Into the life of many Jag owners comes that day when we must face the inevitable problems that surface with our air suspensions. Today is that day for my wife's 2004 XJ8. I've been fighting an apparently losing battle for the better part of two years since losing a right front shock. I replaced that with a reasonably priced Arnott rebuilt one with a lifetime warranty and was well satisfied with it's performance.


I've since been trying to noodle out what was causing an intermittent but now consistent "air suspension failure" message that never left a specifying code behind. Finally after a couple of recent cold snaps the system took to losing air pretty much overnight until it finally gave me the dreaded "suspension too low" message and I had to play cautious low rider. The worst part was having to let my wife use my XK8 as her daily driver<G>

I'm looking at a couple of different options which boil down to just these.

1) Full coil over conversion from Arnott costing a total of $1523.00 with shipping and tax plus labor and be done with the whole air suspension system once and for all.


2) Replace just the two rear air shocks, also from Arnott, with their proprietary shocks that are neither comfort or sport as a cost of $1123.00 including tax and shipping plus labor and be committed to maintaining the air system for several years while dealing with a 12 year old air pump already once rebuilt with one of Andy's kits and all the other whiz-bang electronics that go with it.


OR


3) Buy a set of Strutmaster's coil over suspension kits for the XJ8's at a total cost of $1223.19 shipped (no tax) plus labor and as with the Arnott coil over kit say goodbye to the air suspension.

Any feedback from personal experience would be very helpful.

 

Well I'll answer my own post. I went with the Strutmasters coil over conversion for a total parts cost w/shipping of $1223.00. It cost me an additional $425.00 in labor to have them installed by a local shop I trust. They also installed a new windshield washer pump and unplugged the ASM.

The ride is a tad harsher on the sudden bumps like rumble strips but otherwise is quite good and the steering response is a bit sharper and more direct and immediate. so I well pleased by my choice.