Back to trying to fix the AIRMATIC issue on my dad's W166 GLE350d and right now it's looking like it's a leaking air spring as it's now sagging on the offside-rear, overnight. I'm looking at MB OE bags that are £395 +VAT and seeing equivalent bags from Arnott, Sachs and Dunlop (cost descending in that order). Has anyone used non-OE springs before? I can get 2 Sachs springs for the price of a single MB OE spring, but is it false economy?
GLE AIRMATIC bag replacement
- Thread starter cws196
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2005
- Messages
- 28,626
- Location
- Mittel England
- Car
- Smart ForFour AMG Black Series Night Edition Premium Plus 125 Powered by Brabus
I have not had a good experience with aftermarket airstruts. When Mercedes parts were on back order, I had to order one front strut, and separately two rear struts, and they all knocked terribly immediately. As soon as the Mercedes parts became available they were replaced - the replacements were worse than the originals and I had to pay for fitting twice. Never again.
It's not the strut (my explanation probably isn't so good!), it's the actual air bag that needs to be replaced. This is literally just a sealed rubber bag without any bushes, electronics, moving parts etc etc.
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2005
- Messages
- 28,626
- Location
- Mittel England
- Car
- Smart ForFour AMG Black Series Night Edition Premium Plus 125 Powered by Brabus
Your explanation was very clear - I was just sharing my experience of aftermarket suspension components not being worth the risk - it ended up costing much more.
It’s worth considering with jobs like this that the labour cost will be the same no matter what quality of part you choose 
(And if you end up having to repeat the work, as per the example above, it quickly will become a false economy!)
(And if you end up having to repeat the work, as per the example above, it quickly will become a false economy!)
