Nickthegreek

Son of a gun my right rear was sagging also. I had replaced the strut a few months ago and thought that was the issue. I noticed it a few days ago and sprayed soapy water on the valve block and what do you know, that was the same line that had a pinhole leak check out the pic.


The red line foaming is the right rear

greglig

Hi all, very interesting thread. Replacing the whole line seems a little drastic in my opinion. It may be possible to use a nylon air line joiner (ref photo) and epoxy the damaged line in one side and use a short new section on the other to the valve block.
Just an idea I had, maby someone can think of something better.

Cheers.

Nickthegreek

I agree replacing the entire line is a bit extreme. I used star diagnosis which found no leaks in the valve so i just assumed it was the strut. Looks like star diagnsis is not so great at detecting pinhole leaks. I'm going to try and snip off a piece and reinsent it. The key will be to cut it flush. Sorry if I hijacked the thread lol

kingconn

nickthe greek... where is that valve located?

cdnjibbers

Hi folks. Old thread, I know, but I have a question: Where is the S550's suspension compressor valve (image below) located? I don't have the car available to me to look at, and I'm currently ordering parts The vehicle was in a collision; the compressor itself is gone, but I'm trying to figure out, based on how the vehicle was hit, if the valve is likely damaged/gone or not. If it's on the compressor itself, then I'm out of luck and will need to buy one. If the distribution valve is located somewhere else, there's a very good chance it's still there and functioning.

Vehicle in question is a 2012 W221 S550 4-Matic. Does not have active body control.

Thanks.

V

greglig

Right next to and above the compressor (ref diag). The ABS module is just above that on the chassis rail and may be damaged depending on the severity of the impact.

finally_home007

i have a 2009 S5550 Getting the Malfunction reading on the dash all of a sudden. It was still rising just fine. Came out this morning and the entire car was lowered and wouldnt rise any more. Could this be the comperssor??

chriswhv6

Out of curiosity is there an approx time/mileage frame that the Airmatic system can start to fail on the S Class or can it be completely at random??
This was the one main thing originally that i was stressing about and didn't want to purchase a Mercedes that had the Airmatic setup....i tried looking at other models but somehow ended up with a S350 in the end!! Go figure LOL

I haven't been able to look up the full service history of mine as of yet so i have no idea if it suffered from any Airmatic failures or no in the pastt. Its got 125,000 km on it.
If i can get 3 years out of the car without any major failures ill be happy

BOTUS

unlikely, level sensors seize and snap off, dumping the car on the floor

the most pathetic and dangerous design ever, it ought to say hang on there's no info coming from the sensor lock what air I have and throw a warning,
instead the idiot that wrote the software thought it far safer to turn it in to a death trap.... with the link rod snapped the sensor falls down and the car thinks oh I must be a bit high let some air out.... the sensor stays down and a while later it does the same again until it's on the floor

this must be the worse piece of software code ever written and has no fail safe built in at all. Its quite extraordinary no class action lawsuit has been raised to get a rewrite to make the car safe enough to be allowed on public roads,

no varying sensor info - do nothing would be a simple idea
or seems high, release pressure for x time (enough to go from fully extended to just above normal ride height), OK what reading do we have now - oh, no change from sensor lock system & throw error


w220 would do air bags in 6 years, w221 tends to last 11 years, mileage wise I'd suggest w220 60k , w221 110k
air compressor will go pop every 50k miles, you can rebuilt that, when getting mine swapped another guy came in and said he's had 3 on his last 221 (in 90k miles and 5 years)

Finer6527

I am happy my 07 S550 came with the Strutmasters conversion struts when I read about the Aromatic faults. No issues like this in 2.5 years since owning the car. I am replacing the front struts with new ones since the coil springs were replaced on a new model due to spring rubbing slightly on the control arm. They only rubbed on a hard turn into a parking space. I got the new strut delivered and there in the garage waiting to be installed. The front replacement struts were $400 for the pair.

bu_khalifa

I have the same problem of suspensions! i get malfunction indicator some time only and it disappears after restarting my car but every thing is working fine.

any one can help me to fix this ?

BOTUS

it can pop the fuse (because the compressor is old or been working too hard and just lock thing out with no issues. I believe mine was like with for 6 months.... (the raise feature just did nothing) but I had no warning so just drove the car, then one day I was putting shed loads of gravel and concrete in the boot (250kg) and it started to do odd stuff sinking one side or one corner then got over itself... Then after seemingly to settle down and level out OK I got the orange message saying its gone wrong. I think the accumulator ran out and thus could no longer level up and threw teddies. When I put diagnostics on it, it said locked out for safety reasons....

the first thing the garage did was check the fuse and it was popped. Put in a replacement and did the STAR airmatic test 10 bar in 6 seconds or whatever it is... mine did 6 bar in 30 seconds so we swapped the pump... been sort of OK ever since...

However, ever since I've had the car, the LEFT REAR drops 10 to 15mm lower than the rest of the car. I have just seen the pictures above and the TIPS doc about airline fault from the factory. but puzzled why (my right hand drive) car does the exact fault described but on the "wrong side" The pump is on the right front so unless the factory are a strange bunch I'd expect left rear to be wired up the same in left or right hand drive cars

Kevin Bens

My s550 is.sitting low on the front passenger side. No malfunction lights in the vehicle. Used ODB2 to check codes. No.codes show up. Any suggestion on how to repair???

Arrie

Replace both front air struts.

EasyPhil

Get a Star diagnostic which will tell you what the problem is with the suspension.

Arrie

Star as well as other scanners are useless for finding a leak in Airmatic system. All it can tell you is if compressor is out or valves have broken circuit. Leaks of any kind it will not help with.

Airmatic takes good old skills to troubleshoot.

Leak is a leak either in the spring, a valve or air tube between spring and valve. Scanner will be no help at all for finding any of these.

A quick way to know if it is a spring issue (99% it is) is to get a piece of the tube and a ball valve that is installed at the spring. Then when car is at correct level close the valve and see if car goes down. If it does the problem definitely is leak in the spring. This idea comes from another member I think in E- class forum.

EasyPhil

Disagree, I used star to diagnose my airmatic system which determined through the use of specific tests that one of the valves in the valve block was faulty.

MBCO

Yes and yes to previous advice. Before throwing parts at the problem you must diagnose thoroughly. MB Star is very capable and the first tool to use. The aforementioned techniques probably work too. For most of us, computers with diagnostic software are easier than some of the tried and true offline techniques. Wasting time and treasure on unnecessary parts replacement is unfortunately the path many take. These cars need to be maintained just like all vehicles, though sclass cars need special maintenance. Your choices are diy (ez with proper tools); Trusted Independent aka Indie (do your due diligence here, masquerading prevalent); Mercedes Benz authorized service center aka dealer, last choice and especially do your due diligence.

Good luck and keep us posted.

bmwpowere36m3

You guys make it black and white... Star can identify certain leaks and faults in the system, but others require old-fashioned diagnosing. In certain cases Star is definitely useful and in others less so.

EasyPhil

I'm not making an argument that Star will solve every problem. I am arguing that it's one of the essential tools for these and future models. I had a W220 that was down on all sides, using Star, I was able to determine that a new valve was required. In contrast my W221 would crank but not start, Star was no help here but checking relays and testing fuel pressure and the fuel pump indicated that a new one was required.

Arrie

So how was the valve faulty that the Star could tell you?

Btoken circuit?

These valves are NOT so called smart valves that have feed back of the actual valve position. These are simple fail to closed valves meaning that energized solenoid coil opens the valve and de-energized coil allows valve to close by the spring.

Star system can only know if the coil is bad or a connection to coil is bad (open circuit). It cannot know if the valve is leaking or not. It can tell the car goes down under leak but that is what everybody can see by just looking at the car.

I have the iCarsoft scanner and it was useless for finding the leak in my E550 Airmatic. All it could tell me was that the car had been outside the allowed limits when it went down all the way. Well, I kind of saw that without the scanner.

It came to understanding the system how it works and turned out to be, like it seems almost in all cases, a leak in a spring.

As the car at the time was already about 10 years old I first replaced the valve block hoping this would be the fix but it was not. Some think this is throwing money to it without proper troubleshooting but it is only a matter of time for the valves to fail so as it is old enough to have springs leak then why not replace the valve block too as it is very easy job and part cost only $350 at the dealer.

After valve block I did not care to spend too much time for trouble shooting as the age of the car speaks for the spring leak, which it then was first in rear and within a month also in front.

The scanner was no help at all finding the leaking springs. It is other posters experience and common sense that rules with this.