Air Suspension Collapse

[X5Kiwi]

Well again my X managed to embarass me in front of friends. We were all packed in ready for a 3 hour drive to the mountains for some snow skiing, when there was a loud 'POP' and the back of the car fell suddenly. At first I thought a tyre had burst, but after checking both tyres, realised that the car was sitting very low at the rear, and I could hear a hissing noise.
We unloaded everything from the back, and lifted the spare wheel cover, and found that the hose from one of the air suspension resevoirs had popped off. I pushed it back on, but as soon as I turned the key on, I could hear the hissing again.
Using a torch (it was 5am, still dark) and comparing the two resevoirs, I soon noticed that there was a small plastic clip missing from the fitting of the one that had popped off. I found part of the fitting under the spare wheel.
We tried to figure out a way to create a makeshift clip to hold the hose fitting on, but decided that it would not be safe, as if the suspension collapsed again, it might happen midway through a corner, which could be very bad. So instead, we piled into my friend's $700 Subaru Legacy, which successfully made the return journey to the mountains, using less gas than my X5 would have.

I don't think I will hear the end of this for a while...

Resevoir with plastic clip in place:


Resevoir with hose popped off and plastic clip missing:


X5 with air suspension collapsed: