Car tilts to drivers side. What correction needed to air suspension?

 

The obvious one, usually. One or more new air struts.

Given there is but one height sensor at the front on a 2005, driver's side air strut leak is bad enough it cannot properly hold inflation, but not YET bad enough the entire system is unable to get up off the bump-stops.

A few cents worth of kid's "bubble stuff" or DIY soap suds applied to the recess at the top can confirm that fast and cheaply. Not the ONLY place they can leak, but the most common one.

My frugalized solution was a pair of Chinese-made air struts off eBay from Shockmasters that have no electronic damper modulation, but otherwise seem to duplicate the OEM Bilstein air struts just fine and with fixed "always-COMFORT" level damping.

Same & similar sources now and then have air stuts for the XJR wth fixed damping set at the "always-FIRM" category.

A 2005 MY XJ-8L needs one 15 or 20 Ohm resistor across each lead pair that formerly served the variable damper valve's coil to give the monitoring subsytem cause to STFU and act happy. I bought the ones in golden anodized aluminium heat sinks put up in five-packs.

Otherwise, AFAIK only Miesler in Germany still competes with Bilstein as to offering struts with variable damping. There WAS a Chinese source as well, but I couldn't find them last search.

Coilovers are nearly the same cost as the Chinese fixed-damping rate air struts.

Either way, follow the Bilstein You Tube videos, different for front and rear - which do NOT need disconnecting the battery. At. All. Just turnign the ignition key ON or OFF.

Outdoors, with no lift, I needed two jacks, not one. Wrenches that fit of course. And a stout pry bar (Old Skewl manual tire tool worked). Otherwise nothing special.

Allow about one hour per corner at front if you are 'past a certain age'. A bit longer for rear as the boot liner must be partially removed, then re-installed. Half that if young, fit, energetic.... and have done it before.

Regardless ..... whether replacing with strut or coilover, if you follow the method in the Bilstein videos, there is no scan tool needed, nothing 'extra' to do for calibration but read an ignorant tape-measure, and it 'just works' the same as it did newly built.

 

I've had one strut blow on the front. 2005 so same with only one height sensor, never had this issue of the car leaning. The front works in tandem as far a I know and will compensate for loss in the other side I believe because the rear gets pulled down too and the rear height sensors are enough to tell the suspension module what's going on and tell the good strut to release air to compensate. So unless the good strut has a bad valve and doesn't release air, it might be one of the rear height sensors is out of whack. In any case, you will be stabbing in the dark if you don't plug in an iCarsoft, SDD, etc., and read the codes.

 

True enough, but once past ten years of age and/or 100 K miles, and/or blowing a huge hive of bubbles..the struts are "due" for replacement in any case - given the most common failure mode is the seal elastomer "ages out" rather than "wears out".

Reading codes won't reverse age.

If new ones had NOT resolved the outstanding issues THEN I might have looked to see if either of my iCarsofts had any insight to add.

Buried deeply in Bilstein's pubs? Even though most of us see ten-plus years of loyal service, Bilstein only warrant the seals on brand-new ones for a six-month "in-storage" shelf-life longevity!

I'm sure that is hugely conservative, but even so - the elastomer apparently prefers regular mild exercise to just "sitting".

Might not be a coincidence my first failure (right front .. ONLY) went sharply downhill from "still usable in warm weather" to catastrophic leak at ANY temp (even 105 F, ambient - higher-yet underhood!) last year...... after only 83 miles clocked in the 12 months between annual safety inspections, 387 miles the year prior, not a lot more three years back?

Too much fun playing with the newly-acquired Rover L320, that period of time.

"Payback is a ************ " being all too true, I'm pleased the X350 is behaving as I now have the Rover's fool 5.0 V8 to pull and rebuild.

Better to have renewed the timing chain cluster-frag a thousand miles too soon than even ONE mile 'too DAMNED late'.

 

I fully agree with Thermite's assessment: When an X-350 sags it's almost always caused by a failed air strut. If you pretend it's not happening for long enough you will also need to replace the pump. A well maintained Jag air suspension should NEVER sag even after weeks of being parked. If yours does, start shopping for new shocks. If you want the problem to go away for 10 or more years...buy the OEM style Bilsteins.

Just my opinion from 6 years of maintaining and driving my car and 6 years of reading heart breaking posts on here about people replacing everything BUT the struts only to find out it's .... the ... Struts.

Good Luck
Jeff

 

Well... there's this "bug not a feature" wherein it ambushes itself by bleeding-off some air to lower the suspension about 30 minutes after the motor is shut-off?

Anecdotal citations claim that's to lower it to make it easier for passengers to get in, next trip. I call boolshite, given it is so low even at full-height to almost require a shoe-horn and Astroglide to get into.

More realistic reason would be to blast a skosh of already-dry air back through the dessicant beads - warm from underhood heat build - hopefully helping keep them dry longer.

Ten or fifteen US$ buys a suitable Normally Closed 12V solenoid valve that fits the OEM tubing and puts an end to THAT nonsense.

Wired to the run side of the ignition, it still permits the legacy control circuit to relieve pressure when the vehicle is RUNNING, not parked, engine-OFF.

Factory cudda done that with no 'extra' valve - just a programming change, but I would rather do the plumbing than hack code, as I want a proper water separator/trap with blow-down in there too - not just the desiccant beads.

Given the 'multi-disk' CD changer is dodo-dead (and my one never had it anyway) there is space enough to relocate the compressor and such valves and water traps out from under the front bumper/fender sponson, and into left sidewall of the boot for better oversight and easier service.

 

Yes, mine settles down after parked, sometimes immediately and sometimes at the 30 minute mark, sometimes both. It only lowers a few mm. She's settling in to rest a bit.

I really love the character that the air suspension gives the car. If the whole family is on board and we stop for gas, she's 3 inches up when everybody jumps out, and then slowly lowers down while dad fills her up. Then everyone jumps back in and up it goes again as we get back on the highway. No one even notices but me...

I really enjoy this car.

Jeff

 

What maintenance exactly?

 

Without diagnostic codes from the air suspension module, everything in the thread so far is pure guesswork. You could have a bad strut, you could have a bad solenoid valve, you could have a bad height sensor, you could have a bad or weak compressor. You don't mention if there are any dash messages, or if the car levels after starting and then settles when stopped, or anything about it other than it being low on one side, not even if that's just when parked, or it actually drives like that.

You have to get a reader that can look at the air suspension module for codes and data before you can do any productive troubleshooting.

 

Not everything, I said the same lol...

 

Figure new air struts and new or rebuilt compressor every five to seven years, "on faith", control block @ 20 years?

Try for ten years on the struts? You'll have at least one annoying leak in cold weather.

Nothing on the motorcar is "immortal" but the high cost and annoyance of "ambush" faults.

Britannica warns us: "the jaguar is a stalk-and-ambush hunter"

Why Mess?

By this late stage what fails, when, and how, on a(ny) X350 has become as much well-documented history as chance.

Schedule your repairs in advance. JFDI. There will still be "ambush" surprises. Just fewer and cheaper ones.

It's what motorcars 'do'.

 

So, "maintenance" to keep it optimal involves "be prepared to replace"? You have to do it anyway when "THAT" happens.
The original statement being:
"A well maintained Jag air suspension should NEVER sag"
So, what maintenance, replace stuff before it "sags"?.
There is nothing can be done to "well maintain" an air strut, or valve block, I suggest. And compressor has nothing to do with going down at rest.
I had 5 years of my air suspension "going down", 10yrs old when bought, but not enough to be of serious concern until it "popped". So my "Stat of 1" is 15yrs.
Estimating statistical MTBF, does not equate to doing something to "well maintain the suspension" (aka preventive maintenance), unless you are suggesting replacing the air struts after a certain time anyway.
(I was interested in what maintenance JCalhoun performed to keep his air suspension "well maintained".) (from going down at rest - water in the air compressor would not be relevant to this aspect)
Cheers

 

I am indeed. Similar to doing tires before they wear all that badly. The Conti's I run cost around twice what I just paid per-each Suncore air strut, have less than half the life, so it isn't as expensive as it sounds vs callout and mileage charges for a flatbed ride home.

Design flaw to make the vehicle essentially undrivable when the air strut / system fails.

A BETTER design would have used coilovers with the air as SUPPLEMENT. As has been done for more than fifty years.

Compressor, I can easily add a backup/parallel unit as can be switched-in..
Not even much added cost. Given I stock a spare anyway, it can ride with the vehicle rather than sit at home on a shelf.

 

I don't replace tyres before they fail a warrant. Do you think I'm mad or something?

And I don't replace air struts until they fail. There is no way to tell when they might fail. If one is that worried about breakdowns, buy a new car... actually I'm more comfortable flying somewhere and hiring a rental Yuckota or something, coz I've been reading this forum for too long! (my air strut failed within 3km of my Indy, but still required a flatbed).

So to summarize, you are saying to the OP to replace everything anyway, in case it might fail?
Next opinion please, I was hoping for sensible opinions here.