Hi, I just had the front suspension of my 05 XJR suddenly go flat while I was out at dinner last night. The shocks are Arnott's ones from around 2.5 years ago. It gives the usual "vehicle too low" message, but now also has an "air suspension fault" message.

I will have to get it to the workshop as soon as possible for diagnosis but in the mean-time, I'd welcome any suggestions as to what could have caused such a sudden drop (over 2 hours?). My mechanic seems to think that one of the struts may have blown, resulting in the other leveling off low. Are there any other possibilities? Thanks.

In case I do have a blown strut, does anyone know if the Arnotts or the Motorcars Ltd, black dog ASC.kit.XJ8 allows just the replacement of the front two air struts for their converted non air struts or would I have to change all 4? Does anyone have an opinion on which conversion has a better handling, the Arnotts or the motorcars Ltd? Thanks

 

If it suddenly went flat you probably have a blown airbag. Check the airline connections to be sure they are tight as well.The Arnotts have a long warranty, so just verify that is the problem. Get the codes read also to see what the problem is. You could also have a dead compressor. If you replaced the struts in the front and not the compressor, the compressor is a good place to start testing.

 

Are they the arnott design shocks or their remans? I saw an 05 xjr at the dealer with one arnott new up front and one a reman.....it struck me as incredibly odd

Sorry I cant be of more assistance

 

Thanks, they're the remanufactured ones. I think at that time, they didn't have the new ones, nor did they have the conversion to normal suspension. The problem with foreign warranty claims is that the shipping of the struts back to Arnotts comes up to almost as much as the strut itself, sadly.... One of the disadvantages of living half way around the world from the US.... I also changed the compressor at that time so everything was "new" at one go, save for the air tank.

 

Very strange that the day that I responded to your note, when I got home, my 05 XJ8 was on the ground! Now I am talking to Arnott about the warranty. I started the car, waited for the compressor to start and run a minute or so, then shut it off and listened for air escaping. Sure enough, it was coming out of the reman Arnott shock on the left front. These shocks have only about 10,000 miles on them, not a good sign for a long life. The originals made it about 55,000.

 

I'm not wanting to hear this.....I've just put reman Arnotts on three wheels........hopefully these are isolated incidents and not indicative of a severe issue in their QC or processes

 

Of the ones I just removed from my '04 XJ8, there were two Arnott re-manufactured air shocks in the front, one of which was leaking or blown. One had a manufacture date of May 2012, the other July 2012. So one of these barely made it a year before going bad. Unfortunately, the original owner put these on, so I did not have an option to take advantage of the warranty. I'm waiting to hear if the failed one can be included as a "core" for any future purchases.

 

Sorry about the bad karma spreading.... Arnotts replied to me and said if the problem was my strut leaking, they will process my claim. Only thing is that I have to send it back to them..... from half way around the world.... If the remanufactured ones are only going to last 20000km, maybe it would be a consideration to change to the non-air strut conversion and be done with this problem once and for all.