Sagging rear end - air suspension

**Daisy Driver** · 15th July 2011, 06:04 PM

Daisy is playing up again. When parked overnight, her rear ends drops right down, evenly on both sides. 30 secs of running the engine sees her back up to the correct height and from then on she is fine, until the next morning when she is back down again. We're packing to move so I don't have the luxury of spending days on diagnosing this. Local LR independent had a look but could find no leak anywhere nor any fault code on the computer. Best advice I have found so far is to change both air bags but that seems to be more in hope than expectation and I do not like changing components as a diagnostic technique until the fault goes away. Switching to coils is not an option. Any ideas?

PS, applied for Daisy's import licence, any idea how long these things take to come through?
PPS, I can't find this anywhere else, if I have missed it please just point me the right way.

**TerryO** · 15th July 2011, 06:44 PM

Squirt soapy water on the air hose connectors to the bags and the air pump. It might take a few minutes to start to blow bubbles but if there is a leak it will blow bubbles.

Same thing on the airbags...Its easier to find leaks on connections then airbags. It is not unusual to soap up airbags and not find any leaks.

I'm not a betting man but if asked to bet what it will take to fix your sagging bags then I'd bet you need to replace both of them and chances are your troubles will go away for another few years.

cheers,
Terry

**alpick** · 15th July 2011, 09:50 PM

Search "SLS" and you will find a wealth of posts and info, most of which end up with the problem being a leak in the air spring/s.

Do the soapy water test on the bags in the off road extended position.

Service interval for the bags is ten years.

Have fun

**Daisy Driver** · 17th July 2011, 06:02 AM

The plot thickens.... I parked her last night with the suspension raised and she didn't drop a millimetre, (and I mean 'millimetre' - I measured!). It's all pointing to the airbags, methinks I'll be on the blower to craddocks from the hotel then doing a suspension change as soon as I get home (with jet lag) before the movers pack up my tool kit. I love a bit of pressure....

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 17th July 2011, 07:21 AM

Easy Peasy DD,,
do yourself a favour (if you have time) and buy a metre of 4mm airline and two push-in joiners.
This just makes life even easier AND allows for external pumping if the compressor fails,,,

**Castle Landy** · 17th July 2011, 09:51 AM

"service interval 10 years"... I beg to differ. With off road use 2-3 yrs is more realistic, otherwise 4 years on average.

**Fluids** · 17th July 2011, 10:26 AM

My D2a went about 6.5yrs from new until the first airspring failed. Same symptoms as outlined in this thread ....

2 x new airsprings ex UK $210AUD delivered and about an hour to fit ...

Do it ! Compressor will get shagged if you don't fix the problem.

**alpick** · 17th July 2011, 01:56 PM

Just quoting the LR schedule for changing air bags that have not had a problem i.e. after ten years change them regardless.

My originals lasted that long.

cheers

AP

**Clarkey** · 18th July 2011, 07:39 PM

replaced airbags in an 8 yr old disco 2 with replacements from the airbagman in queensland, good service price and advice

**slug_burner** · 18th July 2011, 11:13 PM

My 2003 D2a had the same problem. Leaking bag, soapy water eventually found it. You may need to jack up the body to extend the bags as they tend to rub inside the fold. It doesn't take very long to change them. I had both mine done in under an hour and I did not rush.

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