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I read that having the green light after startup for a short moment means that the height from last shutdown has changed a certain amount of distance. ...
So that could be your first sign there is a small leak.
The owners manual says the green light will come one for a short while after startup if you had shut the car off in dynamic (lowest) setting.
This is to remind you that the car is very low before you drive off.
Awesome thread, very detailed and great teamwork fine-tuning the removal / repair process. I've decided to tackle my sinking front right too - it's worse this winter than it was last winter and the year before that!
Couple of questions:
Are the dimensions above (11mm and 57mm) quoting the Internal Diameter of the o-rings?
Did you guys buy Nitrile o-rings or is Viton material worth looking at?
OK, so my air struts have never leaked or sagged, I leave the car on jacking mode often overnight, with no lowering issues.
Just pulling up onto a sloped driveway, I had a strut just blow like this (pic below). Well at least the dust boot seal was high quality. I guess the positive side is with sudden death, there were no leaks to strain the compressor.
I just want to change one side, which means I'm guessing I would need a remanufactured one with active dampening. Any people with recent experience with strut vendors (RMT, Arnott, Meisner..)... seems like there is a lot of negative experience with one any of them... clunks or short lifespan?
Looking for input on recent experience or new vendors.
Thanks
Last edited by Sci-fi_Wasabi; 09-05-2022 at 09:12 PM.
I would say anything but the OEM strut will have some sort of short comings. I have tried Arnott, Continental, OEM and a china air bag and the best results i had was just the airbag replacement/retrofit.
safe yourself a lot of frustration and time and only buy a new original part or used part taken from a car with low millage.
The Chinese and Arnot ones will just blow up within a short time span especially when you drive steep and irregular driveways and off road.
The lifetime warranty, some give, is useless when you have to put all the effort in to replace the broken part.
Especially when it is the drivers side that most of the time blows first best to only opt for an original bag.
Make sure you get the right one when buying second hand because there is a slight different between A8 & S8 mainly in the damper because of the electronic dampening system.
Thanks for the responses, I did not see any clearly low milage struts on salvage websites in the area... I think these cars are old enough now for it to be rare to find something with less than 100K miles salvage. Well at least I know to confidently expect issues if I shell out anything less than 1800$ for the OEM part.... which I'm unlikely to do.
07-14-2018, 05:06 AM
