R KLASSE

I purchased my '08 CPO, I did quite a bit of research before jumping in but I think I discovered that my car has air-suspension or airmatic? But need an education on the system. Anyway we went to visit my folks today and when we got there my Mom & Dad came out cause they wanted to see our one year old still strapped in his car seat, so they jumped in the back seat. Anyway I hopped out and heard the car making a different sound. It was as if a pump was running, think the sound of a small basketball or bicycle pump sound. It lasted for a couple of seconds then stopped. Anyway I looked under the car at the suspension but didn't see any springs? but saw what looked like air-bags. My question is.... I didn't really want a car with air-suspension as every premium brand car I've ever seen that had this type of system always seemed to end up with a major failure or repair at some point. Thinking of Range Rovers, Older Lincolns, W140 Benz's etc... Is there a light or indicator that tells you when the system is on or off? Can you turn it off? How reliable is it? And was it a standard feature or optional on this model, and are the air-bags at all four corners or just the rear?

Thanks in advance.

mercdriver

To the best of my knowledge, *all* R classes have self levelling air suspension on the rear. The sound you heard was probably the suspension system adding air to the rear to level the car once the additional weight of your relatives climbed in.

R KLASSE

Thanks makes sense now.

memli

Yes what you were hearing was air compressor leveling the car due to added weight as your family jumping inside the car.

All R classes came with rear standard air suspension, but if your car shows airmatic on your cluster than your car has front and rear air suspension.

In my opinion airmatic R classes offer a better ride and better cornering and better at motor way speeds where at 70 miles per hour it lowers 3 cm automatically to give you better ride, stability and fuel economy.

If you are off road than you can raise the car by pressing a button to raise 5cm and the system will automatically lower to standard hight once you have passed 40 mH.

However, I agree with you that more things to go wrong but mercedes has been using air suspensions on more heavy duty big trucks, lorries etc that the system is so far faultless.