L322 EAS 'suspension fault' **intermittent**

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Richard Warth

Richard Warth

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Location
Herts
Mechanical or Electrical? Only had car for a week. robhew86 has offered useful advice and I'm waiting to get it sent along to AJDs in Hoddesdon, (when they've availability). In the meantime any advice to solve the conundrum appreciated! I'll update w/ info from diagnostics when completed.

'06 L322 Td6 Vogue. Firstly, parked up the car shows no sign of leaks etc and sits level. Suspension however goes down over a minute or two, after driving 10 mins or so, and sits right on bump stops, (very bumpy). Until that is, you switch it off: Switch back on - the LEDs come back on, suspension raises back up, no warnings on dash, etc. And so it goes to repeat. Weird or what?

Restarting - no faults displayed on dash. Start driving, after the odd initial intermittent warning or two on dash 'suspension fault' it sinks again (across all four wheels), w/ centre mounted (Level Switch) LED's lights going out, indicating 'suspension fault' & 'do not drive over 30 mph' displayed on dash. Beginning to think compressor because it doesn't budge when parked up, only when driven. Ordered new relay just to start w/ basics...

This may be familiar aspect of driving an L322, and the causes can be varied I'm sure. Anyone w/ experience of this? My eldest daughter has a discovery and had all the air suspension removed, beginning to see why :confused:
 
I wouldn't have thought compressor as when it is pumped up it should stay pumped up, the only change is it will drop to motorway mode when you reach over a certain speed for long enough, 60 - 70 mph i think but then return to normal height when you slow down.
have you tried pushing the button in the middle of the height adjustment dial to inhibit the suspension when it is pumped up just to see if that changes anything, the orange light comes on ?
Do all your height sensors look ok ?
Diagnostics are the key as always.
 
Good point holidaychicken. The compressor certainly works effectively in raising the car. Am told if states "PRESSURE IN ACCUMULATOR STATIC WHEN FILLING" this is 100% the compressor weak. It sinks literally onto bump stops, and couldn't be any motorway ride height as extreme on bumps and looks like low rider!

Have to say haven't pressed in the button in the middle of dial! So I'll take it for a spin this evening after work and check it out. But yes upon restarting the orange light does come on, although when suspension does sink (while driving), it goes out. Have brought up the 4x4 view on display screen and seems fairly balanced, not one sided as it sinks.

That gives me something to work on until appointment comes up at garage. Appreciate your attention holidaychicken, wishing you holiday chicken a plenty ;)
 
It sounds odd, there is a button on the top of the door panel that drops it to access height on mine and I guess you have it as well, that's not stuck down is it?
When you are parked will it adjust to off road height and back again?
It does sound like a system fault somewhere rather than hardware unless the release valve is faulty.
SaintV8 is the suspension man
You should look at some diagnostics if you are keeping it as they are a pain without
The Gap diagnostic IID tool is popular for the later models I believe
And get a copy of Rave manual which I think is still applicable to the later models although only covers the BMW engines or there may be a manual for the Jag vehicles
Andy
 
Tried pressing the locking button in centre console. The button appears to have a light. Nothing lights up tho when pressed? Consequently pressed it several times and couldn't be sure w/out any indication whether it may have been on or off. So within 2 mls driving it came up w/ 'suspension fault, 30 mph max' and suspension sank to bump stops. Restarted, suspension LEDs came back on, no warnings on dash, suspension raised up. Gave locking button one press. It actually drove for a good 10 mls before warning on dash & notifying chime (which beginning to dread). Therefore headed for home, expected warning to reappear on dash - as it usually flashes up initially then goes off and to reappear saying 'don't exceed 30mph' aswell, argh!! But it didn't. I'm not convinced it's ok tho and will take it for diagnostics Saturday. I was looking up the diag tools, they look cool! Where to buy? Definitely seems a must. Mine is a BMW engine btw, it's a Td6 registered march 06. Will look into button on door as have to say had no idea what it did!?! Lol. Cheers, holidaychicken, great points ;)
 
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For the BMW era i like the allcomms, check the RSW Solutions site for the Vin number compatibility or drop storey wilson an email on the site. it is obviously getting its knickers in a twist over something but so many systems link into the EAS without diagnostics its tricky or nearly impossible as some errors will only go away when they are cleared rather than just read. Turning the steering lock to lock clears some Air Suspension Inactive messages as when the battery is disconnected so you could always try that to see if it has any effect when it next has a hissy to see if that stirs anything.
if you have ever watched Grace Jones on the Russell Harty show, you are driving the vehicular equivalent to the great lady....:)
 
The Gap diagnostic IID tool looked cool I thought tho wasn't clear whether anything but the most expensive one allows anything other than 'read' only diagnostics? Do the cheaper IID's clear faults? The BT one on iOS appeared tasty!

Anyway, the locking button - in the middle of the right hand side of air suspension control knob, does indeed seem to have really made a major difference!! Yay :)

Seems strange and surprised there's no way of knowing when it's engaged? No light on button, and nothing displayed on dash?? Hmmm

However, the suspension, altho after driving 2/3 mls still flashes up 'suspension fault'. But importantly, it switches off after 10 secs and doesn't appear to come back on. Drove it for about getting on an hour yesterday and longer again today. So, great!! :)

I was meant to take to garage and leave it there so they have a look at it next week. As it doesn't appear quite so urgent, and call me paranoid, but I'm not too confident about leaving my car for a week at a garage when I don't know them whatsoever. I'd rather run it round another time and watch it being put on diagnostics.

Sounds like I need my own diagnostics in any case... But I'm amazed it's not dropping onto bump stops now!! Fingers crossed :rolleyes:

Btw, I tried the lock to lock business before holidaychicken but it didn't work. Have ordered a relay for the suspension compressor, see what that does. The only other odd aspect noticed was water in the bottom of the boot that may be getting kicked out of air compressor ?
 
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Well that's some progress.
As far as lights go you should have one orange light showing what height you are at and these are to the right of the car symbols and either normal off road or access and that light goes out when you drive at motorway speed for a bit and the light at the far left lights up next to the motorway symbol. What should happen when you push the button in the middle is the light on that lights up to show its disabled the suspension from adjusting itself. As you select each height setting the relevant LED will flash until its settled at that height which takes a while on mine as it's very fussy.
If you are driving ok I would save your money that you would spend on a garage and put it towards an Allcomms.
I have heard of the switches going bad which are easy to change but I would only spend money on diagnostics at the moment or you will end up with a new RR but only a piece at a time :)
 
holidaychicken said:
Well that's some progress.
As far as lights go you should have one orange light showing what height you are at and these are to the right of the car symbols and either normal off road or access and that light goes out when you drive at motorway speed for a bit and the light at the far left lights up next to the motorway symbol. What should happen when you push the button in the middle is the light on that lights up to show its disabled the suspension from adjusting itself. As you select each height setting the relevant LED will flash until its settled at that height which takes a while on mine as it's very fussy.
If you are driving ok I would save your money that you would spend on a garage and put it towards an Allcomms.
I have heard of the switches going bad which are easy to change but I would only spend money on diagnostics at the moment or you will end up with a new RR but only a piece at a time :)
Click to expand...
Richard Warth said:
Seems strange and surprised there's no way of knowing when it's engaged? No light on button, and nothing displayed on dash?? Hmmm

The only other odd aspect noticed was water in the bottom of the boot that may be getting kicked out of air compressor ?
Click to expand...
Missed these earlier , no lights at all means it's a hard fault which can only be cleared by diagnostics and normally accompanied by Air Suspension Inactive on the dash and the water under the compressor could be coming in via the left hand window seal so check other electrics are not wet behind there as that's common or rear bumper or towbar may not be sealing properly but water could be finding its way into the compressor electrics when driving if there is enough of it giving you your faults but either way water needs to go. The compressor is easy to remove by the 4 bolts around the outside the ones on top are for taking the lid off once it's out but still need diagnostics.
Regarding diagnostics, do you have the touch screen radio as that would indicate the later jag Electrics that wont work with the Allcomms but check your vin number with RSW Solutions if you do go down the Allcomms route
 
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Thanks holidaychicken, Yes, does have the touch screen radio etc. I did email RSW and they said:

"Which vehicle systems do you need to interact with? The 2006 model year is a
strange mixture of old and new vehicle computer modules. The 4Dcan tool will
cover most of the major vehicle systems while the All Comms tool will work
on some of the older modules. It all depends on what problem you are
currently experiencing.
Thanks,
RSW"

Hadn't noticed any water in rear side electrics compartments, looked completely dry. Just looks inside spare wheel well, but no rust and water was clear not muddy. The compressor housing itself did have slight signs of rust around lip area where top and bottom sections join. I need to open it up and have a look inside. Prob won't be until next w/end now.

The 'air suspension inactive' hasn't appeared at all. It displays 'air suspension fault', sometimes accompanied by '30 mph max'. Whenever displays also the latter, it's always sign the air suspension is sinking on to bump stops. So I pull over, switch off and back on again - press raise suspension and it takes a few minutes but raises back up. Someone is selling a gap diagnostics older AES tool just trying to find out from Gap if likely to be right one for my car.
 
The Gap IID tool is the weapon of choice on the fullfatrr site as in full fat range rover but i don't know anyone that has one on here. Landyzone seems to be more P38 and early L322 which suits the RSW tools.
i don't know what the 4d tool is from RSW, but talk to them, they are normally really helpful.
The air suspension inactive and air suspension fault difference may be the later software you have compared to the earlier BMW but not sure.

lynx, hawkeye and Icarsoft are another 3 worth looking at and if you have a fair amount of cash the Faultmate is superb and i managed to pick one up for £160 and as it already had an L322 licence i paid 50 euros transfer fee and the cost of some new cables and i was up and running for about £250.
The key thing to keep in mind is clearing faults not just reading them.

Do you have the OEM westfalia towbar crossmember fitted as when i fitted mine the sealing gaskets that come with it are really poor and i used to get a puddle under my EAS compressor every time it rained.
when i bought my RR about 3 years ago now i drove it from north yorkshire to kent and when it got home the front air suspension went to the bump stops and stayed there for a month until the allcomms arrived as the cost of transporting it and a couple of hours labour far outweighed the cost of the allcomms so i waited until it turned up and it has paid for itself over and over again as the RR faults out if the wind changes direction :)
 
IMG_0297.jpg

Above pic taken of screen showing 4x4 view. Seems problem w/ NSF. Have a feeling could be ride height sensor (or connector). Have it booked Friday at local garage to get read on diags. Haven't taken the plunge on my diags as concerned might give me a list of a million things, most of which I'd need to pay someone to decipher Lol.

Don't think holidaychicken mine ever had tow bar fitted. No water in other compartments as far as can detect. The OSR fuse box housing, has at some stage, as base looks to have rust (unless corrodes from underneath). Albeit strange as apart from cpl small blisters here and there (namely drives door pilar) body looks rust free. And spare wheel well, may have water splashing about, but has no signs of rust (apart from lip on air compressor housing).

So busy at work have very little time to investigate. Good job I don't rely on it as an everyday car! I'm still driving my old car (Alfa) I bought the RR to replace/!?
 
Not sure what the screen shot is telling you.
When you get some diagnostics just post the results on here and have a google, they tend to be fairly reliably unreliable so faults are normally common.
I believe the rear quarter windows can leak but it could still be the rear panel or boot seal.
I dried mine out thoroughly and the got some flour or you could use talcum powder and lightly dusted around possible leakage areas to see where the water was tracking from to get to the spare wheel well and then it is out with the hose or just leave it for a few rainy days
 
It was OSF front air strut! Had a hole in the back that didn't start blowing until suspension raised right up, but must've been getting triggered from going over bumps etc. They only had the side I needed in stock so stuck w/ that, but thinking to get them to order the NSF as well, as both showing perished signs
 
Good news, and thanks for the update, I would change as a pair as could give an imbalance in handling or breaking and if one has gone the other won't be far behind if they are the same age. My two fronts went within days of each other.
Just got to find your leak. Just been speaking to somebody who had a leaking tailgate window where it's bonding had developed a hole.
 
Read somewhere that if rear screen wash doesn't work, that can possibly back up & be a cause of water in boot. Mine doesn't work (tho motor appears to) so probably blocked. Understand rear tailgate needs removing to get to it. The mrs would like to drive it, so getting the camera fixed could be done same time, (seeing as reverse sensors don't work either)... Cheers, holidaychicken I'll have a look round the rear screen. The side windows have shown no sign of leaks/damp, w/ the flour sprinkled around window sills btw. Heard the tops of rear doors can trap water too - but unless has some blocked drain lines can't see how it'd run into boot area. Sometimes sunroof drain lines on other (non RR) cars I've known were prone to cause issues. Rear screen does seem quite heavy w/ condensation in mornings, wasn't sure if dog, or the water from in wheel well, or just general damp weather of late. The OSR fuse box appears damp around base which is a concern too. However at the moment loads of smiles as driving sweetly again since suspension fix :)
 
I have also read that, i believe its the connection to the rear wiper motor or the rear wiper motor itself that leaks due to a blockage. the rear washer jet is normally blocked and or the rear non return valve is faulty.
no need to remove the tailgate, there is a how to that will help below from @Saint.V8 and there are also a few videos on removing various parts at the rear from powerful uk although i think their camera man is also a keen unicyclist :)
i think this applies to your year.
The rear side windows, the rear panel where the bumper fits and the rear glass itself are all potential leaks but the best way to find is to get the hosepipe pipe out and sit in the boot with as much panelling removed as possible while somebody squirts you with a hose, don't forget to shut the tailgate...

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/l322-rear-washer.104027/

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/2002-2005-rear-wiper-motor-part-1.217618/
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/2002-2005-rear-wiper-motor-part-2.217806/

 
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