A few days ago, my front left tyre went flat while on the way home (went completely flat just as I reached house). A few kilometres before that on a highway (when the tyre probably started going down), I did not notice anything wrong with the steering but the suspension was getting pretty hard, almost like my race car.

When I parked the car, I could see that both front sides (flat and good tyre) had gone very low - the wheels were under the wheel arches at the top. I thought this was a good safety feature when you have a flat tyre - to keep the front suspension level and make it low to reduce the risk of rolling over.

I replaced the flat tyre and the suspension came up somewhat but not to the normal height. I then jacked up the side with a good tyre and noticed that the wheel would not extend fully but to about half way and the tyre came off the ground. The damper would not allow the suspension to extend fully.

Then, as I read that the adaptive suspension would (after it has been in the "sport" / lower mode and switched back to normal) resume its normal height and hardness/softness after a couple of kilometres. So, I went for a test drive of around 20 km but the suspension was still very hard and very low at the front. Tried switching the sport mode, as well as the traction control, on and off a number of times while driving but no change.

Finally, I decided to jack up the side that would not extend fully (the side which did not have flat tyre), raised the wheel off the ground for about an inch and, with the ignition "on" pressed the traction control button a few times and the wheel finally came down fully extended.

Is this normal behaviour when you have a flat tyre or is there something wrong with my damper? Or is there a procedure to reset the suspension after a flat tyre?

There are no fault codes and, when I disconnected the damper control wire, I immediately got a warning "suspension failure" on ignition switch on. The warning went away when I re-connected the wire so the electronics seem to be fine.

 

As far as I know, the active suspension is a stand alone, and does not get any input from either traction control or sport mode (too many threads on that one).
All the X308 active suspension does is harden or soften the shocks according ride input on the suspension module.

My first guess here is that you got a case of some bad coincidence.

You might have blown a shock, which does influence the ride height.
I had the exact same issues, and although mine was a standard one, it showed the same behavior, like taking a while before it retracted.

When I replaced them, one was totally shot, the other one was a bit better, but not much.
Maybe the pic looks familiar: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...d-inch-176869/

 

Yes, that's exactly how my car looks. I am going to replace the shocks, currently the sport version, with the comfort version so I will also replace the rear ones. I was surprised to find sport shocks on my car since it is Daimler Super V8, supposed to be comfortable. Possibly taken as a preferred option at car order or replaced by the PO (the shocks are genuine Jaguar).

On the other hand, my anti roll bar is "comfort" (red stripe). The road springs have white paint marks - do you know whether this means comfort or sport?

According to the Barratt website, the comfort road springs are "turned down" (NLA) and they now offer only sport springs.

With regard to the adaptive suspension and the S (sport) mode selection, the workshop manual states that the adaptive dampers "Have two settings; firm and soft". The term "two settings" could mean settings selected by the "S" button or the settings of the "sport" and "comfort" dampers. Not clear which one.

 

My springs are white, and I am pretty sure they are USA comfort (on a 4L N/A).
But I still have to see a list of spring colors and corresponding levels, so not completely sure here.

On the shock control, these cars have only a very rudimentary system.
The shocks themselves have only 2 settings, the softer, and the harder one, and are ONLY controlled by their own module, no other input.
The module registers driving conditions, and controls the shock settings accordingly.

I did some testing on a Daimler Super V8 recently.
If you disconnect one of the connectors, all shocks go into the hard setting, quite uncomfortable.
However, if everything works, it is goes mainly unnoticed, but provides a nice ride, firming up when needed.

 

So it means that the adaptive system only switches the dampers between their pre-set soft and hard modes. I thought that it was continuously variable between soft to hard. In that case, it is really a very simple system.

 

The CATS system is nothing more than two position shocks -- simple controller.

It was a response to the hard ride of the XJR and w/ the larger tires .... even with 26psi in the tires.