Yes, dealing with 12 degrees here and my poor Jag looks like I have slammed the front end, lol. Not only is the air leaking from the seals/couplings, but the poor compressor is frozen too. Yes, this happened before and once the temps hit 30, she's back to normal. I conceded to just deal with it right now until summer.


Still won't part with her though.....


Who else is going through this because of the ridiculous cold?

 

I assumed mine would run into issues when I took it to the Alps recently (around -10c) but it was fine. Having seen so many posts on here complaining about air suspension issues I'm amazed nothing has happened to mine yet.

It's got 155K on it, 35k of which was put on by me in the last two years and I've never had to touch any of the air suspension system. None of the invoices with the car mentioned any air suspension repairs either, although I suppose the compressor must have been changed at some point.

I've probably jinxed it now, and will wake up tomorrow morning to find my car slammed to the floor

 

I'm a bit surprised how many posts this past week have been about the air suspension failing in the cold. Don't recally this many last winter. But age is catching up with these cars.

geekman, I've heard from others on this forum that ASM faults are not as common on your side of the pond. I'm guessing the high summer heat we get here must be aging the struts on US cars quicker than a more mild climate. Seems to be the front struts especially, and I can imagine with the heat cycles they experience. Lucky you don't have to deal with these issues!

 

geekman,

I think the answer lies in climate. London is... well, shall we say an ideal climate for preserving rubber. When you live instead somewhere that was hot and dry, you'll run into issues sooner.

Edit - I see mhamilton beat me to it.

 

Wow I too am having the same issues. The temp has dropped to as low as minus 15 at times and my 04 XJ8 with 149xxx miles is having ASM faults. When I go to her in the morning, the front is almost sitting on the floor. Then i get the error message that the vehicle is too low. I warm the car up and the compressor doesn't kick on right away. Once the car is warm enough, she turns on and raises the front. Then i get the Air suspension fault message. When i get that message the car feels low and the way it takes bump it almost feels like a low rider! Once i park and then return to use the car, the error message goes away and the cars air shocks ride like a champ! Im not sure if i should buy that rebuild kit for the compressor or not. Any thoughts?

 

Mine started doing this last year during a very cold spell and I went with the steel coil overs. I'm so happy to be able to start her up and drive away without any worries when it's like minus 6 degrees F the way it was this morning! It's worth giving up the air ride--just sayin'.

 

Yeah, my left front strut just failed. Still working out the time to fly back to fix my car and drive it back but most likely will retain the air suspension and repair. It's quite a bit cheaper than replacing with springs.

 

Well, steel gets more brittle at low temperatures as do rubber-based bushes. Lot of things suffer from very low temperatures.

Anybody with steel coils had any failures ?

 

I've had springs sag on one car, but never anything like a bag failure.

 

Hey all, add me to the list. Luckily, had a rental car for Biz trip so the Xj's been garaged. Didn't matter with Temps at zero (F) lately, She's down to the bumps.


Started the car & I let her run to normal temps.. No Air in sight, no compressor sounds.. and of course the Fault light.
I'm wondering if condensation in the Compress, Lines or valve block freeze? This was a Florida car until 8 mos. ago. Probably in Shock ! lol
Oddly, 2 days later and only 'slightly' warmer.. ( teens F') Started, heard Compressor/ bags filling.. she lifted back to normal level. Odd.. but, no question Temp. related.
I'm on a trip again and will check tomorrow upon return. One thing for sure, I'll be going for BagpipingAndy's replacement Compressor ring. At almost 60k.. I'm sure it can use replacing! And I've read on several posts that it greatly improves the Pumps performance.
Good luck all, This soon will pass.. GG

 

Trains running away on US railroads in winter are fairly common due to water in the brake lines freezing up and preventing brakes from applying. I read about this on "Trains", a US publication. Apparently knowing when to jump off is the key thing. Once it gets up to speed you get killed in the fall jumping off. So it's damnation if you jump and damnation if you stay on !!

As the system is based on compressed air like train air brakes, I can't see Jaguars escaping the laws of physics, so water in the system will freeze. If that water is in the wrong place lots of things can/cannot happen. There is a water trap, and the trapped water in this also freezes, so the purge mechanism fails.

 

When it really gets cold, I do the following:


-Start and warm up the car to operating temp.
-Shut if off, wait approx. an hour
-Disconnect the battery for a minute or so
-Reconnect battery and start car.


So far this has worked getting the compressor "thawed" and air into the bags. Yes, somewhat of a pain, but not too bad to deal with. I'm a gearhead(petrolhead)

 

So far I haven't had an issue with the air suspension. What I have noticed when it's really cold (2 degrees F) the steering and transmission are rather stiff until the fluids get some heat in them. Also, I got a cruise not available once since it took a bit for the engine to crank over.