Pawel S

Gentlemen,
Today while driving (in Edmonton Canada) with temperature -22C I noticed two lights appeared. Yellow car symbol with up and down arrow and green car symbol with down arrow. The green light was blinking. I pulled over and noticed passenger front side was sagging. I slowly drove back to my parking spot. Checked 3 times and I can't hear air compressor working. However when I start the car, the front is lifting so I know compressor is working. I am trying to read and find out as much as I can on this. What would be your advises of do and don't s in this situation? I am going to run VCDS tomorrow am and post the report

Jack88

Sounds like a strut leak, park it overnight in tire change mode and see if one corner sags in the morning.

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

I had the same problem... Fixed it!!
Cheers,
Louis

pelletman

Put the suspension on comfort and in jack mode, measure the height to fender lip then come back in morning and measure again. If a corner is sagging, bad shock, or leak in the airline to it, or leak in the dist block

Pawel S

Finally diagnosed as the front right air strut has internal leak (thank you for your comments). Interesting enough, when the car is left outside, it leaks air overnight. When it's inside in warm, it stays sealed. I haven't done anything to air suspension yet, the car is 130K kms. What would be your recommendation for refurbished air struts? I saw Arnott makes them, is it a good choice or there are better options?

Thank you

Jack88

It cost me $120 or so to rebuild my own, it only added a little time to the repair as if I were just replacing the strut.

MP4.2+6.0

Arnott struts they sell as new are NOT same as OE design in some ways. Search for prior debates on it, and don't just read their web site spin. Arnott rebuilt or RMT are the usual choices to maintain OE functionality. Warranted, but failure rates of perhaps 30-50% in foreseeable future--which for me anyway says junkyard one from as recent/low miles ones as you can find is at least as good a dice roll. DIY rebuild is possible as others mention if you are up to it. Otherwise, new dealer OE for big money is only way to be sure that doing it once will stick 95%+ of time.

If pulling strut assembly BTW, upper control arm replace on that side at least becomes a 30 minute or less incremental labor job.

Pawel S

Thanks! Local dealer wants $2800 CAD for one front air strut (this doesn't include install lol)
If I need to redo the whole air suspension (which seems like it's time) I would be up for $10K OEM with my own install.
Has anyone been successful with Arnott refurbished units? How many miles should I expect out of this? Their warranty is apparently lifetime as long as the install is proper.
I will check junkyards in he area but don't have high hopes to find low mileage D3 as it's a rare car.

Jack88

You don't replace struts on this car preventatively or in pairs like a lot of old mechanics might tell you. You can burn out the compressor trying to drive it on a failed strut. I recommend rebuilding your own, it's pretty easy for anyone with even a little mechanical skill. The only potential problem point is the pinch bolt that tends to stick, sometimes very tightly.

Pawel S

Hi all forum members,
I had finally my faulty front passenger air strut replaced with Arnott AS-2775 at the dealer for $1000 (long story)
https://www.arnottindustries.com/as-...ort-suspension
The dealer recommended to replace both front air struts. I authorized only the faulty unit.
When I received my car and test drove it, I noticed the front is much lower than it used to be prior to the repair. The audi tech performed level adaptation on the invoice. When I am driving my D3 it feels like A4, front is lower than rear. Almost feels like the rear is jacked up
Audi claims that replacing only one strut will affect level adaptation therefore front is lower.
I contacted Arnott to get some answers on their air strut design to understand if it is truly affecting the level
My question:
Is it possible to adjust the level of front vs rear using VCDS without causing any issues/faults?