4.8is Air Suspension woes
 

Hi All,

new member here after having recently acquired a 4.8is from my dad. Well technically it was me who found it for him about five years ago but as he no longer wanted it I've decided to buy it from him.

I seem to have a seemingly common problem with mine though but with a slight twist. The suspension on the front driver side will sometime (not always) collapse when parked up. For example it was collapsed both Saturday and Sunday morning but is completely fine right now. When it holds, it seems to hold fine for a long time too, over a week or so.

This is frustrating as I gave it to the garage to repair but of course in the whole week it was with them it remained completely fine so they were not able to find the fault. They did drive it during this time too.

I've read all the threads about air suspension but I haven't managed to come to a clear conclusion on what should be done.

I don't want to end up damaging the compressor if there's a leak that's causing it to run constantly and I'd quite like the car to be reliable as it will get used for long (1month+) euro trips and wouldn't want to be getting it repaired whilst on holiday.

Any advice from the many sources of wisdom on here? Or recommendations of a garage in NW London?

Thanks in advance!

It's common when the air spring develops a leak it will be in a fold and hold air just fine until some magical amount of suspension travel. Experienced the same with wife's car recently.

Lift the suspected corner off the ground to extend the spring and spray it with soapy water or some premix all purpose cleaner and you should see foam develop on one of the seams.

4.8is Air Suspension woes
 

Here's what that looks like:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...1b54e8e2d9.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...d958270c61.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...462fc23a32.jpg

Awesome, thanks very much for the tip!

I had a few problems with the air suspension on my 4.8is recently my mechanic advised me to convert it to springs which I did. I found some used 4.4i front struts and springs and some new rear springs on eBay. The parts only cost me £300. You will need a specialist to install it as the air suspension needs to be coded out.

I'm in the process of removing the air suspension from my 4.8is as well. Functionally, there was nothing wrong with mine. But I did have a suspension error that I couldn't locate. Instead of throwing tons of money at it to fix it while still having the risk of something else breaking and leaving me stranded, I decided to ditch the air suspension for coils. I used all brand new OE parts from FCP Euro (except springs - those are Lesjofors) and it cost me about $1,400. That includes all new shocks and shock mount parts for the rear. My OEM shocks back there were surprisingly still good, but I have 100k miles so I figured it was time to replace them. I'll use BMW Scanner 1.4.0 to code out the suspension error once I get everything finished.

https://xoutpost.com/1078639-post6.html

You might still end up with a DSC error as the system has to be recoded to think it is in a 4.4i N62 powered X5. I've never used BMW Scanner. Had to use NCSexpert to change the ZCS (to delete EHCII from vehicle) and then change the DSC afterwards. :dunno:

I'll let you know how I fare; I think the idea with the BMW Scanner route is that the car will still have the suspension code present but the scanner will tell the code not to display on the dash somehow, which is all I really care about. I've never used it either, but that's just what I understood from my research so far.

Even if/when I sell the vehicle, I'll communicate that the air suspension has been converted to coils and that all of the plumbing is still in place. I'm even keeping the air springs because they were still in good shape.

4.8is Air Suspension woes
 

I think you will need to code it out the scanner won't let you do what you want (eliminate dash icon).

I upgraded (side graded) to e70 and I bought bimmercode that lets me use iphone to do actual coding but it doesn't work with e53.

I would look for a helpful buddy from xo that lives within driving distance if you need to code out the air suspension.

So I thought this was sorted… garage changed the air bag on the passenger side front a few weeks ago…

Unfortunately it looks like the driver side looks an inch to two or so lower than the passenger side .. so might need to change that too? Odd thing is though, the button to change the ride height isn’t doing anything, it’s not pumping the driver side back up to match when the car starts or anything either.

When I press the button to raise the ride height it just flashes away and nothing happens. No errors on the dash either though.

Any ideas?