BOTUS

I don't get this resurfacing idea - on modern cars and driving conditions (especially german one's where they do 130mph as a normal cruising speed on the way to work), the pads are very aggressive and will take 2mm off the width of your discs in 20k miles of gentle driving - so I wouldn't be playing ever - just bung new pads in and after two sets of pads throw in a set of discs too

mine at 64k miles now needs a third set of discs (genuine OEM) and I drive like a cabbage these days - in fact the roads are so deliberately congested with spy on me ave. distance speed cams everywhere, I'm questioning why I bother,. You can't even get close to stretching the performance of a car with 0 to 60 in 12 seconds these days - its hardly worth driving - my push bike is mostly a faster way to get about

MBKev

OE (Zimmerman) doesn't seem to last as long and aftermarket performance ones seem to hold up better. I use the PowerStop Z23 on several cars and the rotors lasted around 100k km / 60k miles. Needing to replace them every 20k miles is a lot.

MBKev

For OP, if this is not your daily driver car, I would only replace the suspension as it wears out. They typically start as a small leak and if you keep driving with the leak, it will eventually get bigger which can cause the struts to collapse immediately. This can also cause your compressor to overwork itself and overheat (Thurs requiring an additional compressor replacement). However, if it started leaking and you parked it until you can get it into service/waiting for parts, should be fine and if it's a tiny leak (seems to be fine when it's up but collapsing overnight), even that is sufficient to get you to your shop within your city.

Or you can be like me (Picky owner) and start replacing everything and things can get quite pricey. I just spent $17k in repairs on my high mileage W221 since my purchase in December 2022 (Genuine Mercedes Parts with exception to reman air struts and night vision headlight (Backordered so purchased used)) so that it feels as good as new. Still not perfect (clunking from control arms now), but almost there. However, mine's high mileage (250k km/ 156k miles) so needed more care and attention (Mostly oil leaks).

Chachd72

I just had a friend who is a former mechanic replace the airmatic struts, compressor and valve block with Arnott units and it appears to be riding lower on the right side. Could a ride height sensor have been bent or damaged. I'm not getting any error codes. Also when I start the engine I get a message that the ride height is rising and wait to drive, which only stays on for a few seconds. Could one of the hoses be leaking?

BOTUS

info here is only about air tragic - (not the optional ABC)

the level sensors are the first thing you ever change and keep changing every few years - even if you lube every 6 months they seize up after a few years and the car gets silly

if he did not replace these, and you have jacked the car up you may have bent the pathetic bracketry (that gets swapped with the new sensors) and it could well be misreading and or the car may have been calibrated previously with a bad strut / bent / seized link - OR its just making things up.

without killing yourself or loosing an arm - raise the height with the button above the heater controls... then with it off and key out - wiggle the two front sensors links. They are just above the middle top of the front tyres - (in raised position its easy to see with a torch and reach), if they don't wiggle 20 or 30 degrees by hand, squirt wd40 or such both ends and with grips see if it will start to wiggle with gentle persuasion and then become moveable by hand - if no movement at either ball socket no point bothering any more, get all three checked over) if they wiggle read on. There is no way at home to safely check the rear, and its the fronts that do side to side ride height at BOTH ends of the car...

If the sensors are free at the front - in my experience its such a nasty set up, they are very odd for a while after work has been done - go for a drive on a bumpy road - brake hard to a stop forward and back - raise the suspension to max height - it should do all corners to the same 2" higher height in well under a minute, let it down, drive about in an attempt for everything to pretend it knows what's happing, going above 80mph for 10 mins or so. Then park on a 100% flat level surface and raise the suspension up and down, drive over a speed bump, park on 100% level again, lock the car for a few hours see where you are - ideally in the morning

if it looks wrong after that - start with the sensors, unless one has collapsed due to an air leak / big fault. if the corners are not dropping and the sensors seem OK - you could try and calibrate it - but its a messy process that is supposed to have lots of special tools you won't have - FIVE of the UK top recco independent Merc garages - all with STAR / Xentry - of which two had the full online Xentry NEVER made a single millimetre of change trying to level my car over more than 4 years - I did it myself with my snap on tool but took me 3 attempts and about 10 hours... the oddity it usually reverts back to the settings it had when it goes to sleep overnight - on the W220 docs its says you must go through a process - to go up down, up down or it won't accept an adjustment - after I tried that for a third time mine, finally remembered the changes I had written about 20 times !!! and you can't get this done with out being plugged in to the mains as it takes too long

was a recall on early cars as they fitted the air pipe to right rear so badly it got damaged and may leak - the symptom is a saggy right rear... the recco is from valve block to strut replace the entire pipe with one new piece - as the car is built to fail dangerous - its not a good idea to have joints or dubious connections it may kill you or other road users

.

MBKev

when I replaced my AIRMATIC strut with Arnott (Passenger rear), the original arrived defective (lower than usual and made a weird squeaking/clunking noise. Bought another one from Arnott and sent the defective one back. Been good ever since.

are you sure you didn’t get a defective strut on arrival? It’s actually a more common issue than you think.

Otherwise, if the strut is not defective, you will need to calibrate the height via SCN coding. The rear end only has 1 height sensor that covers both sides (fronts have independent sensors) so one side shouldn’t be lower than the other.

MBKev

Good call about the seized linkage for the height sensor. I replaced mine because they were starting to get seized.

if you have access to XENTRY/DAS, I can link you with a guy in Europe who can remotely calibrate the Airmatic suspension for you via TeamViewer.

You just need a measuring tape to measure from the centre of the wheel cap to the bottom of the wheel arch.

Not sure why you were having such trouble with calibrating it. It only took me 5-10 minutes to do it.

BOTUS

it wasn't me - within three days on me realising I could do it with equipment I had at the time I had tried twice and got EXACTLY NOWHERE - JUST LIKE 5 OTHER EXPERTS WITH DEALER KIT HAD, OF WHICH THREE HAD 20 PLUS YEARS EACH OF MERC ONLY EXPERIENCE - AND TWO HAD SUBSCRIPTION TO CONNECTED ONLINE XENTRY, EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE MAIN DEALERS HAVE

Two weeks later after checking with yet another UK Indy (I now think knows his stuff more than any of the others) using some ideas he gave and where I could get my car on a power supply to maintain big volts, I followed the raise lower twice process - as listed in Mec PDFs for the 220 and I got it to save using my snap on solus ultra and it saved it to the car permanently. EVERY GARAGE THAT TRIED MULTIPLE TIMES the way they do it for most other cars said your car is odd - we don't understand why it doesn't store it .... each time I paid, them to calibrate taking over 2 to 3 hrs each time - after Key Off drive 10 yards it was always back the settings it had at the factory if you stopped to look... it was just WRONG - Which was usually after a very long drive home

there is NO WAY OUTSIDE MAIN DEALER TOOLS (that no indy merc specialist I have met in the UK has) TO CORRECTLY DO IT - its supposed to have a feedback loop from angle sensors magnetically attached to all 4 corners telling you specific suspension arm angle data thats giving this particular ride height at each corner - that is then input to XENTRY to write and get saved to the car - you can bodge it - but might mess it up - and somehow my car in ways I believe they are ALL are meant to have, is designed to reject fiddly fingers....

One trick they have is if the calibration was input using the same angle data you saved earlier in the session and you need to go back and reset one corner the car will temp save then delete the new info on purpose - and that was with 3 newish freely moving sensors and all the bushing done up at mid laden position

you must never do up suspension arms with it dangling - it rips the bushings to death - NEVER seen a garage bother to get this right !!! I did my apprenticeship at one of the premier UK RR main dealer workshops - but we never did that, and no one at college ever taught us to this - it was only when I was pushed on the Jags in 1983 (significant change in sales) I went on three factory dealer training courses and they told us - then I got back and found the shadow boards had the links to hold the car in that position all UNUSED. Not much surprise then there really has only ever been one manu out there that understood and tried to make cars, ride, handle, and have NVH properties worthy of the premium brand name it carries

.

Chachd72

New sensors arriving today so I hope that takes care of things. Thanks for the help!!

MBKev

We have an Autel Maxidas Elite and Maxidas Ultra. Both are very expensive tools but could not calibrate on my W221.

BenzNinja was able to do it in 5 minutes and I had to go with a tape measure and manually measure all 4 corners during calibration and only took 5 min.

These Xentry tools have a bit of a learning curve and even if they have the right tools, if they don't know how to set it up/use it then makes perfect sense why the car wouldn't accept it.

From my research, unless you're a franchise dealership of Mercedes, there hasn't been Online SCN coding since 2020.

BOTUS

I didn't think we were aloud to say things about AUTEL as Mr Ninja gets upset. He is a bit of a genius
SCN coding should be out there just serious funding - the law is pushing on progress to make everything the dealer can do a legal must have for third party garages... Great place in caversham reading UK was doing SCN on my car in early 2020 - fixing a bodge up by some other muppets... and all that was trying to resolve a bug Merc SCN updates put on the car I still haven't resolved..

Where a great feature that worked on my car no longer does - but no one has confirmed they have it on theirs... audio fade on low vol setting with nav or traffic messages. I just get both souces at the same time at the same vol and have since 2019. On the NTG3.5 there is a setting to enable within comand menus - the early cars just had it on with no user selection and either it got turned off (somehow and somewhere we can't find) or they accidentally removed it

After trying lots of software in multiple modules including back flashing to iteration I was running when it last worked and or swapping out parts - it seems to be the first ever update to the rear SAM removed it - they did break comand Vols in multiple errors throughout 2007 and ended up with a compromise - where if >75% vol in use then fade a bit - but its really nasty

I have finally learnt Merc have no idea what works and what doesn't and whilst F8 says comand out of date they are lying - it reports up to date if I loop out my DAB module - likewise the later better tuner amp colour scheme that makes it feel like its not a development mule, lies the UHI is out of date when its not. But stops nagging when you revert to toys are us pre facelift comand menu colours (which are driven off the amp in the boot)

MBKev

I also hate Autel as much as BenzNinja but I have almost 30 vehicles across different brands (Bentley, BMW, Cadillac, Genesis, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes, VW, etc) just easier with an Autel to get a basic report. I did however end up buying factory tools for Cadillac, Land Rover, VAG Group (Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, VW, etc), Mercedes because in the end, when you are working on complex problems, you really need the factory tool.

Otherwise, my goodness. Sounds like you went through so much hassle and headaches with your W221 and no one seems to be able to get it right. Once I get my pre-facelift back from the shop, I can check mine out to see if it's acting any different from yours. When you mean Traffic messages, is that like XMTraffic or the one built into comand? (I noticed that function in my W164). Here in my city in Canada, we barely get any traffic so I never hear any traffic messages.

The volume fade out issue sounds like a failing AMP to me (Unless it was working fine before all the programming nightmare). My '11 facelift had a similar issue until it died and said something along the lines of "Audio Not Available" when it stopped working permanently. I replaced the H/K amp with one from a used 2007 S550 and it fixed it right up. No issues and no programming needed.

BOTUS

if you could check how your car behaves that would be great

when I first got the car the radio had this perfect graduated fade in and out, where it muted the source into the background (radio, tv, DAB,CD etc.), then faded in the overlay of Comand's own Sat Nav information and or the Comand's TMC messages - when complete, it brought back up the source progressively to wherever you had it.

the Sat Nav or TMC vol was user selectable - key on off / battery disconnected - it just remembered where you'd last used it. And faded in and out reliably. Then in 2014 a Merc Main dealer did the big 2008 Comand update bringing 3D maps and millions of bug fixes. And still this Sat Nav or TMC Source Mute overlay feature had the exact same behaviour and operation - still working perfectly as it had originally - in my mind this was the only part of the car where there was ever any evidence of engineering sophistication in play.

The AMP went pop as they do, and I fitted a facelift Amp (it is exactly the same hardware, mine was just running 6 month newer software from late 2010, rather than the last ever old style pre facelift software released in early 2010. The facelift tuner software worked the same as the original with IDENTICAL functionality everywhere, the win and thus utter madness they forgot they could use on the early or later cars - is two cosmetic improvements... the red line showing which station you are on, left aligns more reliably (rather than just center aligned) so the station names can be displayed better - with the feature working on BOTH euro DAB and the FM tuners - and with a subtle upgrade to the comand menu colour scheme that's more intuitive - showing where you last were, and were you are now - rather than just mush like the original release (its subtle and as I no longer have it can't better describe it)

With the new facelift AMP and those cosmetic improvements, the perfect Sat Nav or TMC Source Mute overlay feature was still operating EXACTLY as it had done beforehand.

Then in Jan 2019 we flashed the Front SAM and the Air suspension, however before we could do any more updates - online XENTRY fell over - Merc had screwed the dealerships and everyone had been offline over Christmas for 3 weeks with a failed upgrade - thus when all Euro dealers went online trying to code thousands of cars trying to get them back out to the customers, it just crashed. So we couldn't do any more....

A few months later we plugged in to Online XENTRY again, and it said MUST flash Rear SAM - its out of date

The garage used only specialise in fitting genuine interior toy upgrades and has lots of experience - yet claimed he had never seen such a message previously. So we did as we were told and flashed the Rear SAM and it upgraded from factory original of 2006 to a SCN'd 2015 iteration - and from then on (in diagnostics) it always threw a fault about the rear screen sunblind - with it being out of sync. It was likely this update that killed the source mute overlay feature - but I forget the exact timeline - I remember that year - either this update or later after doing the Cluster update - as I drove away from the garage I thought the radio speed related vol increase had gone from brilliant to really NASTY. With horrible noticeable steps rather than the once PERFECT gradual imperceptible increases and decrease with road speed it once had all the way till 2019

I guess one update broke both features - but I hadn't used the Sat Nav for a few months - thus unsure if it was the Rear SAM in March 2019 or the Roof Module or Cluster updates we did circa August 2019 - to make me feel better the garage said hard luck - we see it all the time and NEVER managed to get Merc to take ownership for their mistakes - and with it such an old car, highly likely they will NEVER go back and fix it - or even care to hear about it

Once again at my expense trying to resolve the Nav mute overlay feature - after throwing online SCN updates at much of the rest of the car in Oct 2019 we had still got nowhere - So I reluctantly let him flash the Merc SCN nasty original era pre facelift AMP software at the radio - as I suspected would happen - it did nothing for the fade overlay feature - BUT brought back all the rubbish with naff colours... and now we could never go forwards to fix it again !!!

Trying to cheer me up they found some Merc Technical documentation claiming they had made the car with user selectable Vol adjustment for Sat Nav and TMC overlay within Comand user menus - but its not there, and as far as we can see its not hidden even within software using dealer tools either - then it describes the massively over complex SDVC they'd implemented at build - taking ambient noise levels in the car from the OCP microphone, comparing it to road speed, that might be from the Cluster or might be from the Rear SAM (as that handles speed for the active cruise control), after that the AMP does its bit and its all reprocessed in the Rear SAM before relaying the volume level for a given operation back to the Comand.

My issue is by the time I knew they had broken the car, we'd flashed online to SCN updates all four modules that MIGHT BE related - its why I've been trying to undo it all for years

In the end I bought another Rear SAM and it didn't fix anything - turns out these are a mess up as bought - the current spec replacement part you buy off the shelf at a dealer is later hardware but comes preloaded with bodge it software!!! Its meant to help out third party garages who can fit without coding OR a dealer can software update and SCN to the current iteration. Only years later did I find out you can't SCN the version I'd wanted to use to see if was a release before they broke the Nav mute overlay feature.

As at the time I believed it must be online coded - sadly I went to a garage many in the UK claim is the best of the top three independents - who tasked with fitting and "online coding" this as new part didn't know what they were doing - and bent a pin leaving the SRB and the SAM part connected - and nor did Merc Support - when the garage couldn't SCN or manually code it. Merc should have said you can't on that software release - so its likely those bugs you are ringing us about are coming as you haven't fitted it correctly...

That useless garage gave the car back with all distronic plus and parking sensor features broken - I drove back and said WTF - if it doesn't work put the old one back in - they did, but later I found they stole a set of longer wheel bolts from the boot at the same time - and even "back to standard" the car was never right (that as then unknown, bent pin was still stopping the original fitting properly) - fortunately it never really let me down, but I'd get random power supply errors show in diagnostics, a message about the dynamic seats, and some other oddities...

In 2021 I went to the Caversham guys to see if they could get the mute overlay feature to function... and they said Comand out of date what do you expect !!! (the lies about the DAB - threw them), I said its not, its Merc are just stupid ...and the garage went here we go another idiot that thinks he knows more than Merc or Us... Then they mentioned a connection issue on the Rear SAM - I said how can you know that ? they never explained their thinking, so I said just SCN the Rear SAM - they couldn't believe the car let them do it - however it made no change for the Mute overlay feature, but low and behold we discovered Merc had gone back and fixed a bug in software they'd been forcing on old cars - The SCN update this time coded off the error about the sunblind synchronisation. So as least it cleared a Merc diagnostic bug.

Another visit a week later he said, why are we bothering - you have a connection issue on the SAM - but this time he showed me why he was saying this - grabbing and shaking the car via the SRB... he said hear that clicking !!! So off I went to fit a pin bush housing on a connection to the Rear SAM the other fools had admitted they broke trying to fit the later Rear SAM. After I unraveled half the worlds wiring so I could see what the hell was going on, whilst its retaining clips had failed it was actually still fully connected as they glued it in - however after repining half the car's multiplugs tidying Merc's pathetic attempts at making wiring looms, I could now see enough to find the idiot garage had bent the SRB pin and the two could never connect - hence the Caversham guys were 100% spot on re. a connection issue

So I got another SRB and put it all back together using in my later Rear SAM and went back again to say please SCN this new Rear SAM - where upon they said it won't let us !!! So I'd sorted a few connections, made access easier and sorted the dangerous cruise control getting off Merc's current software - as current software and SCN updates stops the brakes coming on early enough to slow the car safely - which had left the active cruise plain dangerous for two years - Yet I still hadn't got anywhere on the Nav mute overlay feature !!!

Then realising no one seems to know what they are doing I got the BenzNinja deal and we have been trying to resolve - we've flashed the Rear SAM forward 6 months to a 2007 iteration that can be SCN'd and in XENTRY it allows full manual coding and market customisation and the car seems to drive better - but still no Nav Mute overlay... And we can't get the AMP / Tuner to flash forward to facelift software the security is locked down like crazy... We went back on the OCP and the Cluster... overlay still broken...

leaving me now confident my original diagnosis is Merc plain removed the best feature of the car ever had, in a mistake very early on in the models life - where a broken Rear SAM update most cars never got (hence few complaints) - meant they wiped out the source mute for Nav / TMC overlay feature - as the idiots still believed an out of date early development tech doc that claimed they had built user menus in the Comand to adjust it. Hence the part baked mishandled removal of a feature the car needs - binned in a misunderstood implementation by later engineers, leaves the brilliant but complex Rear SAM SDVC on the cutting room floor - and it was mistake that is ultimately what created utter hell for owners in some of the first Comand bug fix releases - when the bad software they pushed at cars broke all Vol control on the entire car. And thus why we still have part of the nasty resolution in the crappy >75% fade feature I'm left with - as it was part of a bodge on that didn't break old cars on good software, but fixed the no Vol issue for the ones they had destroyed with their bad software

So one day I might waste my life a bit more and go back on the SAM software just to prove I'm right and try and explain to an uninterested manu they have no idea what they are doing...

Chachd72

2 weeks ago I replaced the original struts with Arnott struts, valve body & compressor & front level sensors. Many on this forum have highly recommended Arnott parts but in my case I've been very disappointed. The right rear is noticeably lower than the left which could be a defective strut, and when the car has been sitting overnight the entire rear is lower and when I start it up I get a message that the car is rising, please wait to drive, which lasts anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds. I suspect this is caused by a leak of some sort that I have not been able to find. I also find that the ride is noticeably rougher with the Arnotts and there is impact noise when I hit a bump that was never there with the original struts. I also notice a thump from the left rear when I go over a big bump. Another minor point is that I can hear the Arnott compressor and I could never hear the original Mercedes compressor.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

kevm14

My only comment is more of a troll: I don't understand why everyone is so enamored with Arnott. Their airbag replacements might be fine but their shocks do NOT work properly across most applications. I mean I have some theories. Some people have had a good experience. Some people hate the extra cost of OEM parts and want to "stick it" to the dealer or Mercedes and buy aftermarket. But you can have OEM or OEM-equivalent in ways that are cheaper than over the counter at your local Benz dealer.

In no particular order (and this is not all inclusive)...option 1: FCP Euro (or similar). They often will supply the actual Benz part but with an added lifetime warranty. Option 2: Rock Auto. They won't have the Benz part per se but for items like suspension they often carry the actual Bilstein part, with a lifetime warranty, at significant discount from the Benz branded part (which is a Bilstein in those cases). And option 3: my dealer has an internet parts website where you can buy, pick up locally (saves on shipping) and their prices on there are already significantly discounted from MSRP. I do this all the time. Ask your friendly parts folks if they have a website and check it out.

Sorry for the slightly off topic rant...but those are 3 reasons not to buy Arnott.

Arrie

So, if the right rear is lower then the front left must be higher, right. A corner of a car cannot go down alone without an opposing corner going up. Car body is stiff and does not flex individually in the corners.

you probably have a leak in the new sir spring. Thus happened to me too with Arnott part. As it was bad out of the box FCP Euro sent me a return shipping label and a new part before I even sent the leaking one back.

As it was s new part I thought it could be a leak somewhere else but instead of crawling around the car trying to find a possible leak I made this simple tool in the picture, i.e., an isolating ball valve that I shut after car raised up. Then used soapy water making sure there were no leaks in the tube fittings between the valve and air spring. Sure enough the new spring had a leak.

BOTUS

don't agree on that one Arrie... any corner can do whatever it likes and the others will be where they were (might be the slightest bit of silliness) but you get more parked on a pebble or a slight dip on the tarmac and then the car goes in to its mental self levelling distortion mode of confusion

seized sensors link rods are the biggest issue - they get bent / distorted / were misreading and now the car has new bits everyone thinks the calibration is wrong but its 9 out of 10 time lies from the sensors

early ones were built with a damaged pipe to one of the rear corners - if you disturb it - likely will make the rare issue come to the surface - pdf out there saying ALWAYS replace the entire pipe length

Arrie

These cars are not made of rubber. Each corner for certain cannot go up or down without making changes to other corners. Your comment is very silly in my opinion.

If one rear spring leaks all the way, it takes the other rear down with it if the car is heavy enough. If not heavy enough, then the side not leaking will stay up some but then the opposing front corner from the leaking one will be also up some as the car body will not bend.

If the car is parked on level surface and in the rear, you have right side lower than left then this same condition also appears in the front.

It seems Mercedes also realized this after building the 2010 E550 with Airmatic. My E550 has four level sensors meaning in the rear (or front) the level settings fight each other and I think the system goes by the average reading between left and right sensors in rear. I believe this is why the 2012 S550 has only one level sensor for the rear axle.

Three points determine the plane, the fourth point will be a problem if it differs from the plane the other three points already set up.

And again, the car body will not flex (other than very small amount, of course), if it does, then there is a big problem with the frame / body of the car.

BOTUS

that comment ought to get an apology - my air tragic set up can adjust each corner independently - and over 6 years I've watched 5 garages do exactly this - but they never managed to get it to actually save (but the dealer tools said they had)

then I did it myself properly - you can manage each corner anywhere you like in 1mm increments if it takes your fancy - yes, if you move one corner a drastic amount there will be slight weight transfer - but its not this that causes the fun - rather its due to stiction / life / odd level sensors / ambient temps and humidity / atmospheric pressure - the "air volume" that achieved the 1mm movement in that moment is not fixed (like it would be on an ABC car), so the end result after a drive might well be 10mm either side of what you aimed for... but as it gets closer each time and the user more aware of whats going on - using run time of the compressor to gauge how much it really should have moved it gets easier and more and more accurate

I've had the stupid thing raise a corner 50mm with 1 second of the valve open or not moved at all in 10 seconds - the set up is a joke - but each corners is independently adjustable - with the right equipment and if you know the trick you can write it back to the cars dim brain

Chachd72

My mechanic bought 2 new air line fittings for the rear struts at our local Benz dealer and will install them this afternoon. I'm hoping that solves the problem!

Chachd72

We replaced the top fittings on the rear shocks yesterday and no change.When I went out this morning I measured the car height before I started it and got the following:

Left Front - 30 inches Right Front - 27 3/4 inches
Left Rear - 27 inches Right Rear - 24 inches

I started it and got the message: Vehicle Rising Please Wait Briefly

I then got the following:

Left Front - 29 1/2 inches Right Front - 28 1/2 inches
Left Rear - 28 3/4 inches Right Rear - 27 inches

I have replaced all 4 struts with Arnott units, Arnott valve block, Arnott compressor, fittings, and front level sensors.

Vehicle has 140k miles and I had no problems before this mess.

Ideas or help?

BOTUS

there are test routines within Xentry - I'd start with them - if it seems air tight - it could well be some moron calibrated it when the car was in a mess with leaking struts and seized sensors....

its goes to where its told to go - unless leaking / worn out / the sensors link rods were wrongly fitted / seized / bent

doni01

iTrader: (1)

Your mechanic needs to plug the car into a Star/DAS. That will tell him what is wrong. Everything else is a guess and it will get expensive at that...
I personally as well do not like Arnott. The company is great but their QC is horrible. I always told people, if they like doing the same work more then once and then sometimes more then twice, then go order from Arnott. If you want to do it once and done buy the parts from the Stealership or Oem from FCP Euro. My mechanic friend won't use Arnott since he kept doing the job over and over and couldn't charge the customers twice for the same job.

Arrie

You have leaking Right Rear air spring. Your level measurements show exactly what I tried to explain in my earlier posts, the Left Front is high as the car rocks over the axis of Left Rear - Right Front i.e., when the Right Rear goes down the Left Front goes up.

This is NOT a sensor issue as when you start the car it raises up. Your levels are not exactly the same, but you should go drive it first and measure again. The levels would probably be closer.

Reset of the levels, of course, can be wrong but it does not explain why the rear right comes up and then goes down when the car sits. You have a leak.

If you make the simple "leak tester" I show in my earlier post, you can isolate the leaking spring from rest of the system.

Any scanner no matter how fancy is no good for troubleshooting this. They will tell you the levels are off but hey, you can actually see this just by looking at the car. Scanner will tell if the compressor kicked out and perhaps even the reason for this, but you have no issue with the compressor as it pumps the car up.

Your problem is simply a leaking air spring, a new part, but it happens, like it happened to me.




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Chachd72

Arrie - Thank you for the advice. I spoke with customer service at Arnott and they recommended switching the air lines to the rear struts to make sure that it is a defective strut. My mechanic is going to do this tomorrow, which I believe will show that it's a leaking strut as you said.
I'll post the outcome.