So lets start off by saying the 2006 VDP massively let us down last week. I'm now at home and the VDP is 1,800 miles away from me in an area where a Ford dealer refuses to touch it even though I diagnosed the problem and offered to pay for the parts up front to fix. They spent 4+ hours diagnosing the problem to end up baffled and told me they were in over their head and didn't feel comfortable working on the car.

The left front strut exhaust valve keeps randomly getting stuck open when the system opens it up to lower the car. When it gets stuck open the compressor runs until the air suspension fault message comes on and then eventually the car drops to the bump stops in the front and vehicle too low is displayed. As long as the valve doesn't freeze open the suspension works flawlessly. Under 20 degrees the valve basically will not close.

Here's my dilemma. I can throw a used strut in there to fix the issue, but after being stranded so far from home due to a stupid air suspension issue, I first contemplated burning the car and then came to my senses and decided the only answer is to convert the car to coilovers and remove every air suspension component possible from the car clear down to the module and tank if possible and sell the good components. Weather definitely exposed the issue. The car is now stranded in Iowa and I'm going to have it towed to family in Wisconsin so that I can fly back out in a couple of months and repair it myself. I know I could replace the left front bag for about a third of the cost of the coilover kit, but I don't know that I would ever again trust to take the car out of town, which defeats the purpose of buying the car in the first place. I very much doubt my wife will ever rely on it for another long trip, coilover or not.

Any reason to choose one coil kit over another? There's no reason to worry about trying further diagnosis. I need to get the car to its storage spot in Wisconsin and have the parts waiting for me so I can install them after flying in and get it out for an alignment and then drive it all the way back to Nevada. I've never been stranded so badly due to a vehicle breakdown(mind you it feels like the stupidest problem ever) and bad thoughts about selling the cat have already ran through my head.

 

Been there done that.

I just went through the same process so here are posts I put up covering my adventure from shopping, installing, and after impressions.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...on-kit-136677/ Posts #9 & #12


https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...struts-137080/ Post #2


https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/g...d-them-136274/ Post #1 & #2


This list is in reverse order as the first link is my most recent post and the last link is when I finally started shopping for the pieces. I've been fighting a losing battle with my '04 XJ8 for about a year and since it's just turned 80,000 miles I knew it was only going to get worse.

I've only replaced the shocks but I may yet remove the various pieces and try to recoup some of my costs by selling them on eBay as the pump has an almost new seal in it (one of bagpipin' Andy's kits) and the Reservoir and ASM haven't given me any problems. Parts and labor ran me $1648 and some change including shipping so it's a much cheaper proposition than replacing all the air shocks.

You can PM me if you need more details.


Good luck.

 

Ugh I hate this car right now. If I had payed attention to all the cold air suspension related issues on this forum I'd have just taken the S-Type.

 

Yes it is obviously the Jag's Achilles heel and although when it's working properly it gives a very comfortable yet precise ride. Nonetheless once they leave their warranty coverage and get close to the 70-80,000 mile mark the expenses necessary to keep them operating can really bite you in the ***. It doesn't help that the Jag dealers are so burdened with their expensive mausoleum look dealerships and low volumes that every repair starts at near $1,000 and grow from there. There are some new surfaces that are starting to appear as some members have found Chinese produced units for as low as $180 in lots of 10 units, but it would take a group of members from the same geographic area who are willing to take a flier for any of us to see what the quality is like.

Consider this though, you have a car that is recognizable as one of the great automotive marques with a very long heritage of performance combined with lasting beauty not dedicated by temporary fads. The XJ's and XK's, not the S's and X's are what have defined the Jaguar line for more than 50 years.

Bite the bullet and fix your problem knowing that your investment will repay you with years of reliable service as a result. Having been in the business of selling new cars since 1968 I can say with confidence that the very best value in automotive transportation is a well maintained but solid used car.

16 years ago when inoperable lung cancer forced my retirement I purchased a very clean 7 year old Dodge Ram Wagon with just over 100,000 miles on it for my general purpose do everything vehicle and it's still reliably running my DIY errands, etc., in 20154 with 276,000+ miles with cold A/C, working power windows and locks and an unopened 318 V8 !!

 

I know you are frustrated so I've waited a couple of days to reply. I don't think your issue is a valve. It is possibly a simple leak in one of the air bladders, which will first manifest itself at very low temps. At normal temps you may still have a leak, but the system has little difficulty keeping up with the leak; however, at under 20 degrees more air is escaping than the output of the compressor.

The system is reasonably smart and shuts down the compressor to prevent it from burning out.

I understand that getting stranded far from home, and having a than less competent mechanic futz with car is no fun. That said, the car is 10 years old and having a component fail isn't the sign of poor design, bad engineering, or the Achilles Heal of the car.

I think the air suspension in these cars get an unfair rap, and people are too quick to lump in a "more reliable" replacement. Rubber isn't magic, and is the most likely material to deteriorate because of time and environmental conditions. Nobody is shocked or complains when a fan belt or hose breaks, or a tire fails after 10 years.

I don't want to start a flame war, because I can understand why someone would see it differently than I do. When I first started driving Jags, back then the argument was about swapping out the "unreliable" Jag engine for the allegedly more reliable small block GM V-8. The problem was that the Jag XK6 engine was one of the best engines ever made, and when well understood was more reliable than the chevy iron. The things that caused reliability issues were more often dodgy relays, poor wiring connectors, etc.

I think if you spent some time reading forums of other high-end complex luxury and speciality cars, having to replace suspension components at 10 years isn't uncommon.

If you want to do a conversion, more power to you. If you want to fix the car as engineered, there's plenty of info here and people to help you do that too. Fortunately, replacement and rebuilt parts are now available so it isn't as insanely expensive as it was when it was only a dealer service item.

Good luck.

 

I do understand what you are saying but my concern is that this air suspension failure could have been very dangerous. I do know that the air suspension will require service over time and it has had a tendency to be pricy when this has happened with other people. The fact that it came up the way it did may be the reason I might sell the car after fixing it. I've been driving the S-Type and the coil suspension is very comfortable and can't have the issue I had. We'll see where I end up once I have to start making decisions.

 

Oh and it would hold air fine until that valve would open. It would even hold pressure parked at 5 degrees until the valve would open to drop to rest height. You could hear the air rush out until the car got hit the ground once the valve opened. I have never had an issue until now and not driving it because of possible inclement weather is not an option.

It either gets coils or I'll properly repair the air suspension and the car will be sold. It has no other issues.

 

Just for clarification, that might be a properly operating system. If one of the units leaks, the system will release air from the unit on the other side to prevent excess stress on the chassis/body. IOW, it won't let one corner go down.

Given the new nature of the methods Jaguar used to construct its first aluminum vehicle, the engineers were clearly overly cautious about structural stress.

 

If you can maybe just change the sensors without changing the struts, could that be a possibility? Or maybe take it to a garage that would send them all to Arnott and have them check them out and repair what ever needs repairing on them. At that point I would just replace them. Putting new lifetime warranty Arnott ones are not really expensive and the only way to go in my opinion. When my rears (which are original go out) that is where I am going to buy mine. They are simple to install on actually both front and rear. I have had Lincolns that I changed the bags myself.

 

I would think that would be the case if it didn't stick open with the compressor running at the same time. The left front strut is bad regardless of what the fail point is in it. The rest of the system is great and is in great working order otherwise and absolutely no leaks in the rear setup. When it does stick open you can see the leveling effect happen. It eventually drops the right side to match the driver's side.

The only way I would retain the air suspension for the time being is to only replace the one strut with a used one. By the time I buy two aftermarket front bags, I'm only a couple hundred off from buying the coilover conversion, which also leaves me good air suspension parts to sell to offset the cost too.

 

If only one corner is bad, you don't have to replace both. I replaced one of my front units that was leaking air with a remanufactured unit 30,000 miles ago without any issues.

Arnott appears to no longer carry the remanufactured units, but someone just posted there is another company doing rebuilds -

XJ-Series 2004-2010 Air Suspension Parts & Conversion Kits

A single unit is $429 with $150 core deposit.

 

I may do that then. I thought the remanned ones were different enough they should be done in pairs.

 

I love you.

 

The new Arnott design ones should be done in pairs because they are different from the originals. They say that they have eliminated the weak points in the original design, but they also have to bypass the CATS system. They also are a hybrid between COMFORT and SPORT.

When they were doing the remanufactured ones, they could be swapped out, but it appears they don't make those anymore.

This new supplier is doing the rebuilds, which should be a direct swap. You might want to give them a call to be sure -- though I imagine they'd be happy to convince you need to buy a pair : )

 

After much thinking I've decided to repair the air suspension. The main thing weighing on my decision is the rear air setup. I want to retain the load leveling feature. I'm just unsure yet about replacing the up front parts with Arnott or with a single rebuilt. I'm not going used unless it's very cheap, not worth the ticking time bomb.

 

I just found a pair of brand new front Arnotts for $825, the later all new ones, not rebuilds. Is this too good to be true?

 

The valves that let air in and out of each air spring are in the valve block in the trunk above the reservoir. There is also a valve in the air spring that is normally open when the system is operating at normal pressures, but which closes once the pressure in the air spring gets too low. This is mainly there to protect the diaphragm and the spring is pressurised for transporting the springs around as spare parts.

So it does sound as if one of the front air diaphragms has "let go", on the other hand the very low temperature could have shrunk the top seal so it is leaking. However, this begs the question as to why the other three are OK !

I reckon you will fix the problem by swapping over with a working unit.This doesn't have to be new, there are plenty on the internet, but obviously any used one you buy must work. However, even if it lasts a short time it gets the car home and you can then decide whether to keep the air, or convert to steel coils. Steel coils fail too, of course ! Unlike with steel coils, you can swap a single air spring because the system maintains the ride height with air pressure so they can never sack-out like steel coils do over time.

PS The Arnotts sounds a good deal. As they don't have the CATS Hard/Soft dampers you need to swap both to avoid unbalancing the car. Why Jaguar persist with this system I know not, it just means you are beholden to Bilstein shocks for replacements, as they are the only supplier of these things.

 

Yep, that's the thought process. The air noise is very clearly coming from the bag itself and not the top air line. If the valve is controlled from the trunk then that settles it, the left front bag is for sure toast. I have an in on a rebuilt Arnott with low miles, so I'll put that in. I'll pick up a rebuild kit for the compressor to keep around if I end up needing that as well.

 

Torrid,

You may already know this, but if you don't have a dealer tool like IDS/SDD or WDS, when you replace the unit you have to follow a very specific procedure so the system doesn't freak out.

See this thread:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...24/#post190851

I did my front shock before I had IDS/SDD following Stevetech's instructions and it went smoothly.

 

Good information. I'm going to have to figure out how I'm going to get all four corners off the ground that quickly. I had planned to disconnect the battery anyway, but it's good to know about this process. I should be fine with just getting the front off the ground though right? I don't have any leaky rear components and will make sure the car is level otherwise.