Check out this thread for a little more info.

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/235825-star-diagnostics-available-vrp.html

 

I was a victim of the airmatic failure as well..driver's side. IMO, it is a matter of WHEN not IF it will happen. My car was stock, not lowered. I actually kept both front airmatic shocks, the passenger side was still good when it was removed. I was told (apparently incorrectly) that at the time they had to be replaced in pairs.

 

My '05 E55 suffered the same problem at about 32k miles. The right strut collapsed and I got the "Car too low" warning. Fortunately the tire didn't rub and I was able to limp it to the dealer for warranty replacement of the strut.

My E55 is stock, not lowered with the MB 19" polished wheels. I love the car, but I doubt I will keep it beyond the extended warranty.

 

Mine failed last August. It had about 25K miles on it at the time and was completely stock. The dealership replaced one strut that was flown in from Germany. The repair was completed in 5 days and the SA said it would have been about $3K if the warranty had not paid for it. I have no way to tell if he was accurate or not. Kinda makes me think about an extended warranty.

 

I went to the dealer today and they told me that the part had to be ordered from germany(huge bs) and that if I did not have the extended warranty it would have been $2600 to fix!!! Another one of those "thank god I bought extended warranty" moments.

 

ditto.

2 weeks ago.

Right strut too 3 days to get form germany and a day to install.

Driving a loaner C230 really makes you appreciate the E when it comes back.

 

I got 19s on my car and my car is not lowered. I had to put on spare on the front passenger side because one of my rims is leaking air. I was able to drive it like this for a day but today I parked the car and it lowered the front of the car and I got the same message. Car is so low that I can't even turn the wheel. I tried putting on stock rim in place of my spare but car still does not go up; it did go up a bit but not enough to drive it. Any suggestions on what to do?

 

Off to the dealer for a new strut......$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Sorry.

 

To bring back the dated debate from a few posts up, washers don't damage the struts anymore than lowering the car with any other method does.

The bottom point is, the Airmatic system is most reliable and performs best at stock height. However, if you really wanted, you could give the car a mild drop for say, up to a 1-1.5" drop. Dropping the car 1" via SDS, links, washers, or a electronic module does not make a difference. At the end of the day, your car is lowered and your Airmatic struts now have less travel to work with. What really puts the Airmatic system at risk for failure is slamming it. If you are driving around with no wheelgap or tucking tire, then chances are, you are too low and the struts are taking a beating.

I just paid well over $4k to have both my struts replaced out of warranty, and I will gladly lower the car again. However, this time, I will only drop the car mildly and be cautious of the roads I drive on.

 

Just had my right front go out Monday. Towed to dealership and had my car back on Tuesday (exactly 24 hrs later).

Not sure why the quick turn around. Perhaps they finally read my last service review and are trying to make amends (doubt it).

Anyway, I have 19s and I am not lowered.

I really want to lower my car by 1" exactly but now I'm nervous in case another strut blows.

 

You guys are overpaying big time...

What you want is p/n:

2113205513 Left, 2113205413 Right

They are $825 apiece at Parts.com, and a fair quote on labor from an indy to replace both fronts is probably in the neighborhood of $500. I can't see how this whole job should cost more than around $2300, after factoring in shipping and sales tax. Whoever the guy above is who paid $4k+ for this simple task, I hope they at least used lube on this job...and I mean on you, not on your car...cause' you got raped.

FWIW, my R129 SL600 has a similar suspension setup, except it's even more of a PITA to work on because it's hydropneumatic instead of just air pressure, and that requires complicated bleeding procedures along with a ton of that Mercedes hydraulic fluid that's $50/quart, every time you work on it. And even then, it only ran me a little over $2k to have my two front shocks and nitrogen spheres replaced.

Changing out a shock is a very simple task that any indy can do, and you guys who are out of warranty need to quit contributing to the dealer's yacht fund.

 

newton:

You are incorrect - however to go into it would require a lot of explination and is outside the realm of this thread I think. Fooling the airmatic system with having values that are not truly indicative of actual values will lead to premature failure - although that doesn't mean that it cannot suffer failure when stock or otherwise.

$4k is typical w/ dealer pricing. Even at $2300 it goes to show why myself and so many others preach extended warranties so much... I got mine for an additional 3 years/up to 60k miles (I only have 36xxx) for less than that, and it covers everything.

Re: suspension types - the R230s are also pneumatic, and see less failure, but have still seen some.

-m

 

I've tried them all and it definitely matters.

Lowering a W211 (airmatic) with the washer method causes more failure rates, PERIOD.

True, lowering in general will limit travel, etc. but the typical airmatic is not failing due to the pop of bottoming out. Keep in mind that the most stress on the bags is actually when you throw it into a turn...the car leans...the air tries to hold the car true. That is a LOT of weight and air is a gas, which compresses. Those valves are POPPING!! When the Airmatic brain is thinking one thing and reality is another, you have more issues than just lowering. ANY shock will blow if it is not in its sweet spot.

 

I got my struts replaced at an independent shop. One strut costed nearly $1200. Add to that, I had my ball joints and lower control arm bushings replaced. I did not get raped in the *** as far as pricing goes. It was a very steep bill though, whichever way anyone looks at it.

Marcus, I would love to know your take on this because with these cars, I'm still learning lots of new things everyday. I have lowered my car with links again after installing the new struts. It would be nice if I can get these new struts to last for the rest of the life of the car.

 

HAHA!! I know I'm not marcus, but the links are the same as the washers, except that they don't have the failure of the nut coming loose (which has happenned to members here). They are nice and secure. I even made a set out of MB parts before they were for sale and tried them. Benz-o-rama ran them on his car for a year or so, too. I went through 3 sets of shocks (mostly fronts) before I got the ELM. That was in about 15K miles of play. Since then, I have put on 25K miles onto the new car and the shocks are just now feeling soft. Still no failure or leaks (oil or air).


Here is one example. Even if you slightly lower it, leaving plenty of travel, think of the other crap. The position of the sensor will be in a position where the car thinks it is higher. Now, the computers get data from not just those sensors, but from lean sensors as well. The control of the parameters of how much lean, g force, etc. is allowed before a certain action is taken gets BLOWN out of the water when you fake it. Does that make sense? Here is a scenario.....You lower by links....you are in twisties....note that the car will be leaning LESS at anytime than the car would think since it is lower than the car thinks. So, what you get is an active suspension that kicks in later. Why? Because it is looking for more lean with the assumption that the car is higher and can lean more easily. Then, as the car finally triggers the lean, the car pops the valves. So, you are already leaning (late air) and the car will hold it there. It is true. I have made runs up palomar at different heights with the links and the car literally leans MORE when lowered by mechanics alone.

Sorry for the long winded non-solicited reply, but the Airmatic is one thing I understand.

I thought you had ABC?

 

Thanks for that Jangy.

Concerning the nut coming off the link bolt, that is entirely the fault of the person who modified the link. I'm still running the "washer method," but I don't use washers and it works fine for me.

Your explanation made sense to me, and once again, Airmatic proves to be a more complicated suspension system than I thought. Reading that concerns me, and I'm thinking about just uninstalling the links I just installed yesterday for a SAS lowering. Can you please explain to me the whole valves deal? They pop when cornering?

I do not have ABC.

 

OK, lets just talk in terms of lift and right and won't worry about total body roll.

Think only of your front wheels. As you throw the car into a turn, the car will lean, compressing the outside shock and expanding the inside one. To adjust for it, the outter shock gets a boost to lift it back up. For this to happen very fast, MB has a pressurized system (using 3 gallon tanks) and uses valves to direct the pressure. It also takes a bunch of input from many sensors to decide WHEN to hit which valve.

we all know that lean is a bad thing, but on our cars it is actually an exponential thing. The more you lean, the more the car will want to lean and on and on. Why? As your shock compresses or extends the angle of the arms changes. Camber becomes more and more negative as it compresses, so the outer wheel gets better traction as the opposite side is getting less traction. That means that it will lean more until the point where the outside "gives" from too much negative camber. Or just excessive force for one contact patch to try to hold up.
In theory, a car that does not lean would have the use of BOTH contact patches at all times. I honestly believe the reason this car is so fun to drive in the twisties is because of the airmatic and you literally have to remember that you are playing with computers.
Honestly, my car still gets worse (leans more) if I drop it too low with the ELM but the difference is WAAAY different than with links. It is that added stress of always playing catch up that makes the washer method less reliable.

 

So electronic modules modify the system in a similar fashion the Star would? That's something to think about. What if I never drive my car aggressively around corners?

 

Well, the ELMs get into a whole nother bag of worms. To my knowledge, the RennTech ELMs are the only ones that are digital. Up until that, all the ELMs were analogue and had issues with proper calibration and drift with temperature.

The ELM is NOT as integrated with the car as STAR is, but it is tough to get star to let the car out of US spec ranges. and then, the car knows exactly where it is.

The ELM integrates enough to linearize that exponential curve of the sweet spot. So, at extremes, the car will lean more than it had been lowered by STAR, but not nearly as bad as with the mechanical setup.

Saying "what if I don't drive aggressive" is like saying that a solution to rubbing tires is to raise the height just a tad. In either case, there will still be situations that the suspension compresses. In your case, a mild mechanical drop and mild driving habits will likely give you enough life?

At any rate, warranty FTW!!

 

Very interesting Jangy...and good points. Thanks for the information!

 

No, like I said, they're $825.00 apiece on the web.

Here: http://www.parts.com/oemcatalog/inde...id=67&siteid=2

So you paid $1200 apiece, but don't think you were overcharged? Well if you consider a $400 markup on a part that's only $800 to begin with to be a good deal, then I guess you have more money than me. Especially because list price in the WIS is only $1100...so...you paid $100 over LIST. That means you could have walked right up to your MB Dealer's parts counter and bought the two struts for $200 less than you paid. That's ridiculous.

You have to watch the Indys the same as the dealers. The two most annoying tricks are the insane markups they put on parts (which you can get around by just buying your own parts), and then some of them will try to charge you book time for everything (and NOTHING, except maybe an engine swap or something like that, will ever take as long as book time). It sounds like your indy falls in category 1. In the future, you should bring your own parts. If he squawks about it, then I'd find one who doesn't. The ones who aren't out to rip you off won't mind that. And you would have saved around $800 just on this one repair!

 

I just read your profile and realized you have a W220, not a W211.

So to correct myself, here are the correct struts you need: http://www.parts.com/oemcatalog/inde...id=67&siteid=2

$837 instead of $825. So you 'only' overpayed by $726.

 

Oops. Live and learn.

 

This is a dumb question, but is it possible to swap out the airmatics with a simple coilover system? I keep my airmatics on one setting only anyways.

 

some have tried but nobody has been successful yet. My guess is getting all of the computers happy would be hard.