sojah

iTrader: (1)

sounds like you and Boomer both have small leaks. if you air it up on high it may make the small leak problem see to go away but will eventually come back later. mine felt really weird when going over bumps in the highway and progressively got worse till i replaced it. it started to feel like my car was full of water and the water was sloshing around making the rebounds (after bumps in the road) all weird and not normal feeling.

Boomer01

I keep reading that "you will know when they go bad". Like I said, other than a firm thud when going over a bump I don't notice anything. I've been lucky so far but as dreading the day when one goes out.

Griff48

Sojah, if you don't mind my asking, what was the cost to replace the air struts parts and labor? I have heard anywhere from $4k to $8k!

Thanks.

jayclapp

I had an air strut that was leaking at 56,000 miles. The part was $1098 and labor was $260 for a total of $1358. The leak was found by my dealer at service. I didn't have a clue that anything was going wrong. They replaced the strut on CPO warranty at no cost to me. Haven't had any other strut failures. Now at 69,700 miles and have another year left on extended warranty.

Boomer01

I did an experiment last night and measured the height from the ground to the bottom of the fender on each wheel. I measured them parked with the car off (a couple hours after I got home from work), with the car running (the air compressor sometimes comes on and adjusts the height), running on "high" setting, still running but switched back to normal mode, and not running after a few hours.

I found that the car did not adjust the height after turning the car on the first time and letting the compressor adjust the height.

Once on "high", the height was adjusted anywhere from 0.5" to 0.75" depending on the side of the car.

Once switched back to normal, the height was anywhere from -0.125" lower (only one wheel was lower) to 0.5" higher than the initial heights. One side measured the exact same.

After I let the car sit for a few hours, the heights were the exact same as previously measured.

I'm going to change my oil this weekend and will check the shocks/struts to see if there is any oil leaking.

JonHsiung

Did you wait a few minutes for the adjustment and drive it around the block before taking measurements? I heard it takes time for it to adjust. And did you measure from tire-fender, rim lip-fender, or center cap-fender? Tire seems difficult to me to measure consistently.

Very curious to see your results.

Boomer01

I did wait for around 3 minutes each time I changed the height settings. I measured from the ground to the bottom of the fender. The tire pressure wasn't all exactly the same but was within a pound or two.

Boomer01

Well, I found out that two of my shocks (front and rear passenger side) are covered with grime. I don't know if it is because they are leaking and dirt is sticking to them or what. The driver side shocks are clean. So what does this mean? Are they about to go out or have they already?



Used a rag to wipe off some of it:

User 82021

that is what they look like when the shocks leak their oil.

if you adjust it from high to normal, due to the suspension travel ark, the tires hold it in a bind against the pavement, so if you do want to measure this measure it initially then change it and drive it forward or backward 5 to 10 feet than remeasure. anytime you adjust it it wont completely settle until it relieves the bind that the tires against the pavement are holding.

another thing is that if you have one going bad, the sway bar will help one side compensate for the other side slightly.

Boomer01

So I guess that they are going bad and not already bad since I do not notice any problem with the car ride. I don't know why both passenger side shocks look like this and the drivers side ones are clean but they are. I'm not sure how long they have been this way but it doesn't look good. I wonder how much longer they have in them?

ippo

Great info! Sorry for bumping an old topic but what kind of noise does a leak shock make?

I don't think that one of the shocks is leaking, since both left and right rear shocks have the same gap between wheel and fender. But when I hit a speed bump there some "squeaky" sound coming from the rear right. It doesn't sound like it's coming from the outside/shock though. I HOPE it's coming from the interior, I just can't figure from what. It's not coming from the rear armrest; the sound of leather against leather.

The sound also didn't occure to me when I took the test drive and was flying over speed bumps just to test the shocks.

Any ideas?

jayclapp

I had a rear shock covered with grime and thought it must be an oil leak. Took it to my dealer and they told me the shock was fine, just road grime. As my warranty was about to expire I wasn't too sure. I wiped the shock clean and then checked weekly. No oil appeared. So you can get grime on just one shock.

I suggest you wipe it dry and observe it. Wet oil is easy to see.

Benjaminx

Hi there. Can someone help me ? How do I change or pump oil into my air suspension ? Because when I adjust the high height and go back to normal. It makes some clicking noise, sound like it dry up or something. Please help. Thank you very much

hyperopt

No such thing!
The system is maintenance free. Only replacement when something goes wrong.