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Today I had a warning light in the dash of my 2013 S550. It was a little car with arrow pointing up and it said MALFUNCTION below the little car. The whole car is leaning on passenger side of vehicle.
Has anyone here dealt with this before and know what it means? I also made a video and posted it below. I've not received any other warnings and the malfunction warning is gone now after I pressed OK on steering wheel.
I checked all the fuses for the Airmatic System #40, 46, 56, 7, 8 and was going to check #103 but could not find a 103 in the driver side fuse box under hood.
I need to determine whether I can drive it about 10 miles to dealer of if I should get it towed. Because I don't know what else to check.
Last edited by s550hollywood; 08-16-2020 at 07:08 PM.
if its done 50k miles then its likely a level sensor has seized up or snapped off (it has three, one on each front strut and one on the back near the park brake mechanism ($30 each for the part, or $350 all three replaced at the dealer - the rear one is a nightmare)
its also likely due to a small leak the compressor has worn its self out and stopped running - hence why you now have that message ($300 to do the pump yourself - or $1000 at the dealer)
looked at the video its fine to drive gently like that.... it will go another 2" lower if its lost all its air
the compressor has cut out (its what they do when it notices ride height a long way adrift) so its got muddled, as can't pump in air to level out, it may even level out again but not come up to the right height....
the other side looks 1/2" to 1" higher than it should be strangely
if you go to a main dealer your pockets will be emptied
I can do pump myself as long as I don't have to lift the car as I have no way to lift it. I also don't know where the pump is on the 2013 S550. Do you know where its located and how best to get to it? I can handle the $350 for the other parts at dealer, but are the other parts you reference easy to replace on the front; you say rear is a nightmare.
I can do pump myself as long as I don't have to lift the car as I have no way to lift it. I also don't know where the pump is on the 2013 S550. Do you know where its located and how best to get to it? I can handle the $350 for the other parts at dealer, but are the other parts you reference easy to replace on the front; you say rear is a nightmare.
you must be carful with air suspension…. its the only thing holding the car up
under the bonnet, beside the wing near the wipers is a small black box 7" by 11" the lid is help on with 4 x 8mm headed bolts … that's the front SAM. Look to see if a big 40 amp orange fuse has popped. That the one for the compressor (quite likely).
The air pump (compressor) should be replaced alongside a new fuse, a new relay, a new air filter. An indepenant garage will get the pump for $300 genuine, the same Merc dealer will charge you £800.
Also if you get it done by a good independent specialist you'll get the 2 year guarantee (the same as the dealer would offer). At that miles do all three sensors, the fronts are easy the rear NOT
I found a video online that talked about replacing the 40 amp fuse on the SAM under hood. Mine was good, so I went and got a green cube Relay from dealer which sits near the 40 Amp fuse, I replaced it but nothing happened. I agree, it seems that you could replace a lot of things trying to correct the problem as the car is very complex and hard to understand. After seeing the fuse and relay wasn't the problem, Ive decided to take it to dealer. Service advisor said it should be cool to drive because the car will warn me if its not and right now I'm not getting any other warnings. I can get a little lift on it by raising the vehicle with button on dash but it does pull to the right steering down the road and is still leaning. Dealer is 4 miles away and I have Triple AAA if necessary. After I get it taken car of, I'll return here and BenzWorld and leave some notes so others will have them to go by, thanks guys!
mine had your error when it was safe to drive.... (when the compressor stopped running) but when the rear level sensor snapped off and it crashed to the ground, the car had NO ERRORS AT ALL
Would you recommend I tow it 4 miles, I had planned to leave the house at 6 am before traffic gets bad so I can go slow. What are your thoughts? My experience with tow trucks is that the drivers will sometimes mess something up when loading or unloading a car. I use towing as a last resort because of that.
Would you recommend I tow it 4 miles, I had planned to leave the house at 6 am before traffic gets bad so I can go slow. What are your thoughts? My experience with tow trucks is that the drivers will sometimes mess something up when loading or unloading a car. I use towing as a last resort because of that.
I already responded... just drive it normally.
you should be aware you must not tow automatics it damages the gearbox
Just got estimate from Mercedes dealer on why the car is leaning with the airmatic Malfunction warning: Right front strut leaking. Cost to replace $2,202.75.
Dealer says the other side could go within the next 10,000 miles and they could do both now for $4,049.45 and I'd be good for another 75,000 miles on front air struts.
You can get the Arnott air spring/shock assembly for about $450 from FCP Euro. Changing the part in the car is not that difficult. A little more work than the E550, which air springs I changed all.
If you are at all hands on this is an easy way to save $1700 / spring. For both it is good $3500 savings. Worth to spend some time with it.
They don't make them for the 2013 S550 rear wheel drive. Only these for $1400 each
Mercedes Suspension Air Strut Assembly - Bilstein B4 Air 2223207313
I think you have the wrong car model year on your part search. I believe 2213209313 is the correct number. See below picture.
In Arnott site they list new and re-manufactured struts. The new ones cost more than twice and have some sort of improved design. The lower cost are re-manufactures meaning they have replaced all wearing parts. They are good as OE that came with the car.
On my E550 I used Arnott new air springs for rear as they do not re-manufacture those. The front struts I bought fro FCP Euro as OEM parts. They also are re-manufactured done by the OEM in Spain. There were no front struts available by Arnott at the time and I did not want to use some very cheap re-builds that replace only the broken rubber air bag on the struts.
Call FCP Euro and they will tell you exactly what you need. Nice people to work with.
I have the same 2013 S550 as yours and my air springs work really well. There is very big difference between comfort and sports modes so the adjustable shocks have not worn at all. Who knows, they may have been replaced already...bought it used so I don't know, but if I have a leak FCP Euro is the place where I will get my Arnott parts from.
Just got estimate from Mercedes dealer on why the car is leaning with the airmatic Malfunction warning: Right front strut leaking. Cost to replace $2,202.75.
Dealer says the other side could go within the next 10,000 miles and they could do both now for $4,049.45 and I'd be good for another 75,000 miles on front air struts.
How did the dealer determine it is the right front air strut leaking? I just now watched your video and based on that it might be that it actually is the right rear air strut with the problem. I don't believe that the front left would be so high if the front right was the broken spring. That would take the font left down with it. Broken/leaking right rear in turn will make left front raise up as the car's body will roll over the right/front/left rear axis.
I can tell you that when I started having problems with my E550 left front strut the car would go all the way down both sides during some nights and then some nights it did not drop down all the way. Then I noticed it goes all the way down both sides if I left it on sports setting over night but in comfort setting it did not drop all the way. I think the difference was that with sports setting there is not enough air in one spring to keep the front of the car up while in comfort mode spring is high enough to generate enough pressure to keep the front of the car from totally collapsing.
Also. the lowest corner in your car is the right rear, not by much but still so I kind of doubt the diagnostics result MB dealer did for you. Did you tell them when you entered that your right front seems to have a problem?
If you believe them then it is even more reason to get affordable parts and do the job yourself as if they do the job and it does not fix it you still pay what they ask. And make you pay more with more diagnostics and part and labor.
As your car leans to the right so evenly I have hard time to believe it is just one air spring leaking. Can you raise the car up with the raise button. It should come up even if you have a leak in a spring unless there is a big hole in it and in this case I think it would be all the way down with no room for any fingers to put on top of the tire. Almost starts looking like you have a compressor problem and the springs are fine.
they should have done the compressor test too.
as I wrote in the first post you get a small leak and the compressor keeps topping it up wearing itself out.
I thought the rears are the ones that tend to fail first?
Well you never know if the dealer is making things up and I hate leaving my cars with them in the first place. To drive the car to the dealer, I raised it with the button on dash and it came up enough to drive it. I drove 4 miles to the dealer at 25 miles per hour and when I got there, it was almost touching the front tire on right and the malfunction light came on again half way there. They performed an overall safety check of the entire car and all came back good with a diagnoses of front right airmatic strut has leak. Since the car is so heavy in front, they tell me the first ones to go are usually the front ones as the back ones are not holding the weight of the engine. I decided to take their advice and have them do both sides in front so I don't have to deal with the other side going out on me in the near future. The shocks on FCP Euro specify (without active body control) which is a feature I like to keep on my car so its worth the extra cost to get the original equipment from Mercedes. Its no doubt a burden to have to pay so much all of a sudden as I just bought the car and only drove it 2000 miles. If I had a lift I would probably try to do it myself but I would use original shocks from Mercedes Benz so the ABC still functions. So right now, I'm just paying them the labor to do the job as well as the expertise. I always try to do what I can myself, and I've always changed my own shocks on most my cars, but this time, I'm going to pass as they are doing the job today. Those prices are crazy, Arnott is half the price of Bilstein, but I noticed they both say without active body control which is a really nice feature on the S550.Its all very confusing so the dealer got me this time; I appreciate your advice though. Thank you!
they should replace both front sensors on, only takes 15 mins a side !!!
a rear is a good idea - mine was totally seized (plastic ball joint to mild steel ball so much so it snapped the bracket off) then u find out how low it goes !)
Does your 2013 S550 have active body control? Its the Sport button on the dash that lights up red when its on......If you have this, don't replace your shocks with any shocks that say (without active body control) because you would be giving up a very nice system Mercedes put in the car. Ive been asking around and people say these shocks should get at least 100,000 miles which is worth the cost to replace if that's true. Albeit I only have 71k on my car so the fail is probably more due to age than mileage. Ive tested this car on Topanga Canyon and Las Virgenes roads in Calabassas and you really get a feel for what ABC does on the car on roads like that. It makes me feel invincible around all the other cars on those roads. I watch and see how other cars have so much body roll on the curves and mine just melts the curves away. Its a super car. Probably my fault the shock leaked after driving it hard on those roads, but I sure would hate for it to go out on those roads because you could be killed.
07-25-2020, 01:23 PM
