E55, Stop car too low!! help..

[OceanstarBug]

I had the car jackup yesterday for a puncture tyre repair on the passenger rear. But when I put back the wheel remove the jack. ever since the front left suspension is almost sitting on the ground and getting the message of car too low. It disappeared in few occasions, but normally comes straight back. Could someone share some light. As so far I am getting countless problem with my first German car. The car is w211 and the suspension button doesn't seem to do much at the moment.

 

[SavMan]

If the other struts raise and lower then it is unlikely to be the pump, take a look around the affected strut and on top in the engine bay to see if anything has obviously come off.
The only real course of action is to get the car to be diagnosed on Star at either MB or an Indy. It could be a number of things pump, failed strut, leak, pipe that has come loose. Could be dirt cheap or lots, I had a front right strut fail recently MB dealer price £1345.

 

[John]

Could be a duff sensor also.

I've had sporadic warnings about it but each time the necessary hardware has been fine.

However, the duff sensor was producing all sorts of strange information.

After swapping it and the aux battery, the car complained still for a few days and disappeared - has been fine in the couple of months since.

It's not without gremlins!

 

[OceanstarBug]

Ok, here some updates. After running the car up and down slowly for few miles and jacking up the.car.few times the right side now also slammed almost to the floor. After close inspections, I could see the car floating up and down very slightly. It almost seems to the car is trying to raising itself but falls back down...

 

[OceanstarBug]

Just few months before all of these happened, I did occasionaly received the visit workshop message after I use the raise or lower function of the suspension....do all these add up to a conclusion? Thx

 

[BlackC55]

It is very likely to be a faulty pump.

 

[shorty]

yea it sounds like the pump is failing , is there any strange noises from the front pasenger side

 

[OceanstarBug]

I do able to hear the pump running.. and I could see the rest of the 3 corners able to move itself up and down, but if the I realised that if the cars shows the car too low message, the raise and lower.function of the car will not work at all. Only I jackup the problem corner slightly then with no message on display then the other 3 corners and the pump would work as normal..

By putting my ear close to the top of the problem corner strut, I could clearly hear the pump its dumping air into it.. but some how it just not doing anything at all..

 

[shorty]

could there be an air leak in the strut ? if so than its gonna be expensive . The reason I sold my 211 was I freared the end was insight for my front struts with nearly 130k miles done .

 

[jamiet1986]

dragging up an old thread did was this the pump I've just had this happen

 

[merc85]

Just a thought, if you have jacked the car then let it down, wheel is in the arch even when the car is running maybe worth checking the Plastic arm on the level sensor, it may be broken.

 

[jamiet1986]

Just a thought, if you have jacked the car then let it down, wheel is in the arch even when the car is running maybe worth checking the Plastic arm on the level sensor, it may be broken.

Where is the level sensor located?

Thanks

 

[merc85]

Front wheel arch's, forward of the upper wishbones, They have a lever arm that attaches to the upper arm's

 

[pmcgsmurf]

Front wheel arch's, forward of the upper wishbones, They have a lever arm that attaches to the upper arm's

That's a clean car.

 

[merc85]

lol not mine, but very similar to the Silver e320 cdi i had.

 

[jamiet1986]

Front wheel arch's, forward of the upper wishbones, They have a lever arm that attaches to the upper arm's

thanks a lot will check this out later today

 

[brucemillar]

thanks a lot will check this out later today

This is a highly likely point of failure and should be checked. While the car was jacked up!! The sensor arm may have become detached or broken (it is very flimsy) they can pop out and be popped back in again (if not broken)

If this is all good then you need to go back to basics.

First try and start the car with somebody sat in the at the "low corner" this may fool the sensor into turning on that valve.

The system is fairly crude. A senor on a potentiometer tells the brain the level the car is at. The brain then tells the corresponding valve to open or close and the pump, pumps air via the valve block to each corner of the car. In your case it would seem like the pump is pumping, but the valve is not opening on that corner (possible valve block issue). But as you jacked that corner up? I would start by looking there first.

 

[jamiet1986]

Ok so the pumps not running at all passenger side level arm is in place haven’t checked drivers side yet

 

[brucemillar]

Jamie

I am not sure on the Merc but on the BMW system (which is pretty much the same system) the compressor is locked out by the ECU if it detects certain errors. In that case it gets zero power leading people to start looking for fuses & relays. Resetting the error with a scanner "may" start the system again unti it detects the same error again (if there is indeed a hard fault)

You may save time and money now, by getting it hooked up to STAR or a scanner that can interrogate EHC systems. If it detects an "implausible" range from a sensor? I believe it will kill the power to the pump. This can happen if the car has been raised beyond the normal height range (jacked up)

 

[jamiet1986]

So I stripped the pump out and refitted it there was a broken line for the air in which I fixed. (don’t think this was causing the issue)

once I had jacked the car up both sides to check the level sensor I started it and the car raised?

It’s sitting fine now but I’m no wiser as to what the issue was.