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It finally happened to me, came out in the garage and right side of car was on the ground. Starting car and you can hear the hissing noise of air escaping. Have not driven the car for close to two months so not sure how long it has been down for.
Reading up a bit I thought it was the air strut. Ordered a new one and installed. Royal pain in the aXX to get the old one out of the suspension arm. Corrosion over time wedges it in there incredibly hard. Many videos shows people tapping with hammer etc. Maybe in New Mexico, with less than 20k miles....
After giving up on hammering I used a 2 ton jack and a strap around the suspension piece - did release it but with a LOT of force and with a long bang. A sliver scary actually. Cleaned out the indentation well before installing new unit.
After turning car on again I realized there was a still a hissing noise. Much less, but still there. Immediately thought it was the connector to the air strut but it was perfect.
Found a small leak behind the heatshield. Used a normal leak detection fluid from Home Depot (soapy water likely works fine as well).
Two choices - either replace the entire line (which is not a specific part but a generic repair kit). Or use a line coupler. After hearing from a MB mechanic that this is the way they always do it, I too a chance, ordered one from Amazon (for $20, not the $90 the dealer wanted), and it worked out well. Put some friction tape on it and car is back in business.
Lastly - while working on the compressor I also decided to change the air filter for the compressor. It was surprisingly dirty, so likely a good thing to do every now and then ($20 part as well).
It may be that mine has been running more than usual due to the small leak in the line?
Nice. Happen to have a link to the Amazon coupler and part # for the compressor filter for future reference.
Filter number is 2123200169 plenty of cars use the same so easy to source
For the coupler, search for "Compressed air pipe connector 1995-2023 For Mercedes-Benz X218 C218 C219 C216 W205 S205 C205 W211 W212 W213 C238 C253 W166 C292 X166 X164 W164 V251 Replacement # 0003270169 (Tracheal nozzle)"
Or easier - trick is that the OEM part # is 0003270169 Same thing - used for many airmatic cars so easy to find.
There are also a number of plastic coupler products and the same mechanic told me a number of shops use those instead of the metal ones since they don't rattle. Hence my attempt to cover the coupling with friction tape.
All good work by Fastwgn. I just wonder how many compression link repairs make sense before having to replace the whole line. It really is aggravating to see parts used in the manufacture of a supposed high quality brand that won’t last the lifespan of the car.
Well - the repair kit is ~$100, and to do that you also will need two new end couplers (another $20 to $30). It is not recommend to reuse the old ones since inside there is a compression piece that is hard to remove without breaking it or at least making it less than perfectly round. And in reality, if you are doing all the work to fix the entire line (it will be a couple of hours at least since you have to remove heat shields, attachment points etc. ) it will be worth to ensure you don't get a leak in the end point connectors.
I believe these lines are sensitive to movement, as in if they are moved for some reason, they may rub against the heatshield and over time wear out. But having done this repair once, it's a pretty easy one. The pain is to find the leak, not to fix it!
4 months and 600 miles later, move the car from one garage bay to another. When parking I hear a loud hissing again. WTF? Still from passenger side. First though - well - good I bought that air spring from FCP - will have to replace a faulty one.
But after checking - no - it was the same high pressure line, but this time on the passenger side! Looking at car from bottom, this is what I mean. 1 is the location of first leak, 2 is the new one. Note that I have here removed the plastic cover underneath the spare tire well and the passenger side exhaust heat shield. The high pressure line goes between the heat shield and the car body.
Repaired it the same way as last time - using a $20 coupler. Looking at the high pressure (hard plastic) lie, a slight white tint could be seen. Ignore the black marking - that is my mark to easier find it after I had located the leak.
After it being removed from the car, you can see the actual crack in the enlarged picture.
This happening twice in the same (but mirror image) location felt unusual. When looking at the car, I saw that there is a tiny piece of leftover steel right where the leak was. Exact same location as on the first leak (but again - mirror image). For some reason this tiny piece of metal is left from the factory and over time there is a tiny bit of rust as well. increasing its size. The plastic line is likely about 10 cm or so too short and hence rubbed against it instead of floating above it.
For anyone else doing their air springs - take a quick look at the line, may make sense to replace it at the same time!
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