Hello,
Am a little stuck again with a suspension problem.
My 2006 GT (had it since 2 yrs old) has been slowly lowering itself say an inch over 10 days sitting still). My bad I should have sorted the cause long ago, but my Indy has been unavailable..Just returned from a few weeks away and the car was quite low (top of front tyres about flush with wheel arches). And unlike before it would not re-adjust. First I suspected the suspension relay (53) which has given me grief before..and I have ocasionally had this before where I've had to reset the car (batteries off) to get the suspension system to kick in)..Have read most threads on this but cannot find again what I think I need..Doesn't help that I use Mac so don;t have diagnostic.. Anyway.. bought a new relay (Bosch 0986332030 12V 60A Mini Relay, IP5K4)..arrived today but makes no difference..
- Car sits high enough I can get a jack under each side (front, so no wood needed yet).. however jack lifting it to normal hight does nothing.. no life from air tank or compressor. The compressor ran a little bit a couple days ago then stopped without the corners adjusting..
-I've tried reset many times, each time the warning light "Low Vehicle/Too low) comes on. Still took it for a spin and still sitting very low. At least should have cleared the jack mode which would not switch off using buttons.
- Anyone come accross these symptoms? what are next steps please..
To be fair, the house battery is now some 9 years old having always sat on Ctek trickle..it does charge to 13.7V and retains 12.9 when left off charge for a while.. The "Starter batt" was replaced 5 years ago.
The relay slot has power (12.8V to ports 30 and 87), nothing between 85 and 86 (guess no registered demand ?)
Any pointers greatly appreciated.

 

Hello @Lars_Tempest ,
If I understand correctly, something isn't making sense, if the relay socket # 2 / for pin 30 is from fuse number 6 in the boot, and the relay is not plugged in, how does socket # 8 / for pin 87 have power ?

Please check all fuses as shown below, as you say that pins 85 and 86 show no power, pins 85 and 86 go into sockets 4 and 6 of the relay sockets, one is ground, the other positive power, which inturn close the coil to connect sockets 2 and 8 or pins 30 and 87 on the relay, so the power and ground (sockets 4 and 6) to engage the relay coil comes from the suspension control module itself, so the two 10 amp fuses may be at fault if blown, please verify that the 40 amp fuse itself is good.

Also, have you tried pressing both suspension buttons on the console to possibly disengage the jack mode ?

Also, when it comes to jacking the vehicle up with the floor jack, you do not jack it to normal position, you slowly jack it a very small amount to get it off the stops, as when the vehicle falls to low, the system shuts down, so you have to lift both sides of the front to get it to activate, but do not jack it to normal height, otherwise the system see the vehicle at proper height, although, you could try jacking both sides of the front higher than normal, that may wake the system up to think it has to release air, then you slowly let each side down in incremental steps to get the system to air up when it calls for it.

This is, if infact the compressor hasn't burnt itself out trying to maintain the proper level all this time with a leak.


EDIT: Try using the emergency start procedure by turning the key to the left for a few seconds, that will put both batteries in parallel, therefore giving much more power to all systems, maybe that will kick in the suspension compressor, that is if the house battery is the issue.

Boot fuses.
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Facia fuse box.

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Johnny


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Hello Johnny, Thanks for picking this up!
I did check the two fuses in the trunk panel (6 and 44), which I found from one of your earlier posts, they look good on visual inspection,. Will check 60 tomorrow (it is 2 am here and am trying an overnight battery reset), didn't remember right away how to open the knee roll..would this be drivers side also on my RHD (UK) car? Since I found power to the socket for pin 30 on the relay I thought that would confirm fuses being OK. Am going to check again the 87 socket perhaps I recall wrongly there, what you point out makes perfect sense..
I've had something similar before, where about every second month the level would not kick in. Until now a battery reset would sort that (even unplug replug the relay worked sometimes), hence why I tried the relay first thinking it might have packed in (apparently the compressor can strain the relay). This time is different as there is no sign of life on any corner (the rear is sitting about an inch lower than it should).
I get the jack-up level, and have tried all sorts of slightly lifted positions (well lower than normal ride level). The car was / is not sitting all the way down, the top of tyre is about flush with wheel arch where normal level is some 3 fingers (not an accurate measure I know..). Can try to lift it higher tomorrow to see if that releases air. After trying the emergency procedure re batt power.
I'd be surprised if the compressor itself has gone, it has not been working much as the car is mainly sitting in the garage only getting a Sunday outing.. (and it did kick in a bit to fill the air tank the other day). Seems the symptom could be no signal from the corners somehow. As mentioned, I could not get the car out of Jack mode with the buttons, so took it for a short drive despite the red Stop warning - vehicle too low. That should have cleared the Jack mode (which should switch off over 10 miles/hr).

 

Good morning, @Johnny Hotspur GT
No luck yet. Checked all 3 fuses they look good (both to the eye and multimeter). Reconnected batteries and put in emergency start mode/parallel. Instrument panel shows ride height error of course (yellow warning). Tried small incremental moves to the front (both sides) with jacks, including quite high.. no sign of life to the corners. If anything the left front is sitting a little lower today (but not down on the wheels and can still get a jack under the jack points). Tried first with ignition on, thereafter with engine running for some 10 minutes.
Press and hold suspension buttons in center console 5+ seconds will only sometimes give me a "Jack Mode" message (and the suspension "comfort through sport" adjustment in the mid console always come up (this remain adjustable), but when trying to reverse JackMode there is no confirmation, no action (does that indicate it remains in Jack mode - I do not recall if it should give a "JackMode cancelled" message, which it does not). Is there another trick to get it out of JackMode, other than driving the car above 10mph?

As for metering the relay slots, tbh not sure what I should measure for..In DC mV there is 13.7 to the "pin 30" slot but also positive reads to the other 3 pin slots so perhaps you can correct me on what to look for..i.e. what mode and how to measure..if that is a relevant fault finder at all (with the relay out I'm not sure it's relevant other than that slot 30 has power?).
When the compressor did start (briefly) some days ago it sounded like it filled the air tank as it should. In the past the car would level correctly from the tank with no need for the compressor to kick in, and would have enough air to do this 3-4 times (if the car sat for a week or even two, I would just unlock open the door and it would lift to correct level from the tank).
To the untrained eye it looks like the car is not picking up that it is sitting low, and won't "wake up" via jack trick. According to AI the relay should be a good one; (any bigger and they will have too wide 30/87 pins 9.3mm).

Re. Battery reset.. I seem to recall the sequence as (take off the positive Starter (RHS, then negative House batt (the larger LHS)).. Connect back Starter+ then House -).. Have I got that wrong too? Seems to reset/require the windows to be recalibrated/re-lernt at least)..

Does this lead us anywhere...anything else to try before calling in the cavalry?

PS. I should probably get a RossTech (guess I need a windows laptop too then)..is there a multi-car diagnostic that might cover other cars, such as Porsche, Range Rover and BMW?
Thanks.

PS II. This car had front air struts replaced with new original Bentley (by Bentley Madrid) back in late 2018, and the rear right side in about 2014 (also new original Bentley, probably unnecessarily so/wrong diagnosis since it solved nothing and I then found that the air line to Rear RHS had been worn through by touching a nut right next to (the airline to Rear right runs very close to a nut/bolt end and in my case touched..sloppy installation).. this was repaired with a union recommended and sourced from Bentley UK (was always a bit worried / suspicious if that fix was good enough since the fit didn't feel too tight, but if the air flows to the suspension unit it should stay there right..anyway this fix was written up at the time). Changing the entire air line seemed quite a job.. Finally, the rear LHS unit is the original from new so has close to 20 years and now some 85k miles.
In fact I kept all 3 original units - would there be a point to try having these repaired at all.. they would have some 55-60k miles on them..

 

FWIW, I run Ross-Tech on a ONERugged PC tablet. It seems to work well enough. I have a TOPDON scanner that works on other cars, but it doesn't give me as much info on the Flying Spur as the Ross-Tech does.

I also have the PDF version of the workshop manual on the tablet, which is handy. (Just don't use Acrobat Reader, as all its toolbars will eat up 1/2 your screen space. I tried out the free Sumatra PDF reader: it has an ugly UI, but it doesn't take up much space and is lightning fast. It's also open source, so maybe I'll go in and pretty-up the UI sometime....)

Is "DC mV" a typo? Because if the meter is really set to "mV", then "13.7" is 0.0137 volts.

FWIW #2, I'd consider a 9 year old battery a failure waiting to happen.

Apologies that none of this is really much help with your current issue.

 

Hi Jeyjey, thanks for the input. Well the multimeter in volt selects between AC V and DC mV in the display (no DC V option),which makes no sense in the context (in any case the battery measures at 13.7 V on charge even if screen indicates mV so it is clearly V). The house battery is fully charged, showing 13.7 when on charger.. drops to about 12.8 after being off charger for a while. I do agree about battery age, and whilst I did not get any further today (car level functions won't come alive) another fault warning came up.. this time tire pressure system.. all of this could well point to weak battery given how super sensitive these cars are to marginal battery weakness.. so perhaps I'll try to put in a new one.. 220€ in this context etc.. Then again, I left the charger engaged and batteries in parallel (emgcy start) so there should be enough battery power.

 

Hi again, On this suspension issue.. a) Got a new relay 645 from Audi (still 32 €) that goes into the 53 position. After that the compressor runs, but the car won;t lift even if it (once) picked itself up.
Drove it to an Indy with proper diagnostics used to these cars, and he foun d comms problems with the control units: Error 4147 in communication with the control units. Task. BasicSetting2 control unit RideControlSystem. Error text: ECF ERROR_NRC_SecurityAccessDenied. ServiceID. ResponseCode
Error 2 in the communication of the control units, task ReadBasicSetting2, control unit RideContrSystem. Error text ECF ERROR_NRC_SecurityAccessDenied. Service ID Response code.
...Not sure what fault this indicates?
At some stage he got 0.0 bar pressure in the air tank (??). However, later he got the car to lift and lower itself using the mid consol control.. the compressor worked hard to lift, taking about a minute to reach High Level.. So why would the air tank be empty (could it be a valve block issue, or a shot compressor.. but compressor did lift the car to High Level setting even if it took a while)..perhaps with no air in the tank the compressor had to do it all from scratch?
He then said "It goes up and down! The motor sounds like it's working, but it won't let me input values ​​into the control unit." and suggetsed I need to go to Bentley..

Any thoughts on all of this?

Also, my soft close doors stopped working..motor runs but do not pull doors in..He took of the door cover and found the fault is the motor cables. Are these sold separately? Any parts number?

As always, thanks for all help.

 

It looks like your Indy was trying to run the ride height calibration, but without entering the access code first. (It's probably 31564 for your car.)

 

Thanks Jeyjey. Following his reset-diagnosis the car behaves as it should (e.g. levelling up from the air tank when opening door etc), except a) is does sink about 1.8 cm (say, 0.7 in) in 4 days (that's quite a bity more than the regular slight lowering when stopping the car so indicates a micro leak?), and b) the. right rear sits lower than the left..left being about 61 mm vs right 44 mm top of tyre to wheel arch).. Am guessing he calibrated the ride height incorrect on that corner.. He concluded he could not find a ny leak and if there is one it must be a micro leak too small to detect.. any views?
Btw, the front part of the gear lever dust cover decided to break..any experience with "cheap" chinese relpacements?
Thanks!

 

Definitely a leak. If it sinks uniformly then more likely the distribution block, pump or air tank. If one corner sinks more than others then more likely a bag or a strut fitting.

It seems unlikely that your mechanic got the calibration right on 3 corners but didn't on the 4th. Were any of the sensors replaced? (I've heard nothing but bad regarding Chinese replacements.)

My experience with Chinese parts in general is they're fine with strict quality control (ie: Apple iPhones) and *highly* suspect without (ie: anything not from a trusted brand -- and that list gets shorter by the day). Anything using rubber is even more suspect.

I'll admit the gear level cover is a bit of an odd-ball in that it's not that hard to swap one in and out -- so I could understand taking the risk. I still wouldn't because I like the satisfaction of "job done" and "job maybe done" doesn't do much for me.

 

OK the car has almost levelled itself now, and in regular use it does hold up well..but the right side sits one or 2 mm lower than the left side..would have thought the ecu /control unit should settle this settings issue ? The level sensors seemed fine and were not changed. And throwing no fault codes..

On the gear lever dust cover, there is another thread where someone recommended this part via ebay hence the question..will check with Bentley as I also much prefer OEMl and this car is all OEM original up to now..

But another thing showed up the other day..maybe cause for a new thread..Symptom is, under "semi-hard" acceleration in a high gear (5th/6th) without kickdown there is sometimes a noticeable high-pitched 'groan" (almost ghostly...) seemingly from the left side of the car..what could this be..Not a practical issue but now I'm nervous about possible vacuum or other issue.. Thanks.

 

Often on this transmission that sound is a slipping transmission. Eventually the car will go into safe mode when this happens. Restarting the car will restore transmission function to normal shifting but doesn't resolve the problem. Scan the transmission and look for a code ..incorrect gear ratio between 5 & 6th gear.

 

Sounds like you need to run the ride height calibration again. It's a process in which the car moves the suspension around, tells you where it thinks it is, you then measure it and tell it where it actually is. http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index...ntrol_(non-UDS)

 

Thank you both. On the transmission..a further perhaps sympthom, but the car is slow at engaging reverse..a second slow..is this normal or another symptom of something? And occasionally a gear change can be a little "harsh". Car "only" has 94k miles on the clock, everything original (3 struts Bentley replaced)..Don't recall ever having a problem or interference with the transmission (owned the car since 2Y old)..is there an oil change required perhaps (don't think that has ever been done, unless part of the "large service"? I do read online that perhaps a fluid change could be in order? Sorry for the basic question...

 

In my opinion there are a couple issues...so without going into too much detail. The valve body and seals (four round seals + the square valve body seal) are shot and leaking internally. . Inside the valve body are 5 buffers that flatten causing the bump shift. The bronze bushings on one of the rotating drums is probably scored and leaking causing the slipping or honk that you hear. The slow reverse is usually a bad valve in the valve body. There is alot going on here and all the symptoms are not unusual with the ZF hp26A when they get tired.

Do a transmission fluid filter service but don't expect much. Also avoid pushing the transmission if it causes the honk as this is a stress on the system. The car is driveable as is although not perfect. The perfect solution is a slippery slope.