Thread: 2010 RRS 3.0 TDV6 Suspension

I suggest that you remove the engine bay 20A suspension fuse overnight to see which corner is lowest next morning. The other side will also be a little lower because it's taking a bigger percentage of the weight of the front. When you have determined which corner you will be in a position to start spraying soapy water on the air-spring whilst at off-road height particularly at the folds and on the airline joins at the air-spring and the front valve block, which is in front of the right wheel under the bumper. Valve blocks have been known to leak, either due to a split where the airline connector screws in or occasionally the valve leaks allowing pressure into the airline back to the compressor but airsprings more commonly develop cracks at the folds that eventually leak.

Originally Posted by Graeme

I suggest that you remove the engine bay 20A suspension fuse overnight to see which corner is lowest next morning. The other side will also be a little lower because it's taking a bigger percentage of the weight of the front. When you have determined which corner you will be in a position to start spraying soapy water on the air-spring whilst at off-road height particularly at the folds and on the airline joins at the air-spring and the front valve block, which is in front of the right wheel under the bumper. Valve blocks have been known to leak, either due to a split where the airline connector screws in or occasionally the valve leaks allowing pressure into the airline back to the compressor but airsprings more commonly develop cracks at the folds that eventually leak.

Thanks Graeme,

Do you think its likely to be the airbags? The car has done 94K with no off road work, would expect to get at least 200k out of them. I will pull the fuse tonight and see what happens. FYI its a Hitachi compressor. Is it worth rebuilding this if its the issue or just get an AMK?

Thanks

Chris

The folds of my now-gone D4's air-springs had bad cracks on the inside at 90K so I determined to replaced the whole assemblies before very long, which happened 5K later although not triggered by the cracks. IMO it's the folds always occurring in the same spot that creates the cracks rather than changing the fold position, as occurs with suspension movement.

Originally Posted by Graeme

The folds of my now-gone D4's air-springs had bad cracks on the inside at 90K so I determined to replaced the whole assemblies before very long, which happened 5K later although not triggered by the cracks. IMO it's the folds always occurring in the same spot that creates the cracks rather than changing the fold position, as occurs with suspension movement.

Ok I'll see how the leak detection goes. I also put the car into super extended mode using the jack method, the rear is higher than the front. Is that normal?

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The front should be almost as high as the rear. Did the compressor stop to cool?

Originally Posted by Graeme

The front should be almost as high as the rear. Did the compressor stop to cool?

It did stop on the third time but going from normal to off road, and it took ages to get to off road height. It's the old hitachi compressor maybe it timed out due to temperature. The car has recently been at the mechanic for a body off turbo change and he did state that the compressor seemed slower than normal. Up to and including extended mode that car was level between the front and back axles, but the front then lower in super extended. Could it need a suspension calibration?

Thanks again

Chris

It wont be due to a calibration issue, just that the compressor stopped. Whilst LR had a program to replace all MY10 Hitachi compressors under warranty, somehow your vehicle missed out and unfortunately the free replacements are no longer available. However the compressor may be overworking due to an air leak, possibly one that gets worse as the front is raised making it impossible to get the front any higher. Soapy water really needs to be used to try to find the leak because guessing the faulty part will most likely result in unnecessary parts being replaced.

Originally Posted by Graeme

It wont be due to a calibration issue, just that the compressor stopped. Whilst LR had a program to replace all MY10 Hitachi compressors under warranty, somehow your vehicle missed out and unfortunately the free replacements are no longer available. However the compressor may be overworking due to an air leak, possibly one that gets worse as the front is raised making it impossible to get the front any higher. Soapy water really needs to be used to try to find the leak because guessing the faulty part will most likely result in unnecessary parts being replaced.

The front left dropped overnight by about 10mm. I'll try the soapy water trick, will focus on the front valve block, left air bag and compressor.

So, I inspected the following with no external leaks detected:

Front valve block under bumper
Front left strut air connection and the folds on the strut I could see from underneath
Connection into reservoir
All connections around compressor and reservoir valve block

I put the car into extended mode then super extended and noted the following:

Front:

Rise of 10mm from Off road to Ext
Rise of 15mm from Ext to super Ext

Back:

Rise of 25mm from off road to Ext
Rise of 25 from ext to super ext