230 sport in the mean time.

HoustonRider

I was in last week and the dealer said the air system was fine, but it was a bushing that was loose/broken.

I went back today and about a mile from the dealer I noticed a bunch of white smoke from the rear (not the exhaust).

When I pulled into the dealer, I told him it was smoking, he sat in the driver seat and started telling me I put the wrong Diesel (not ULSD) in it, then after I got on the ground and crawled under the car in the driveway, he actually got out and crawled under it. lol (I'm being an ***, because he was all about figuring out where the smoke was coming from by sitting on his *** in the front seat, lol).

He said "Yeah, that rear shock is leaking good now, it probably dripped on the exhaust"... I said, "I thought you said it was a bushing?".. he said "well THEN it was a bushing, but now the rear shock is leaking"...

Good job MB... hire from the bottom...lol