Currently deciding what to do about my front air suspension. I was going back & forth between converting the car to coils (Strutmasters, Arrnott, BC, etc.) and keeping the air and I think I've decided on keeping the air for now. The rears have no issues and I recently installed a new compressor and other than a leaking front spring no other issues with the system.

I'm going to stay away from the cheaper options so that leaves Arnott & OE. I just can't justify the expense of the OE so leaning towards Arnott, but I noticed they only have a 2-year warranty these days. I was always under the impression from reading threads on here that they had a limited lifetime warranty on their new units? I also know they've changed the design a few times over the years, some better than others, has anyone installed a set of Arnotts recently and have any feedback? Even their new units are not cheap anymore, RockAuto is Showing around $550 each.

Be aware that Arnotts do not support the CATS.
I have installed them last year, so far no complaints. But then I have nothing to compare with, thus I have no clue what to expect.

Yea, I would really like to replace with OE, but the cost just cant be justified. I have a feeling I'll end up selling the car once I'm done with this suspension rebuild since I won't be happy with it, but just in case I'd like to get something decent on there. I've replaced all arms, joints, etc. both front & rear and the air springs are the last piece. I think once the OE springs/shocks with CATS are gone I won't enjoy the car as much which is unfortunate, but on the other hand spending $5k for Bilsteins just seems insane for a car that's barely worth $10k on a good day.

I'm almost back to converting the car to coils. For Arnott (or any other brand) spring you lose the CATS anyway, so why bother with air anymore if you're not getting the benefit of CATS?

I have Arnott's on all 4 corners and have no complaints. The front have about 70k miles and the rears have 20k miles. System works great and the car rides awesome. If the rest of the air system is in good shape I wouldn't see any reason to not do the Arnotts. Great replacements if you want to keep the air ride.

The fronts were on the car when I bought it and I put the rears in two years ago because the OE started leaking down only in cold weather. I am very happy with the set up.

Thanks for the feedback, might be the first good thing I've read about the Arnott replacements. I keep reading about issues with them leaking and clunking. I have no confidence in the China springs after having one leak within 5 minutes of install and pretty fed up at this point. Just want it working again so I can get rid of it, but also don't want to screw whoever buys it by putting junk on there. At least Arnott has a semi-reputable name compared with Amazon/Ebay cheap replacements.

Did you have any issues with Arnott on the front & OE on the back? I would think without the CATS system working in the front but working in the back it would cause odd handling characteristics under certain conditions. No need to replace the rears at this point, they never sag even in temps well below freezing.

Mine had Arnott air struts on it when I bought it, but the air system had many other faults and I went with coilovers. Best thing I could possibly have done.

The issue with the air system is there is no provision for removing water that gets past the desiccant chamber in the compressor. Once water is in the system, it's there. Forever. Valves will rust, water gets circulate throughout as water vapor when the air moves through. Water will collect in the pressure reservoir and in the struts. When I went to rebuild my compressor during early troubleshooting, the desiccant chamber was literally a water tank. I gave up, went to coilovers from Arnott, and couldn't be happier with the car.

You said you'd probably sell the car when you get the suspension changed because you don't think you'll be happy with it. If that's your attitude, sell the car before spending any more money on it. OTOH, my air suspension was so bad that I couldn't go 5 minutes of driving without an air suspension fault light, and after 15 minutes I'd have "Car too low." It also rode very harshly. After the coilovers it was like a new car. Great ride, don't really have to slow down for speed bumps, I don't have to wait two minutes in the morning for the struts to fill up, and I've been driving it 4 years past the point I was ready to junk it.

Do the coilovers. It's NOT a degredation of the car, it's an improvement.

Thanks for the reply @wfooshee, I've read posts from you in the past on the subject. My system is in perfect working order (other than the leaking bag) with no water present when I changes the compressor or shocks within the last few weeks. I would think converting it when the system is actually working fine would be a shame and devalue the car - if that's even possible, these seem to be worth nothing these days. My car only has 60k on it, but its still pretty much worthless from what I've seen in the market lately. Definitely not worth the price of new OE units which is too bad.

I have to fix it in one way or another, no way anyone would buy it with a blown front spring. Hard enough to sell these cars when they're actually working. I really hate the thought of buying Arnott air springs, especially for what they costs these days and the generally poor feedback they get, but other than a conversion I really don't have many options at this point. Conversion costs more than two front springs so hopefully they will actually work for long enough to get rid of this thing. Would have been nice if they either installed a reliable air suspension on these when new, or better yet standard suspension with eCATS like the S-Type. That would have been nice.

Reliable? For twenty years?! Never happen, sorry. The air suspension system was expected to go for maybe ten years.

Yea, you're right...probably more like 5 if we're being honest. Soon as the warranty is up. A friend of mine is a tech at a Euro shop in Jersey and he sees a lot of this stuff. He's convinced that even though Jag used the same suppliers as Mercedes/Audi, the Jag parts were not spec'd to be as good. Says he doesn't see the same issues with suspension failure and bushing failure on those cars as he does with the Jags of this era. Especially Audi, those will ride on OE air springs for nearly 200k and going on 20+ years now. Suspension bushings are really bad on the Jags. I replaced all of the arms on mine and with only 60k miles they were all mostly gone. Boots on all of the joints were all in really bad condition as well.