benzoboy123

Hello I just replace my airbags with regualr Springs on a 2000 S500. the car rides very nice except the front is little higher than Normal. Anyways I need the help of the EXPERTS here. I don't know if there's a way to bypass the AIRMATIC Error on the dash. IF there is some trick could you please help me out. After blowing 2 bags in the last 6 months I started looking for alternative route. Thh 4 SPRINGS cost me close to $1000 but at least I don;t have to worry about my car resting on the floor after 2 hrs parked. I was never really crazy about the Air system and maybe should have done a little more reserach before I bought the car, but oh well we leran by out mistakes. Anyways is there anyone out here that can help me out. Thanks in advance

S500_Lorinser

Hello fellow newbie....I just left the mechanic who was checking out my 2000 I've had for three weeks. He said I have a leak in the front and I immediately asked if I could convert the car to "non-Airmatic" and he said it was not recommended at all due to the computer issues.

I too would love to hear a veteran's opinion (I'm sure there are many posts on the topic but can't drill down to one with an initial search here). I researched the car before buying and found this to be the only concern (especially for the 2000 model). The Airmatic scares the crap out of me and wish I found the car without it (or was more patient to look around).

So far mine seems okay but don't want to come outside to find her sitting on the ground. Can ask what caused you to go through two sets of bags in a short time?

benzoboy123

Well the car is almost 10 yrs old the The life of those bags is 5-7. so I guess it is normal for them to go. The Company I bought them form said they are working on something to somehow trick the computer, but for now they do not have anything. The only issue id the AIRMATIC Error message I get on the dash so I cannot use any of the controls on the steering wheel (radio, miles, ect) For now I don;t regret it but let see if I have any more issues. I ahve a friend that works for MB and he said that they replaced all 4 bags, and pump on a car receintly and the bill was over $9K. I really don;t want to be spending that kind of money for Airbags. I ca nalmost buy a Complete used car for that price. Anyways I'm hoping one of these master MB mechanics can help me out. There and answer for EVERY situation, but maybe they have not figured it out yet. So I'm hoping for someone here that can help me out. Thanks

bamberger_1

The S-Class W220 was either built with AirMatic or the Active Body Control (ABC). Both high tech suspension systems, which cannot just be replaced by ordinary spring/shock assemblies, because what you call "bags" are both.
My guess that you have lost 2 bags within 6 months must have had another reason, such as a leaking air system or a bad compressor. The remove the error readings is basically impossible, since the whole system is monitored including pressure, car level, various suspension programs...... In order to remove the readings you need to "simulate" the ok-mode for all kinds of errors. My guess is also that you might get other error readings too, such as ESP, BAS, ABS....because all those are somehow linked.
BTW, I don't even want to think about the driving performance under extreme conditions, since by you completely change the dynamically behavior of the car.

cameraman123

You can buy ARNOTT'S airmatic struts for this vehicle for under 500 dollars a strut WITH another 100 dollar rebate for the core charge. This is what kills me. When people on this forum read a few airmatic issues then freak and instantly assume its going to happen to them tomorrow. Im not trying to be rude but really, its a MERCEDES BENZ. If you cant handle the fact that it will have expensive service bills then do NOT buy one. There is no "hack" for this error that Ive ever heard of and should just be a lesson to show you that you should not replace the stock air system with a cheesy aftermarket shock absorber system that has been known to be a bear to install and provide less than acceptable ride performance. For the price of the "regular" shock kit you could buy replacement air struts from arnotts and be happy for another 5-7 years with the smoothest ride of your life.

my06clk

What would suck is to find a very nice looking 2000 S500 that you want to buy, just to find out that someone has removed the airmatic system ( prone to problems or not ) that came from the factory and installed some cheesy aftermarket springs ( struts ) completely and permanently disfiguring the vehicle.

How do you put a price on an car like that except deeming it worthless from that point on.

I guess I would feel a bit differently if it was a body that actually had a factory option for airmatic or struts like the E class, then it would be a different situation and certainly easier to just "turn off" the airmatic option.
But this isn;t the case with the W220.

This is the same thing as installing a small block chevy motor in an Jag as people used to do back in the 80's when the old XJ engines were found to be crap.

Everybody on the planet knows that the early W220's had suspension issues. Why keep the car if you can't afford to fix it. because now, you are sooo stuck with it. and not only can you NOT trick the computer to clear those errors, you have no way of properly aligning that car which means that your handling is in the toilet, and you are going to eat tires like never before.

I can;t even imagine how bouncy that car must be and would not want to be in the drivers seat on curvy roads at speed.

Too bad you elected to go that route.. I hope you find a solution.. This is something I would have never ever done to a car. sorry.

The only way I see to bypass the airmatic error for this vehicle is to write a new program.. By my count there are at least Seven (7) subsystems that deal directly with the car's suspension electronically. There is no way to gut all of these checks and monitors without a complete software rewrite. so you have a bit of a situation there. Good luck.

BTW. with 4 springs, what do you do for shocks? particularly in the rear?

Quadcammer

I think we may be going overly harsh on the conventional spring system. Plenty of luxury cars had springs and standard shocks for many years without bouncing themselves to death. That said, those cars were built with that in mind.

The conversion kit is a fairly cheap looking coilover setup where the spring sits around the shock/strut.

Given the price of a arnott reman, I would never see a reason to do this conversion.

cameraman123

Exactly. Were not bashing the conventional systems. Its just ridiculous that people change out an air suspension system for a cheesy conventional shock set-up NOT meant for that car. That KILLS the potential resell value of said car and yes, my06clk is NOT over exaggerating, it will alter the suspension geometry to a point where the car is no longer safe to drive a high speeds.

Just because someone makes a part for a car, doesnt mean you should buy it.

Quadcammer

I don't agree about the suspension geometry part.

You are simply replacing an air spring with a coilover steel spring. I don't think it would cause a noticeable suspension alignment problem.

ebolick

As many problems as i have had with my airmatic system i would have changed the springs in a heart beat if i have not already spent over 10K (in the past 2 years) out of pocket fixing these issues. For me its not a issue of money more of how do i justify spending all this money on a 10 year old car that is known to have these problems. the airmatic system in these cars are a joke and should have never been. as for safty well im not sure but it cant be much worse then having your airmatic system fail while your doing 65 on the freeway.

bamberger_1

My W220 is now almost 10y old and has about 110.000 mls on it. I never had any issue with the AirMatic. knock on wood!!!!!! :-) I'm driving in Germany not only 65mph, and no issues. Our roads aren't any better than those in the USA.

ebolick

I am Jealous,

LAWYER2

I remember airmatic failure used to scare me to death lol, reading about those 3grand repairs. Well it happened and it cost $500 to fix and if it happesn again then it'll get replaced again. With the help of this board, nothing scares me when dealing with this car. I've thought about upgrading to W221, but will wait till those cars have been gone through piece by piece and potential issues exposed like the W220.
that being said, I also have no clue how to deal with the error issues except pressing that little R button to the right of the cluster.

S500_Lorinser

Not my post but thanks for the peace of mind. You guys are right...don't own the car if you can't or don't want to spend some cash from time to time. At 10 years old it's a matter of time before the system fails but like you say there are reasonable replacement parts that will go another 5-7 years.

If you are going to drop what you could buy some branch new cars for on a 10 year old vehicle then it's a hobby along with a ride...new hunting rifle, model airplane, whatever you get your kicks from or parts for your timeless, beautiful work of engineering genious that happens to also get me from point A to B also.

cameraman123

Oliver, the struts adjust 8 times a second to road conditions while driving which deliver the outstanding suspension performance in high speeds and turns. This is lost with a conventional system. As far as the geometry goes, the struts differ greatly from the stock struts, and any change there will effect it. Theres some posts about this, Ill try to track them down

Quadcammer

I hate to argue on this because I don't like the conversion kits, but I disagree.

Yes, the air suspension is consistently adjusting, which leads to a good ride and decent handling. Air suspensions however are ultimately limited on turns. A conventionally sprung car will handle just fine, although the ride may be a bit rougher.

Ok, they different greatly, but if they are the same length and attach in the same place, there is no change in the geometry.

cameraman123

I agree


Regardless, OP shouldnt have done this conversion kit, but its his car so have at it , best of luck trying to trick the ride height sensors.

my06clk

I would tend to be more agreeable with oliver if were were talking about a w211 that comes both ways, but specifically the w220, It would be very interesting to see the alignment numbers on this car with those struts.

He already stated that the car sits higher than it is supposed to, that's already a camber issue..

Either way the thing I do agree 100% on is the fact that he could have gotten rebuilt Struts as a better alternative to disfiguring his S.

And he is always going to live with trying to solve the error issue becuause this car unlike the w211 was not designed to run without Airmatic.

The being the case I can't see where there would be an option in this cars software to deselect the airmatic logic.

I guess we can all agree that this is just something none of us would have done.

Myself, I would have gotten rid of my car first. I don't like it that much to go thru all of that trouble and be stuck like chuck.

In fact, I think I have been one of the blessed happy owners as i have not had many issues at all in the last 3 years I've had this car. Hopefully my maintenance const will remain irrelevant to ownership and I will be able to pass that good news to the new owner if there ever is one.

i_am_amused

the shock/spring part is an analog device and therefore will be adjusting constantly, which is far greater than a (digitally-controlled) 8 times a second, and produces a far smoother motion. (note that I said nothing about quality of ride, geometry, safety, disfigurement, etc.)

similarly, analog music (LP) sounds better than digital (CD) because the waves are smooth and not stepped (this point is lost on me because I have *****ty hearing, but ask around on avsforum if you want more info)

not a sermon, just a thought

tusabes

who sells the spring conversion and does it work on the cl500 with ABC?

stevescoots

I am hoping that the arnotts are available in the UK or ship to uk when mine eventually go. If not then I would still go with MB ones not springs.

vettdvr

The air suspension does add a lot of features to the vehicle. But there is much to consider. When purchase a $70,000+ vehicle what would you expect. For each person this is an individual choice. For me I EXPECT reliability. I should not have to consider reliability in the equation for purchase. Now that's clear, consider the airspension. My experience in the MB system is, that it works well, but it is subject to failure. At 80,000 miles I have already replaced rear air springs and the compressor. I really don't expect this type of failure. The cost to repair is also what I would consider excessive. Consider I would not have purchased the car if I could not affort to repair it, but I don't expect to have to repair some items very ofter. For suspension systems I consider shocks a wear part. Airsprings used in industry and on trucking would be expected to be reliable and last much longer than 100000 miles. If they failed at 150,000 I might be ok but at 80,000 way too early. When you throw in ball joints failing at 60,000 miles I begin to see a pattern of what I consider early failure of major suspension components. I know there are better parts out there that will last longer and do the same job as these parts.

For replacing with springs, This should be a owner option as the vehicle gets older. I agree the OEM suspension works well but as the vehicle ages so will the usage for most owners. If you want to drive this car 300000 miles you might not want to purchase 4 sets of air springs as the value of the vehicle deminishes. You might also not want to throw away a solid 10 yr old car because of a hole in a airbag, so there should be options. I know there are rebuilt compnents out there and when needed I will probably use rebuilt air struts. But I commend those who have converted to conventional springs. Hopefully a way to correct the computer will be found.

My corvette came with ride adjustable shocks that I just replaced. The cost to replace 4 shocks is right at $3000. But,, there is a way to get around the computer and install a bypass for the computer to allow conventional high performance shocks. I actually did the calculations for the corvette to determine what was needed to "trick" the computer and this system is now working well.

My guess is there is a device in the airspring, (variable resistor/pot, or on/off switch) that sends the signal to the computer. If the "normal/range" value is known that the computer sees it would be possible to design a "device" that could plug in and trick the computer to believe it has "air suspension" when it has a conventional system. Ex,, the corvette system does work exactly this way. I know there are the purist who say don't, can't and should not, but if a individual owns the car and makes this choice it should be available.

The real issue that isn't addressed is the unreliability of the airmatic system and it's early failures. IF this system was designed with better reliability and a life of 200000 miles we would not be having this discussion.

Consider in industry a machine running 1 year between maintenance will have over 9000 run hours. If a MB was driven continuously at 60 mph 24/7 it would have over 100000 miles in about 2 1/2 months. So we are saying in many cases the suspension if mileage dependant will fail every 3 months where in industry a simple motor system must run 4 times that amount. I have seen airmount bags run for 5 years with out failure but the airsprings on a MB fail in under 2 months continous 24/7 accumulated miles.

If the air suspension isn't mileage a function of miles, then it will be age and deterioration of the rubber which seals the system. This can also be improved for better life as the industrial air mount bags don't deteriorate as quickly and I can assure you many run in much more harsh conditions.

SO long winded summary.

1) airmatic system works well
2) Airmatic fails too ofter
3) Replacement parts are available
4) conventional springs should be an owner decision.

Have a great day and lets hope some day MB engineering solves this issue so it doesn't have to be discussed on this site.

Quadcammer

Now I'm not saying the airmatic is perfect, but given the price of replacement parts, I consider it a non issue.

I would expect to replace shocks/struts on a german sedan at about 75-80k miles. A good set of bilsteins or similar is close to $400 each, which is exactly what reman Arnotts cost.

I don't see the big deal.

cameraman123

I used to think like that, vettdrv, but I've adjusted my train of thought.

To start off, the air shock issue was addressed and corrected in the 03-06 year models.

That being said, its really not a big deal. Shocks are a wear item. They are replaced on normal vehicles between the 50-75k mile threshold. Ball joints are also a wear item.

Also to be accounted for, when you purchase a 70-90k vehicle, expect to spend 10% of that in repairs at some point in time. Thats just life, and quite frankly, dont buy and expensive german automobile to complain about it. ESPECIALLY if you are one of those people lurking around this forum who purchase 10 year old cars then gripe about the shocks failing on said 70-90k car. Im not even going to get into the specifics on why that is wrong to do because thats WAY off topic.

Again, this is a luxury german automobile, not an industrial machine. Your assumption that your vehicle would only make 3 months on your "test" is incorrect. You have not added in the factors of AGE. When a vehicle ages these rubber parts detriorate. So no, those numbers are not conclusive of anything.

The conversion to conventional shocks is an owner decision, and it was never not. This isn't communism regardless of the show its putting on in the White House. However, there are several issues with the conversion kit on the W220 which have been addressed above in this thread.



Regardless, airmatic is not a perfect system, but it does give one hell of a ride. It is a known fault that was corrected on later year models. Mercedes Benz has shown that under high speed travel, completely airmatic shock failure will in no way present danger or affect driveability of the vehicle. Aftermarket companies such as Arnott's Industries make replacement shocks and compressor for a very reasonable price and these parts are not hard to come buy.

All that said, airmatics is deemed an annoying flaw, but nonetheless a NON-ISSUE.

vettdvr

1) I bought my car new
2) I did mention age as part of rubber deteroriation.
3) The MB is the only car I have owned that has cronic ball joint failure at est 60,000 miles and this is why I consider it premature failure.
4) My car is 03 where you state the problem is solved
5) Enjoy your airmatic, I won't own another. Bye