E39 520i Touring rear air suspension failure: advice please?

[RoverP6B]

Hello!

Over the past few weeks, the nearside rear suspension unit on my post-facelift 2001Y BMW 520i Touring has been sagging while the car is parked and as soon as the car is unlocked, the compressor starts running and jacks it back up to normal height. However, it got progressively worse last week and then the offside went fairly suddenly on Sunday, getting markedly worse on a short outbound journey and failing completely as I began the return, so I now have no rear suspension (and no compressor noises - compressor failure or has it given up as both bags have split and the system won't hold pressure?). The car's stability seems largely unaffected, but the ride quality is atrocious. I got quotes for replacing the nearside unit last week from the main dealer (over 800 quid!) and a local indy who I trust (been using them for 28 years - 400ish quid). I don't tend to carry a hefty payload and so I wonder if I actually need self-levelling at all. I wonder if anyone can comment on whether I should get the air suspension fixed or whether I should instead get the coilover conversion (using the same parts as the non-air-sprung saloon) done, and what either would cost?

[RoverP6B]

Mine has the odd squeak, and the rear wiper broke right off - stupid little bit of plastic where metal might have cost a euro more... odd squeaks here and there too (the left hand seat back in the rear seems to be the culprit). A bit of trim around the rear windscreen aperture is loose and another on a rear door sill broke off its clips. There's no self close on the tailgate, though there is a motorised latch. Eh, maybe I'm a mug but I can forgive the car all of these. The suspension failure is the first major thing to go wrong, though there was an engine management sensor failure which caused the thing to run like an absolute dog (stalling all the time, severely down on power) until it was fixed - not a big job but just a pain for a few days.

[RoverP6B]

Twin Turbo said:

Yeah, the E39 is an easy car to love

Where in Surrey are you based? I now use a great local guy to me. Knows his BMWs inside out, but he's based in Newbury (Berkshire).

I haven't got on with any newer BMWs since. The F11 520d I had for a month after my E46 was written off when I was rear-ended by a local schoolteacher on her phone was the biggest, horridest piece of crap I've ever driven (yes, worse than a Volvo 340 or a Mk2 Capri...) and the E90 320d wasn't a lot better. I told my local dealer (Cooper Cobham) exactly what I thought of them and expressed my fondness for my E39 and asked what to do when it's knackered... I was told in no uncertain terms to restore it. They insist it's the best car they've ever had to sell (and some of them have been there a very long time - one of them was the same guy I bought my E30 from in 1995). Newbury is far too far to drive the car in its current state - I'm in Leatherhead. I've heard of a good BMW specialist in Beare Green, near Dorking, which is doable, but I haven't been able to get hold of him.

[RoverP6B]

Thing is, I rarely carry heavy items and certainly never noticed tail-heaviness with my old E46 Touring on the odd occasion when it did carry something heavy. The 400 quid quote was just to fix the LHS, the RHS was fine at that point. What I wonder is whether it's the RHS bag or the compressor that's packed in, since the latter is no longer audible (which it was even when the LHS bag was going).

[RoverP6B]

Well, enormous thanks have to go to MJF Engineering of Beare Green, near Dorking. They had in another E39 which had just had its air suspension replaced, only for it to fail its MOT on numerous other counts, so it's being broken up. I got the bits off that (and it turned out the only failures on mine were the LHS airbag and a 30 amp fuse on the compressor, everything else was fine) for fifty quid and the cost of two guys' labour for an hour, plus VAT, coming to a grand total of £180 - less than half the quote I'd had from my usual indy (albeit involving new parts, which apparently have to be imported by order from Germany!) and well under a quarter of the quote from Cooper BMW in Cobham. Properly chuffed. Driving the fixed car, I'm suddenly reminded why I loved this car to start with...

Next jobs: sort out suspected blocked crank-case breather, replace near-life-expired sensors (thanks to MJF for mentioning these - my usual indy were unaware of some of them), paint currently unpainted grey plastic door mirror cases, replace broken rear wiper arm and jammed rear wiper bearing (which almost certainly means a new windscreen), broken front LHS spring (bloody potholes!) and sort out slight dent and scrape on the LHS doors from when my wife scraped it on a low whitewashed concrete bollard, replace a couple of bits of broken interior trim... and at some point get my sons to give it a thorough clean, inside and out. Oh, the joys of bangernomics. Mind, I still wouldn't change this 5er for either newer generation...

[RoverP6B]

Well, it's not a job Old Hamfingers here would tackle. MJF, my usual indy (CWK in Ashtead) and Cooper Cobham have all told me there's a 99% chance of the screen cracking in getting the wiper bearing out...

[RoverP6B]

E39fan said:

Hi,

I have a 1997 E39 Tourer that has developed a air suspension problem... the warning light comes on after about a min from start up, it does not seem to rise anymore, the arch has just started to drop over the top of the tyre now, so is still drive-able still, but speed humps are starting to get interesting!!! (am only doing local trips until fixed) This all started after the car had sat idle for 11 months .. and had dropped at the back to the floor!! when i got it going again, she pumped up ok and was fine, until about 3 months later when i towed a caravan... thats when the problem started to show its head... not sure what the problem is and cant really afford to spend £100s so is this a quick fix or something more major?? This is the best car i have ever owned and am very annoyed as just spent over a grand on the cooling system (which was why it sat idle for 11 months) the car is perfect in every other way now as was a project ... now this has happened !!!! very reluctant to get rid..can anyone help??

Where are you based? In the end, fixing mine wasn't too painful - MJF in Beare Green got suspension airbags from a breaker in Kent which have been unproblematic since. If only I could say the same of the rest of the car. It's wonderful when it's working perfectly - which is rare...