I bought my Jaguar in 2021, the owner had replaced the air strut/bags with Arnott (mfg date of april 2020). The struts have developed clunking noises like the struts were bad and unfortunately arnott does not process warranty work without original receipt.
They suggested just replacing them with coilovers instead of using air suspension which in my opinion is very strange almost as if they know the air suspension they offer isnt that good.
I've had a specialist look at the car and while some bushings are worn they're fine for a while. I also checked out the suspension and everything felt very tight with no wiggle.

Anyone experience this before and found a fix for it? Or should I just get some coilovers?

 

The struts consist of an air bag combined with a hydraulic shock absorber and the shock absorber can fail

and become very noisy. This is difficult to verify except by replacing the strut but it seems you are sure it is

a strut. Your struts must have been faulty to fail so soon after fitting.

I love the air suspension so personally I would replace the strut.

 

The RMT rebuilt air struts became clunkers. Have seen posted here some original struts started to clunk after being diy rebuilt with the 100.00 air strut bladders from on line/overseas suppliers.
One cheap possibility is the bushing in the straight lower control arm. The bushing supports the weight of the car. If not replaced they can really clunk.
When I had the first RMT clunker I replaced all kinds of things. Finally moved from passenger side to driver side and clunk moved.

 

Yeah I think ima just get coilovers from another brand. I do not trust Arnott at this point. I found their email very telling saying to essentially get rid of their air suspension instead of replacing the faulty struts. Almost as if they knew the new ones wouldnt last.

 

Ill lift the car up again this weekend and take a look again. I dont recall checking a control arm that is straight.

 

this arm is where the strut is connected on bottom. There is a small bushing. The weight of the front end sits on these bushings. I had one collapse and it clunked a lot louder and more frequently than the RMT clunker. Suspect the RMT clunker accelerated the demise of this bushing. The clunk is the hydraulic section locking up.

 

They may not have been advising against air struts because the air struts are unreliable. They may have been advising against air struts because everything else in the car that's related to the air suspension is so old. Arnott makes a good product, and backs it with a good warranty, but you do have to have proof of purchase to get the warranty, and I'm not sure if the warranty follows the car if it's sold.

My own situation was because, as I said just now, "everything else in the car that's related to the air suspension is so old." The compressor was toast, and the dryer cylinder in the compressor was full of water and rusted. The vent solenoid in the compressor (which is the only way for air to exit the system) was rusted and not movable. I had leaks at many of the fittings, which would require new seals on the air lines. Knowing that water was being forced through my system as air was pumped in, I feared for the valve bodies in the trunk, certainly. That dryer compartment in the compressor is packed with desiccant beads, but those do not work forever, and were well beyond their useful life in mine, since the chamber was actually a water tank. There is no telling how much water has been forced into my system, through the valve bodies, collecting in the tank and the struts.

Your sig says your car is a 2004. You have no way of knowing how well-maintained the air system was prior to your having it. Did they replace the compressor. Did they keep the compressor new enough to have a dry dryer? How much water is in the system, corroding valve and collecting in the reservoir and strut bags? It's at least 18 years old! My own opinion, from exposure to several cars with air suspension, is that it's useless after 8 or 10 years unless the compressor is replaced regularly (or disassembled and the desiccant refreshed, at the very least) and the struts replaced at the 8-to-10-year point, just for the hydraulics, much less the air bag life.

It was not a difficult decision in my case to abandon the air suspension during my troubleshooting and go with the Arnott coilovers. The car is much more comfortable, a thousand percent more reliable, and I don't have the knowledge that even if i had gotten it fixed and working well, it would only be a small number of years before having to do it all over again.

So consider that their recommendation to switch to steel springs is not because they think their air struts are no good. I assure you, they do not think so! They realize that in all probability, the rest of the system has exceeded its useful life.

 

All of the air spring units have a bush at the bottom that is very much prone to early failure. This is not surprising when one considers the whole weight of the car is taken on these four bushes ! I believe my Merc SLK has a similar arrangement on their front struts, but the bush is twice as big ! The suspension design works pretty well from a car handling aspect, but is seriously flawed from a longevity point of view. I had two X350s, and had to have work carried out on suspension bushes. I suspect Jaguar thought that as the car was made of aluminium, there would be less stress on the suspension. Wrong !

 

i ended up getting arnott coilovers after dealing with a suspension valve or suspension module issue.
Just got all 4 installed but clunking remains. Going to replace the swaylink bars then progressively work on bushings.

 

Sway bar links are easy to check. Unhook on one end.Then drive to see if clunk remains. If it does bolt back up.
Those coil overs sit on those same bushings are the air strut. Several here have experienced the failure of those bushings that the struts connect to at the bottom. Sounds like Frazier has replaced several.