Fitzy

So back in November I sell my 1986 4Runner (something I regret every single day) an buy a beautiful 1997 LS400, since I'm doing lots of 100+ miles commutes now and an ancient 4Runner isn't good for that.

Almost everything about this car is mint, but, and I knew this when I bought it, it has the factory air suspension. Didn't think much of it when I bought it but now it's kicking my ***.

Ever since November the front end has randomly been letting all it's air out, to the point where the inside of the front passenger side wheel well will rest on the tire. It always pumps itself up in about 5 minutes when I start it and set her to "high", but it's made me late for class and work a few times now.

I live about 2 hours from my closest Lexus dealership, but my local Toyota dealership said they would be able to do just about everything for it. Well twice I've taken it in for this problem.

First time they told me that as far as they could tell it had no problem. It's currently there for the second time, and by now I've found that setting the height to "Normal" and turning off the motor reproduces the problem reliably.

Well now they call me and tell me that even after SHOWING them the exact problem and how to do it, they tell me they can't find a leak and that they're gonna use a computer to look now.

What should I do? Should I just take it Lexus up north and ask them for some help? Am I gonna be paying out my life savings for this?

CELSI0R

Unless you really want it, when the air suspension goes, convert it to standard struts.

I don't have any experience with the air suspension, but I have heard of people converting it time and time again.

dicer

On old cars especially high tech old cars, if you can not do the work your self or have a good mechanic friend yes you could end up paying your life savings out on it. But then you need to think about it this way, if you went out now and bought an equivalent car as that LS, you would be more than spending you life savings on it and at a much larger loss ratio. If you end up using new dealer parts it could end up costing as much as or more than you likely paid for the car. And it will not be the last time you have to spend some dollars on it, that is the way cars are. If you can't find air suspension parts used that you need, then the other option is like Celsior said, and will probably be the best option for a daily driver. Air suspension on an old LS is good for a collector that just wants that option, it really isn't a suspension to trust, though they do ride real nice I really like them.

Aron9000

Yup, convert her to conventional shocks/springs. All the old road tests for these cars said the standard coil suspension rode just as nice as the air option.

I'd shop around and find a shop that does this type of work and has an alignment rack in house. If you see a bunch of junky looking 2000's Mercedes and Range Rovers sitting on their lot, they've probably done a lot of this type of work before.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

the air suspension will eventually fail, sooner than later, so instead of taking it to the dealer to diagnose, save that money for conventional strut/spring conversion which is covered elsewhere in this forum. it is a very common practice, and to keep the factory air susp would only pull more money out of your pocket, for something that will fail again.