Blob said:

Oh boy, this is going to be a long one, sorry. I feel that I've had so much help and advice here that I need to explain in detail the outcome of this weekend's efforts, so if you're sitting comfortably I'll begin.

[Deep breath]

First off, the C43 is back in the garage and not a moment too soon with this weather, meaning the RR is out on my driveway and back in service.

The replacement (new) Bilstein airbag arrived on Friday, on Saturday morning I skipped all the way to mummy's house where I had abandoned the RR for a couple of weeks to replace the leaking airbag. I started the car to be greeted with the usual "Suspension Fault" message and brushed it off as the fact that the rear one was leaking it was right down and the car was simply warning me there was an issue. Replaced the unit quickly and easily, inflated it a bit with GapIID, fitted the wheel dropped it down, tightened everything once on the floor and proceeded to play with the suspension. A couple of code clears and a reset and it was working as expected up and down. Then I tried "Rock Crawl" mode. It DID NOT like that and had real hissy fit about the transfer case communication etc. Yeah well, every comms is in fault so it's no surprise, a couple of resets and it's all good again. I headed off to test and put a splash of fuel in to get rid of the other warning and chime. 300 yards later I am reminded that I have a suspension fault.. Bugger! What now? Would you believe it? The flippin' compressor exhaust valve again, open circuit and signal implausibility as well as the other fault for gallery pressure not decreasing which is no surprise if the exhaust valve won't open. As I'd said last time, not ideal but useable for now. I found that the car sits level, nobody flashed their lights angrily at me and as long as I don't try and select Access mode or Off-road height it's all good. Went home and celebrated with a beer.

I'd decided that I should inspect the exhaust valve and that there's every chance that the drier is clogged given its age and mileage so I'll investigate and order whatever I need. This morning I lifted the lid of the compressor and WHAT THE HELL?

How is the connector not connected again? It snapped in and I couldn't separate it the other day, surely I couldn't have made this mistake twice, could I? It snapped together again and again, today I can't get it apart unless I take a very small screwdriver to push the detent down and then it will release.

Huzzah, cable tie for the win; I'm not taking any chances now, get out of this!

Drove to my friend's place, no issues. It was getting dark so I daren't try to change the height for fear of dazzling anyone coming the other way so I'll leave it until tomorrow when I don't need to go anywhere. Stopped at Tesco for a loaf of bread, came out started it and swore, A LOT!

Here's where it gets interesting and where the (sort of) fix becomes relevant. I have been chasing communications faults for a few weeks now with everything reporting as broken but also everything working. I had:
- A failing alternator which I replaced
- Possibly dodgy battery, also replaced.
- I've found a small amount of corrosion in the rear fusebox, resolved.
- A failed airspring - replaced
- A compressor connector that keeps undoing itself but can't be undone by hand - fixed.

But most alarmingly of all, every single thing is in fault according to GapIID. I also have a really good iCarsoft diagnostic that refuses to talk to my car due to so many CANBUS issues (perceived but we'll come on to that) and I also used a friend's £2k Launch diagnostic, all pointed to massive problems and lets not even start on the number of auto electricians who either politely declined to get involved or said they'd call back and then disappeared

In frustration, I messaged Gap to be told that I had my tool configured incorrectly and that I should be looking at only the Pending codes to narrow the field. Well, Ok but I never changed the settings on it and why does it always take an age to scan everything and tell me it's broken? I'll discuss with them this week. It did narrow the field when I selected only pending codes and that's how I got to the compressor exhaust valve so it definitely helped.

Moving to iCarsoft, I haven't used it on the RR as I've had Gap for over a year. I contacted their support and they asked me to send them the log file which I have done today. The Launch one belonging to my friend found masses of faults but at the time we knew of that so we cleared them and only the suspension ones kept returning. I didn't investigate it too far as it confirmed what I already (thought) I knew.

After doing the log file for the RR on iCarsoft, I looked at Claire's Discovery 4 and thought "I wonder if it works on that?" yeah, it doesn't but it does work on other marques. Log file created and sent to them for investigation. THEN IT HIT ME! If that doesn't work, what does Gap make of the Disco? I connected it and read the faults... Even more than the L322, way more faults!

What have we learned here then children? The diagnostic tools are an aide not a given. I have two tools that don't work for different reasons and one I didn't check myself meaning that I wrongly assumed that I have a very sick car which in reality has a small fault with the air suspension that needs to be resolved. I've wasted hours troubleshooting almost nothing and you lot have been assisting me.

I'll contact Gap again this week and when the iCarsoft is resolved I will use that too to confirm the issue with compressor/exhaust valve/drier/valve block or whatever is actually wrong.

Sorry it's been a long post and a long way to a sort of resolution but honestly, thank you so much for your support and I will do a final update when I've fixed it for good. To think that I was flipping between "I'm going to fix this" and "I might have scrap this as I can't see a start point let alone a resolution" on a daily basis has me thankful that I managed to get to where I am now.

I maintain that there is a lot of truth in the phrase: You can't buy experience but it is very expensive to obtain!

And at the end of that nausea, it's time for bed.

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