garrett376

If you want some advice, I'd go for the "low hanging fruit": get a known working compressor and replace your "tampered with" one; hopefully whomever you got it from will warrant that part.

140.6er

These air bag systems will all eventually fail. The bags will eventually leak, compressor will give, valve block o rings will go etc, etc, etc, etc. I have fought these same problems with my 1998 Range Rover HSE for years. Replaced everything once. Problems started again recently and I had a leaking bag which led to a failed thermal switch on the compressor. I finally had it. I converted to traditional springs and removed most of the air system. Well, I’m getting flamed over on RRnet for giving up on the air. Have to say its not that bad with traditional springs. That being said, is there a traditional spring system conversion for the 958s?

Served

New dealer compressor and valve block restored all functionality for me and no more faults. Now I noticed both fronts are slowly leaking air when the car is off. OP How do you like the Bilstein Air Struts? You said they are constructed differently than the factory ones, but how is the ride?

knfeparty

you know that they are like $2300, right?

knfeparty

ride of the bilsteins seems no different than the original

knfeparty

Yeah you could just bolt in some suspension from a GTS no problem. I tow a lot, drive on the highway a lot, and drive on the beach some. So I really used the air suspension on my old cayenne and would quite like if it would work on my new one!

knfeparty

My front left strut (the only original one still) isn't filling or draining as it should. We took the valve off and cleaned it/oiled it and it worked well for about a day and has gone back to sticking. Since the air valves from RMT aren't the right threads, I went ahead and ordered a "real" Porsche one; they are about $100 apiece of course. But, definitely worth a shot.

r553

Reading through this frightening thread I'm happy to have the steel springs. Does Arnott supply any Cayenne air struts?

knfeparty

last I checked, not for the Gen 2 cayenne

garrett376

Yes, from a Porsche dealer they are $1907.09.

I've never tried it myself, but this is new and has a 1 year warranty for $500:


I'd think Partsheaven, DCAuto, or similar wrecker would have one that they'd warrant for some period of time.

knfeparty

That's a good find; it looks like the one I got from RMT except the RMT one has a Contintental label on it that looks *exactly* like the Porsche one, sans the little Porsche logo. Biggest difference being that instead of heat shrink around the wires as the original one (and as the amazon on you shared has), it had wire loom (from where they had poorly soldered it).

DC Auto actually doesn't do much in the way of cayennes last I checked. I was a regular there when I lived in NC and had a 944. They actually offered me a summer job, I went by there so much and knew so much about 944 parts hahaha. I feel like using junkyard parts is the same situation I am currently in; you just don't know what you really have. That Amazon one at $500 is definitely the best deal I've seen around.

knfeparty

Update:

I've been driving around on Low and Normal and it seems to handle that okay although it's not always that level. I really goofed up the other weekend coming back from Sebring, though.

I got a flat tire on my trailer. I jacked the trailer up and replaced the tire but forgot to put the car in jacking mode / disable air suspension. So when the trailer was raised up, the car let a bunch of air out of one of the back struts trying to get it to lower back down. When I released the jack on the trailer, it suddenly loaded that strut back up and the compressor kicked on and then the compressor fuse blew.

I had to drive the rest of the way home with "chassis failure" blaring at me. Once I unhooked the trailer, the rear of the car was like a monster truck because the compressor couldn't run to pump the air out of the rear struts and back into the accumulator.

Anyways once the fuse was replaced that issue was resolved.

I replaced the front left air valve (the front left strut is the only original one left) and the car *thinks* it is going all the way to High 2 and all the way to loading, but in reality the left side of the car sits pretty much the same height and the right side jacks up and down.

The car is supposed to do front first and then rear...the weird right-side behavior I think may have started after replacing the valve block to clear the pressure sensor code.

Now the only code I ever get is the catch-all "cannot adjust: too high / too low" code. My suspicion now is either the module itself and/or the height sensors.

knfeparty

And I should mention, the car no longer says "not possible" so...I guess I have beaten that. But if you try to do a big jump (say you're in loading height and select off-road mode and it tries to go straight to High 1), it'll sit there and blink for minutes on end without ever reaching the requested height.

deilenberger

Do you have a diagnostics tool capable of looking at the value of the height sensors? I believe Durametric can, and I know iCarScan can. That should tell you rather quickly if they are working or not.. if you're troubleshooting this by replacing parts - it must be getting rather expensive quickly..

knfeparty

Durametric (enthusiast at least) can not on the 958. Really annoying.

I have a friend at the dealer helping me, so yeah we have been using the real deal tool. Height sensors pass all the tests. It has been a semi-informed process. We knew the valve block was bad because it was throwing a fault for pressure sensor failure, which cleared after valve block replacement. We knew the 3-way valve on the *new* compressor had a bad connection due to the code it threw. We knew the rear right strut was leaking because of the readout from the scan tool.

There's no good way to test the module, unfortunately. I'm beginning to suspect it more all the time. At the very least I think I'm going to remove enough interior to inspect it for any signs of water damage (that may have occurred from sunroof drain failure, possibly before my ownership).