Mister Bally

Ignore the sticky at the top of the D3 thread to your peril......

03_AR_CO

There are bargains out there for rental cars, and likely would have cost less in the long run. If you can afford a D3, you should be able to pick up the tab on a rental car from time to time.

Digimurda1

Yea sure

ScottCNelson

...as just about everyone learns with their first car ownership experience that continuing to drive a broken car greatly exacerbates the chance of further damage. Does one really need to be told not to continue to drive a car with a CEL, burst RAD hose, or blown head gasket? And when you are specifically and repeatedly warned by experienced owners that driving a D3 with a leaky air suspension will toast your compressor?

Digimurda1

The compressor is not toast, as you can read im mt post its still running.
and once again, sorry, UNDERSTOOD!

Jack88

Alright, easy. The point is true of any car, that there are certain things that when broke, the car should not be driven. It wouldn't matter if you had a Camry, driving through problems can only make it worse. Telling you to park it was meant as an idea to save you money. Uber is cheaper than a rental, and the bus even cheaper than that, assuming you couldn't throw a coworker or friend a few bucks to get you to work. Spend the $600 for an Arnott strut and the $2-300 for an independent shop to install it, and hope your compressor isn't burnt out. Note for the future, just because a car will move under it's own power does not mean it is drivable. An overheating compressor is a fire hazard, and frankly I'm amazed it hasn't self destructed already at this point.

Digimurda1

Thank you.

Digimurda1

hi all'
I found a donor a8 with 60k for parts, the air struts are good on it, the car's engine went bad and the guy is selling it for parts in my area, I got my car checked and was told my driver side air strut is totally blown, with a really bad leak, my question is will I be ok with just replacing the driver side or should I swap both?
I searched for an answer on this but couldn't find anything.


thanks

mishar

Just the blown side will be enough.

the_duke

I know you're probably tired of getting advice but we are all really trying to help. I say all that because I want you to consider that even though the donor car only has 60k miles these air struts don't necessarily fail due to mileage. Age plays a big part as well. Also air struts that have been sitting in the same position for a long time (i.e. on a car with a blown motor) might fail pretty quickly. I would consider spending the money on a proper replacement.

Having said that my car is a 2005 with nearly 150k miles. It appears to have the original struts. But I'm prepared for them to fail any day now (most likely at the least convenient time).

Good luck and I hope you get it figured out.