Bentley air suspension restart
 

Hi all,

I have seen a few threads on here regarding failed airstruts for Bentley GT's and GTC's etc, with links to remanufacturers etc but I have a different issue:

I replaced the upper and lower suspension links on my 2007 GTC myself as durign the lockdown I had/have nothing else to do, ordered all the parts from UK reseller and the job is complete. mechanically, at least...

I wanted to take the car back down off the stands and expected the air pressure (which I had to bleed to remove the struts to get to the upper linkage bolts) to inflate again once the engine starts, so I started the engine and let it run for a good 5 minutes. meanwhile the dreaded running gear fault has come up (figured that would go once all wheels are on the floor again) and after running the engine for 5 minutes I tried to lower the car but it goes straight to sitting on the tires, the air pressure is not coming back...

what can I do? any help would be greatly appreciated...

sorted it! thanks to the other post on suspension!
 

Hi Again,

the trick with the wooden blocks under the wheels so the suspension activates and inflates works a treat, apparantly no VAGCOM required now.

sorry, my bad, should have looked on the last page of the suspension advice needed thread FIRST before posting...

anyway problem sorted!

Good job...congrats!

Hi, can I ask how you got it to work in the end as I have the same problem?

Hi Darryn,

well basically, when the car is jacked up, and you have completed all the repair work and installed the wheels back on, you then have to get the system to realize the gas is gone from the struts so that it starts to run the compressor for new gas.

However, if you attempt to lower the car down, you'll find that the car drops lower than your jack and you won't be able to remove your jack. Whats more, the system won't fill the struts back up as the axles need to be pushed higher for the system to start this process... So What I did was, i jacked the car back up and higher than before, and put about 4" of wood under both the front tires (same height on both sides). Then I dropped the car back down and now it didn't rest on the jack anymore but on the wheels (that were on 4" of wood). The system registered that the car was bottomed out and started the compressor which folled the struts. That took about 5minutes. Then I jacked the car up AGAIN, took the wheels off, checked for air leaks on the struts and connections, and put the wheels back on, removed the wood, and voila..
I did have the alignment and tracking checked afterwards because I did a lot more than just the struts.

Hope this helps. No VAGCOM required.

My car is sitting on the ground completely and will not rise, I don't know what to do.

The compressor won't start pumping when its all the way down on the ground because then it will go inot error mode (it gives an error on the dash, off the top of my head its something like running gear fault).

You HAVE to get the car jacked up again (maybe start from the front and get something as close as possible to or under the front crossmember bolts - NOT IN THE MIDDLE OR IT WILL BEND - and then, once you have enough clearance on the side(s), jack the car up so high that you can fit 4" of wood under BOTH front wheels). Then, lower the car again so it sits on the wheels, ON the 4" wood. This should still leave enough space to move your jack from under the side of the car).

Then, start the car and wait 10 mins. The compressor SHOULD then kick in and fill the air struts. I then cycled through high and low suspension position a few times to make sure the system is full.

Once this is done, check for leaks on the struts and air line connections with leakfinder spray or soapy water.

Keep in mind, all the above works on a 2007 bentley GTC. I cannot vouch for other years or models as I havenever worked on them.

Hope that helps.

H

It's weird, my logic tells me that if I put the car over the boards will be like having the car sitting on the ground without anything under it, just as it is right now, so, what's the difference?
Did you erase the codes first? then attempt this to avoid the ''gear fault'' message?

I read in a thread that having faults in the dashboard will avoid the compressor from run and pump new air into the system, you know if this is true? BTW all Bentley Continentals are the same.

nope didn't erase any codes before, nor after.
All I can say is I had the same issue, it wouldn't do it with the car flat on the ground but it did it with wood under the wheels.

I will attempt this tomorrow, maybe it works, I'll try several things by the way, but yeah my car has that message in the dashboard ''running gear fault''

I think what you are missing is that you drive the car onto 4 boards, one under each tire to give you room to allow for a floor jack to fit under the vehicle itself, you jack up all 4 corners to a certain height so it is not to low, then the compressor should kick in, you don't want to jack to high because then the system would want to release air.

I hope that makes sense


Johnny

Seems an odd system that won't fill from flat. Anyone have any thoughts as to the design philosophy there?

C

Certainly, if my Mercedes drops to the ground overnight as soon as I start the engine the compressor starts pumping air into the system and lifting the vehicle, I really can't understand why is different in VW products.

But only the front end is low, the rear is at the right height.