Hi guy's, I was wondering if anyone could help me with my problem.

I'm in the process of changing the front & back lower bushes along with changing the springs at the same time as the front one's were snapped in 2.

After I had swapped all the part's I've noticed that the N/S/R & O/S/F are sitting higher than the O/S/R & N/S/F, and I have a suspension fault warning light on the dash. I've checked and double checked that everything is seated right and all connections are ok from what I can see.

Any idea's will be gratefully received.

Grant

 

Grant,

113 Views and no Replies as I write this.

Not because members don't have plenty of experience and knowledge of suspension but I'll bet every one thought exactly the same as me. What year is this vehicle ..... does it have active suspension........does it have adaptive damping?

There's a reason we ask members to add vehicle details to their Signatures.

Graham

 

Between the picture and the description of the problem I am going to say you have a 2003-4 XKR with active suspension? What do I win?

Assuming the above is correct, the suspension fault indicator is an output of the CATS system and is not related to you height differences. All that CATS changes is the damper settings.

Did you change all 4 springs or just the front 2? How much difference are we talking about? The height difference most likely is due to something not being seated properly.

This is fairly easy to do in the rear if you did the work on the car as you need to get the rear spring in just the right location when releasing the spring compressor.

In the front there is better visibility. Check how the spring is sitting against the upper seat and also the lower spring pan. These lower pans can wear or rust and shift down on the shock body slightly.

 

Charlie,

You don't. Grant's profile lists a 2001 XKR.

Graham

 

Dang. I guess I am no super sleuth.

I stand by the rest of it though, the height difference has to be a mechanical problem.

 

My apologies guy's I thought I'd put all of the relevant details into my signature, but I posted the thread on my phone and it doesn't show all the info....lesson learnt.

Like Graham said, my car is a 2001 XKR with adaptive suspension. I've changed both front and rear spring's. The difference is roughly a inch and far as I could see all of the rubber spacers look in good condition (going off pictures I've found on here).

The seat pans all looked in good condition with only slight surface rust on them, saying that I didn't actually check to see if they were all in the same position. I double checked that everything was seated properly.

It almost seems as if 2 of the shocks are stuck in 'hard' mode, I say this because after I'd changed the springs the gaps were the same(higher position) but after a day 2 of them had settled into the lower position. Is this even possible?

I must apologise for my post's if they haven't made much sense and for lack of detail, if you haven't guessed I'm fairly new to forum world ha ha

Grant

 

No worries, I was inferring from the picture because I thought the badging on the rear didn't change to that style of XKR until the 4.2 came along, so I learned something too.

All of the shocks should be in "hard" mode by default and only when power is given to the solenoid do they switch to soft. This happens at 5mph and above, so when sitting still they are "firm". If you want to guarantee this, then all you need do is disconnect the controller (which will also solve the suspension fault message). Unfortunately there is. I way to read the CATS error codes without having a real Jaguar WDS or IDS system, but I don't think any CATS fault can explain your height problem.

There was a recent shock dyno plot that Avos had done showing that there was no change in compression and only the rebound got firmer, so whether they are in firm or soft mode shouldn't affect the static ride height, only the dynamic, how much do they resist rapid movement part.

Shocks do have a natural spring force, so it's possible that two have gone bad, although it seems pretty suspicious that you didn't change either of them and they both would suddenly fail at the same time.

Being that you observed the correct height at first and only after a few days did you see the sag, my suspicion would be that the springs have settled, since those are the new parts in the equation.

You didn't mention what brand of spring you had sourced as a replacement.

There was another thread for a similar situation not too long ago, I will see if I can find it and plots back here... I don't recall the solution.

Edit: found it... some good ideas but no posted solution.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...nt-end-115137/

 

The only variable I can think of on the rear that would give a different height with a new pair of matched springs is if the top of one is not seated correctly on the isolator and spring pan.

The error message could be due to one of the adaptive damping electrical connectors not snapped back into place or the harness damaged during the subsequent installations steps.

Graham

 

Thanks for the replies guy's, I think you could be right Charlie as I think the previous owner refreshed the look of the car with new style badge's and light's, I've put the Eibach lowering springs on which replaced a set of Racing Green lowering spring's so they should essentially be like for like.

Graham, are the wire connections easy to break? I was pretty careful while replacing the rear's as I thought it could be problem if I mistakenly pulled on the wire's. While I was doing the rear's I noticed that it could be a problem if I didn't get them seated right so to make sure I got my mate to double check everything. As for the spring pans they all looked in the correct place, but saying that I didn't check them as I didn't know they could move.

Grant