Hi - I have a collapsed front driver-side suspension on a 2001 S500 and the mechanic I took it to says that my car has both Airmatic AND Active Body Control (ABC). Is this even possible?

 

Nope not possible

either has airmatic air suspension
or abc hydraulic fluid suspension

some cars have Had their instrument cluster swapped before, so they are known to say airmatic fault on the dash If the car has ABC, and vice versa. But your car can only have one type of suspension either air or hydraulic.

 

What he said...

Open the hood, look at the top of the struts. If there is a small plastic air line coming out of the struts, absolutely, positively Airmatic. It was possible to order your car with ABC, but that was a very rare choice ($$$$).

Whether the shop is dishonest or ignorant, you don't want to be there.

 

Agreed on the option (I've only seen it once on a non-S55/S600/S65) and the shop. If they don't understand the very complicated suspension setups for these cars, go elsewhere ASAP.

 

A bit of insanity to add here:

2001 S500, all options (including ABC). Recently from nowhere I have Airmatic - Drive Carefully! which became Airmatic! - Visit Workshop! (but not in red, surprisingly) show up on the dash warning system. No sagging, no leaks, no low fluid in the ABC reservoir.

Now, mind you, I've seen the ABC warnings before (low fluid created red ABC fault warnings when I bought the car; since then I've replaced the front struts and flushed the fluid) - the car ostensibly knows that it's an ABC and not Airmatic car (and for the record, swapping the dash cluster has nothing to do with it - the cluster is the same across models; it's the computer programming that's different).

Can anyone shed light on what might be going on here? This seems like it might be a random brain-fart from the computers that run the vehicle, since I'm already informed that the other vacuum functions (door locks, etc.) aren't within the "airmatic" rubric for error coding. It's a bit crazymaking, and I have a 2500+ return drive home in a few days that I'm now a bit worried about even though I feel like I shouldn't be.

The only thing that comes to mind is that it's perhaps time now to do the rear struts' replacements? But even so, that's still ABC, not Airmatic -- and as mentioned, the ride quality may be "subpar" because of worn struts but not knowing any better I don't know the difference (was the case in the front, too) -- and there's no sagging or any signs of fault, and the ABC Sport and lift/lower controls on the dash are working fine.

Is this something that the "turn the wheel from lock to lock a few times to reset the computer" would clear (assuming that works on the 2001)? I'd like to clear it and see whether it comes back - preferably without paying a mechanic $150 for the privilege - before taking it in to have it put on the MB OBD computer.

Thanks a mil for your thoughts and advice. I don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bottomed out sedan that'll cost days and thousands to fix if I can help it but if the car is having a hallucination about Airmatic, I'd like to know so I can accord this the appropriate level of seriousness.

Happy hols!

 

To follow on from my earlier comment, I tried the "lock to lock a few times" thing with the steering wheel and lo and behold, the error vanished on restart and hasn't returned after a few hours of driving.

I'd be amazed and grateful that my "computer had a brain fart" theory has paned out.

 

Impossible.

ABC and 4Matic cannot work together

Airmatic is only for 4Matic cars

The systems couldn’t work together and there would be no point as they would basically work against each other.