Air suspension fault & a flat tyre

[WhiteD3]

Coming home from the GCLRO weekend at Levuka this arvo I encountered an "air suspension failure". Whilst driving through the road works at Park Ridge at 60kph the red warning light came on, bells ringing, etc, the D3 squatted down and panic set in. Nowhere to stop safely so I trundled along for another 500 metres 'till I could exit.

Turns out the left rear was flat thanks to a nail I'd picked up. Unload the car to get to the spare, get the jack out and find the D3 would not got to normal height let alone off road height (required for jacking) which meant I had to use the scissor jack in lieu of the bottle jack as it wouldn't fit under the chassis rail.

I suspect the car faulted the air suspension due to the flat on a fully-laden car which it could'nt "level"? In retrospect I think I should have removed the key for a minute of so and tried starting her up again to access off road height for the change.

Anyway, changed the tyre and off we went, no problems at all.

[inside]

Remind me to buy shares in your local tyre company. With your luck in tyres they'll be making a decent profit from you!

[WhiteD3]

Turns out the tyre is buggered. $400 down the gurgler (again).:mad:

[TDV6]

Try HT+s only 315 each fitted saving you heaps, at ;least a round of ice creams for the family.

Seriously you are using the car for what its designed for, enjoy and happy touring,

Ryall

[WazzaACT]

I had a very similar problem. Turned the car off to think about it and when I put the key back in the car went back to normal height.

[Timj]

Hi Mark,

Don't you hate it when a good tyre is stuffed? I think I am still outdoing you though - I have gone through four GGs now. All with sidewall damage so they are not repairable. A real pain. I have to get some 17s, I have to get some 17s, I have to get some 17s..........

Tim.

[d3viate]

I too had a flat last week out the back of Nullagine/Newman on a one lane track with steep sides. The vehicle thought it had a suspension fault and promptly squatted itself down upon the 17" tyres bellying itself as I was on the edge of the track ( shaking hands with the unemployed at the time!) and unable to move the car to the centre of the track. After a frantic Sat phone call, found out you have to close and lock the car, unlock and restart to reset the suspension. LandRover emergency call centre a major topic in poor service in itself ! And that scissor jack, who was the idiot that ticked that as the jack. HiLift to the rescue luckily, as you stated no bottle jack fits under in this predicament. Does make you wonder how much offroad driving the LandRover engineers actually do.

[gps-au]

as you stated no bottle jack fits under in this predicament.

Would an exhaust jack have worked ?

(I actually used mine yesterday to lift a camry which was grounded in its home driveway, we only had 2 inches to work with....

[WhiteD3]

Would an exhaust jack have worked ?

(I actually used mine yesterday to lift a camry which was grounded in its home driveway, we only had 2 inches to work with....

I've never used an exhaust jack but there are people of forum with them and they sound like the sensible thing to have.

My concern with them is the jacking point. I assume that as an air jack has a wide contact with the vehicle when jacking (what, 300mm diameter?) where do you place it under a D3? You couldn't use the (official) rear jacking point as next to the chassis rail is the compressor which is held in place with a diecast alloy bracket which is easily broken (from personal experience mixed with some stupidity:angel:)

[gps-au]

I've never used an exhaust jack but there are people of forum with them and they sound like the sensible thing to have.

TO be honest, not until I bought one only a few weeks ago had I bothered. Now that I have used one, I wouldn't be without it.


My concern with them is the jacking point. I assume that as an air jack has a wide contact with the vehicle when jacking (what, 300mm diameter?) where do you place it under a D3? You couldn't use the (official) rear jacking point as next to the chassis rail is the compressor which is held in place with a diecast alloy bracket which is easily broken (from personal experience mixed with some stupidity:angel:)

Thanks to CaverD3 (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/members/caverd3.html) for pointing out a few things under my D3, For those who haven't had a good learning look, do it.... Yes because of the wide footprint of an exhaust jack, the problems of placement are less, but a little bit of knowledge can save some grief later. (I do know now where that compressor lives ;))

[garryc]

Turns out the tyre is buggered. $400 down the gurgler (again).:mad:

Get yourself some Tyre Dog sensors immediately:mad: I told my club members about them and on the recent Lake Eyre trip the trip leader was able to save and repair 2 punctures and continue because the sensors indicated a drop in pressure and repairs were done before the tyres were shredded:D The Tyre Dogs are about $400 for a set of 4.:cool:

[d3viate]

Yes I do have an Exhaust Jack and it would of worked if it were not sitting back home. As I was doing the trip on rock/gravel I left it behind but after that I will put that in instead. I have my exhaust jack rigged to blow up by my ARB compressor mounted under the bonnet instead of the exhaust and having used it previously in the sand, it works very well.

[Timj]

Hi Garryc,

Tyre Dog sensors are great but they can't save a tyre with sidewall damage. Even if you get to it before it is shredded it is not legal to repair them. I have the sensors on the car and trailer and they gave me a lot of false alarms on the trip we have just completed but they did let me know before I drove on one that had a screwdriver bit in it a while back. Still could not recover the tyre though as it was through the sidewall.

TimJ.

[Jamo]

This thread is really interesting.

Mine's an 05 and I've had three flats since purchase 161000km ago, including one where the tyre was torn from half way across the tread and all up the side wall and the rim was dented. This one happened at 110kph on gravel.

In none of the three cases did the car enter limp home mode. In each case the steering lightened and the steering wheel alignment went from centre to slightly angled toward the side which had the deflated tye.

Maybe it's a software change. The last flat I had was in late 2006.