every morning at 5:37 it clicks, ticks and farts

[Ozzy119]

Pretty much without fail i've heard the car do a series of ticking / clicking and then some groaning with the occasional fart to finish. Then it all goes quiet again. Car is locked. Always around 5:37am.

I'm quietly drinking coffee in office with window open, is how i've managed to pick this out.

What is it doing ? No wonder the batteries don't stay charged for long.

[87County]

Your description makes it difficult to suppress the laughter, but the image of an ageing D3/4 have early morning digestive system issues due to diet has formed in my head [smilebigeye] .

Seriously though.....
while I cannot help very much, you post that it is "locked", I assume you do this with the remote to avoid the alarm system causing battery flattening ?

Just to start isolating the issue, is it safe to leave it unlocked in your locality and see what kind of a recital the next morning brings ?

[DiscoJeffster]

The car wakes every six hours I think from memory and goes through a re-leveling process for the suspension. This it why when testing for a leak you have to pull fuses to disable the suspension ecu to find the culprit corner. Essentially it will detect and change and deflate a corner appropriately to level the car again.

[scarry]

Correct,what he said^^^^^^^^.

Thats why if there is a suspension air leak on one corner,the vehicle will eventually be on the bump stops,as it tries to re level every 6 hours or so.Thats if it is not driven.

[Mungus]

I listen for those clicks, whirs and the odd fart every time I lock mine. If I don’t hear them I get worried something is wrong. If it happens some time after (possibly 6 hours as mentioned above) since you locked it, just check the measurements from bottom of rim to underside edge of guard flare hasn’t changed from original measurement. This could indicate a slow leak if it has. For an 18” rim that measurement should be 720mm front and 740mm rear.

[Lukeis]

Out of curiosity, why does the car care if it’s level or not? Every other car on the planet is happy to sit on a slope while parked so I don’t know why the d4 needs to be level.

Given I might only manually change the car height every month or if I was about to drive on a beach etc having the car manually adjust every time you park seems to add a huge amount of extra use on the compressor which would surely have an effect on its life span.

[Mungus]

My thoughts; The vehicles have self levelling independent suspension. Throw a load on the tow bar and among other more important things like camber, your spottie’s will still be straight. It looks at each corners height sensor individually and adjusts anything outside of a 10mm tolerance. (3mm in tight tolerance mode - for wheel alignments) When not running it will simply open whichever valve to do this, seeing as though your compressor is not running.
i don’t think they wake up just for the suspension though. I think it is just a periodic system check. Maybe mainly for the battery system?

[veebs]

My understanding of this regular recheck process, is that it is driven by vanity. The pride of the UK can't go about parking at all kinds of weird angles just because one air spring deflates.

The car is constantly adjusting height based on the load in it - when you get out after driving it, there is a fair difference in weight, and so it compensates by lowering back down. Similarly, when you get in, the car will drop a little, so the compressor is used to pump it back up to the correct height.

As mentioned, these cars don't have self levelling headlights (that I have seen) because the car itself is self levelling. My VW on the other hand, has normal coil springs, and it's headlights do a little dance every time it is started, testing the motor functionality.

[Mungus]

Yep, I agree with the weight change needing a height adjustment, however just to note; my HSE has self levelling and cornering headlights.

[Arapiles]

If I stop at the lights and it's facing up hill, it drops the front suspension. It also carries on like a camel whenever I park and my family get out - is any of that normal?

[DiscoJeffster]

If I stop at the lights and it's facing up hill, it drops the front suspension. It also carries on like a camel whenever I park and my family get out - is any of that normal?

Yes

[Arapiles]

Yes

OK, it's an impressive vehicle but it does have its quirks.