parkinman

Yesterday, after work, I walked out to my 05 allroad and the entire front of the car was all the way down resting on the bumper stops. The back, however, was at the normal level 3 setting. After a few curse words, I started the car and got the car to raise back up to level 3 (it didn't take an inordinate amount of time). On my 20 mile ride home (all highway) the front end slowly sank down to level one with the air suspension warning light coming on just briefly. Got the car home safely and raised the car back up to level 3 and expected it to drop back down over night. Well, it didn't. As of 8am this morning still sitting level on level 3. I've had a few glitches with the air suspension from time to time where it wouldn't raise back up to level 3 when dropping below 50mph or it going to level 1 on its own but I could manually get it to back to the normal setting with no more problems. This is the first time I've had it go all the way down. This car has 63K on it and was always properly maintained and lived its entire live in North Carolina. It still has all the original parts though. I'm afraid of some big looming problem coming. I don't know if this has been posted somewhere else but any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

mpalumbo

normally i would say its the front bags which is incredibly common for the allroad for those bags to tear. but in this case since it didnt drop over night i suspect the valves. its located right next to the compressor underneath the spare tire.

douce02

I have the same problem at 68k. I did the soapy water test and saw that the front left bag leaks on level 2 and even more on level 1. Level 3 doesn't leak at all. I have been taking 'B' roads keeping it under 50 until I can get it fixed.

Do the test at levels 1 & 2 paying attention to the bottom of the bag where it folds. The bubbles will be noticable.

PaperToast

it is a common thing for the airbags to be fine on one level and leak at another.
has to do with how the air spring moves when changing levels

63k seems a bit low mileage for the bags to go
im getting close to 125k on mine and they are still holding good

douce02

I was looking through paperwork from the PO and I saw that my car had a rear bag replaced at 600 miles!! Unreal

allroaddave

I replaced my fronts on my 2004 at 45K, so the miles is not the end arbitor of when they fail. I bought the lifetime warranted Arnotts and they were a fairly painless DIY install. No problems since....

parkinman

Thanks for the replies. So, I left the car to sit for a couple of days (fortunately I also have a 07 A4 Avant to drive) and as of this morning the car was holding at level 3. No drop. I called a local Audi dealership and they said just watch it for now and see if it does it again, since it would be hard to diagnose with just one failure. I'll keep my eye on it for now. I drove it today and didn't have a problem with it. I just have to see that when I leave work if it dropped again.

parkinman

Just got a call from another Audi dealership in the area and the guy said that without a doubt both front airbags are shot. These guys are a little bit questionable as far as their service goes so I don't plan on taking the car there. Plus I don't believe that all of a sudden both front airbags went. Plus they quoted me $2500 to replace both front airbags/springs. Fortunately I have an extended warranty so I'm not really worried about the expense.

gcthomas

Just replaced airsprings and shocks with Arnott Gen II/Bilstein setup with lifetime warranty that came in under half of what your dealer quoted, if you've got the time and patience to do the work yourself. As has been said many times, not too hard a job and there's several good "how tos" out there.

This is second set airsprings and car only has 70k. first ones were replaced by dealer just out of warranty close to price you were quoted. I'm not 100% sure the bags themselves had gone bad this time. Bubble test showed leaks around top where spring meets upper mount. Upon disassembly, I found one side where at least 3 of the bolts that attach spring to top mount weren't even finger tight. I suspect dealer wasn't careful about torquing which is the one thing you need to pay close attention to if you DIY. All the other connections can be gotten to easily to check/retorque etc.

Maybe I could have gotten away with new o-ring but it was a "while I've got it out, want to make sure" proposition and things look great now. I at very least got a suspension upgrade for the dealer labor price alone and it was probably good timing for shocks anyway.

PaperToast

soomething that cant be said enough times regarding these things

you have to keep the bags clean
dirt, sand and other debris get in the area where the bag rolls up and down and wears holes in the rubber

clean air springs are happy air springs