Gents,

We have a 05 2WD Navigator, bought it back in February. Since we bought it at 117k, the front end would drop at night, about 3''. The airbags were the originals, had multiple cracks and looked to be in pretty rough shape. So I bought 2 remanufactured struts from Suncore industries and two brand new solenoids. Truck has 125K on it, and just replaced both fronts, and both upper and lower ball joints (actually the whole upper control arm).

So now the truck seems to raise much faster than it did with the old struts, but the car front end still drops after it has been sitting. And it seems to drop faster now than it did with the old struts.

So I'm wondering, could I have a bad height sensor (or 2) that have dead spots around where the entry height should be? Or could I have two bad struts and solenoids that I just installed?

When I park the car, I do hear air his out near the front passenger side, which is where the pump is, but I also hear an audible click when it gets to a height and the air stops. Is it possible the relay is not fully relieving power to the solenoids?

Just wondering what I should check next. It's an older truck, don't want to dump a ton of money into it. Worse case is I end up going coil spring conversion in shorter order than I had hoped.

Thanks,

Matt

 

I got tired of these issues and got rid of my air suspension. Upon inspection of the parts I found out that the front passenger solenoid has a cracked o-ring. This caused the suspension to lean on right side overnight. It actually caused too much tire wear previously..



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I can hear the leak on the front right strut. Solenoid is brand new, all new o-rings on the solenoid as well.

Overall, I'm not impressed with the replacement struts I got. They were a lot less beefy than the OEM struts, and the ride seems to be worse with the new struts. So I am highly thinking of going with the spring/strut swap.

 

I just got these on my car.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291122655568?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
For $250 it was hard to beat. Yeah they could have a little more rebound damping to lessen then floating but for the price and compared to air suspension it's night and day.

I don't know why anybody would bother with the air stuff at this point.

 

I was all gung ho about keeping my air ride system on my 03 Navi when it recently started acting up a few months ago. This was mainly due to pulling a trailer fairly often and I'd done a lot of reading up on it as it seems inevitable at some point between 100k and 150k miles, especially here in WI where I am.

I'd been in similar situation as you were, bought mine used with 110k miles in April or May, suspension blew out in Aug or Sept. For me it was the front end that would be down and not go up (as you probably know there's R/L sensors in front, just one in rear) but unless you've got a scan tool that can get into the air suspension module, which I as understand it requires either the Ford dealer unit or one of the BIG $$$ Snap On or similar units, but I think it was on here that another member said they were able to get in there using the Forscan free software, which I also used but was told on the Forscan forum by one of the Forscan moderators that it could not get into the air ride module and unless you've got that info, its just a trial and error diagnosis you need to do.

After it nearly drove me INSANE with the trial and error, error and more errors and especially maddening to know if I simply had access to that module, I'd be able to see the various voltage readings, etc and probably know exactly where the issue was in an hour at most, I said screw this and did the coil swap. I don't pull too heavy of a trailer (max cap 3000 lbs incl trailer weight) but it seems to have a heavy tongue weight and I've towed many times already and NO sagging rear end, rides just fine, I'm glad I did it and don't have to worry about when the next part goes out!

I went with the Monroe Quick Struts, which aren't as reasonable as the ebay units, but do have the Monroe name behind them, not sure if that's worth the extra $350 or so!

 

BT7800zz, Have you figured out how to get rid of the "Check suspension" warning? I have an 06 that was converted to coil and I get "check Suspension" after about 10 minutes of driving.

 

The parts I purchased, I believe had a 1 year warranty. I bought them in February, and delayed putting them in, as in the summer months the dropping wasn't nearly as bad. With it getting colder the old shocks (which were factory originals) would drop after about 8 hours. The new one, at least on the passenger side drops after about 30 minutes.

I have a message into the company about trying to get a replacement, but I also saw on their site that warranty is void if you don't have an ASE certified mechanic install it. I did it myself. So I'm not holding my breath.

I also have a 2000 Mercedes S500, and the manufacturer of the reman'd units for that car just seemed to be a lot better quality. So I'm actually hedging just chocking this up to a bad decision unfortunately and replacing both...again.

 

the only way you will not get the "check suspension error" is that you don't have it prior to coil conversion (it could be ride height sensors, valve, etc) You also need to preserve the valve solenoids and electrical connections in place (in my case I reconnected the valves and zip tied it to the suspension.

another recommendation is to disconnect the data line going into the module (ground it) I haven't tried it and might possibly do this route if the sensors crap out (which is likely above other parts)


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Sorry for the delay in responding, I just happened to see this now, but I'd give much the same answer as lincolnshibuya with one addition, which is to turn "OFF" the switch in back for shutting down the air suspension system (same switch you're supposed to shut off ANY time you jack up the vehicle, etc which I think may have caused additional woes over the years for the few people who's air rides were somehow still working, or had recently been fixed! Drivers side near the back of truck is little tiny panel that pops off, under that is the ON/OFF switch) and I'm assuming yours is still ON because once you shut it off, you should just get the "AIR SUSPENSION OFF" or "SWITCHED OFF" blah blah message in the same spot we get the dreaded CHECK SUSPENSION message. Then, its a matter of getting used to the one "beep" when you start truck (after the hassle I'd been through horsing around with that stupid system, that took maybe TWO starts!) and if the message bothers you being there, hit reset and its gone, until next time you start it!

Doesn't bother me at all and if there's anything else that it needs to alert you about, it will cut into the all important "air ride permanently failed" msg it finds the need to shove in your face, mile after mile!

As Lincolnshibuya said, you need to basically hook the OEM solenoids back up to trick it into thinking everything is fine, which means they all have to be working in the first place or I THINK there may be some workaround for it that may fool the computer with easier method than physically having the OEM solenoids in place, I may have seen that someplace too and would think its fairly simple in just showing the computer the correct resistance or voltages coming from the various check spots, but then I get to thinking about how a LOT of electrical related parts on these trucks seem pretty touchy and can easily see horsing around with trying to trick it into thinking the air ride is fine and ending up with my drivers seat moving all the way forward for good instead, or something else electrically insane and I'm just glad to be done with the air ride hassle myself!

On a good note, we had our first taste of any notable snowfall tonight in SE WI, maybe 3" so far and supposed to get 5 to 8" total and my first time truly using the "Auto 4WD" system seemed to go just fine. When I bought it in spring, I made sure the 4WD and 4LO worked and they seemed fine, but no real way to test the Auto 4WD system on bone dry roads without looking for a patch of mud and with former owner riding along I just didn't feel up to it, plus it was a good price compared w/most around here. So, I put my faith at that time in the reliability of Ford's electronics, electrical, drivetrain systems (and thus was rather nervous about it working AT ALL by now!) but it seems to work just fine! The ABS works fine and so does the Advance Trac, so maybe I should've had more faith, but you just never know until that day comes and it works, phew!

The all season Firestones, which still have plenty of meat on them, they were nearly new when I got it weren't the most impressive all season tires in the snow though, I've had better but that's what we get snow tires for anyway if you're really serious about getting through ANYTHING!-

 

I need at least 1 rear air spring (bag) for my 05 Exp. lots of warnings that it's better to convert than try to repair. In an attempt to start cheap and see what happens before investing a lot more money in the air ride system, I'd buy air suspension parts from someone who has done the conversion or tried a repair then did the conversion later. PM if you have something you'd like to sell.