5 series F11 touring rear air suspension

[Huskyman]

Hi,
My 2014 F11 has succumbed to the air spring failure on the near side, with the car randomly sinking onto the bump stops
I’ve googled this question and not found any answers...
I’ve looked at both Arnott and Anschler replacements, there is a fair difference in price, and I want to replace them as a pair, as I’ve always done this with conventional springs. The million dollar question is.. Are the Arnott worth the premium or will the Anschler be ok?

[ucb]

Ask on bmw5.co.uk
Answer seems to be that some have good experience with the cheap and some dont, and the same goes for the Arnott ones. Only thing guaranteed is that you will need to replace them in time.
Other thing it could be is the pump is failing

[d_a_n1979]

Huskyman said:

Hi,
My 2014 F11 has succumbed to the air spring failure on the near side, with the car randomly sinking onto the bump stops
I’ve googled this question and not found any answers...
I’ve looked at both Arnott and Anschler replacements, there is a fair difference in price, and I want to replace them as a pair, as I’ve always done this with conventional springs. The million dollar question is.. Are the Arnott worth the premium or will the Anschler be ok?

As above; if not already get yourself on here:

http://forum.bmw5.co.uk/

There's a full dedicated F series tech section; ask in there and you'll get all the coverage and answers you need

And for replacement bags; if they're needed, my view is Arnott or OEM BMW ONLY...

[malks222]

I had the car slump down onto the stops and started down the rabbit hole of research- do I go arnott/ oem bmw/ mid price/ cheap ebay specials......

I figured I’d give the cheap ebay specials a go. think I was £90 for the pair and 3/4months in I have no complaints. Figured if they were rubbish or didn’t work it was worth a gamble.

[Huskyman]

ucb said:

Ask on bmw5.co.uk
Answer seems to be that some have good experience with the cheap and some dont, and the same goes for the Arnott ones. Only thing guaranteed is that you will need to replace them in time.
Other thing it could be is the pump is failing

Pump is fine thank god I’m going to take a gamble on the Anschler ones and see how I go.

[Huskyman]

Thanks for the replies
I’ve registered for the 5 series forum. I miss the old BMWland forum, that was a great place, shame about the passing of the site owner.
The rear has stayed up for several days now
I’m not tempting it new air bags are on order!

[d_a_n1979]

Huskyman said:

Thanks for the replies
I’ve registered for the 5 series forum. I miss the old BMWland forum, that was a great place, shame about the passing of the site owner.
The rear has stayed up for several days now
I’m not tempting it new air bags are on order!

It's not always the bags; could be the compressor or solenoids inside it etc

It needs to be checked over and ideally have the codes read to see if there are any stored

[Huskyman]

d_a_n1979 said:

Huskyman said:

Thanks for the replies
I’ve registered for the 5 series forum. I miss the old BMWland forum, that was a great place, shame about the passing of the site owner.
The rear has stayed up for several days now
I’m not tempting it new air bags are on order!

It's not always the bags; could be the compressor or solenoids inside it etc
It needs to be checked over and ideally have the codes read to see if there are any stored

Hi Dan, thanks for that. I’ve scanned the car and no codes are showing up at all, but I’m going to leak test the system before committing to fitting new airbags. I’ve found somewhere that does the solenoid assembly separately so it’s a day under the car checking things....
Or I could just go full lazy git and give it to my local garage

[BFleming]

The bags are so easy to change, it's almost criminal to give them to a garage to do.
The previous owner of my car had changed one before I bought the car, he bought a pair, so gave me the spare one. Good job, as it failed a few months later. That was 3 years ago, and it still looks good. He got them from airdominance (UK based supplier) for £129 each.
A leaking spring won't throw a code as the compressor will do its best to inflate it. A split/burst one will throw a warning if it just plain can't be inflated.

[Touring442]

Arnott bags only. There's no point in paying BMW prices seeing how quickly they seem to fail. E39 bags used to last 10 years plus, I've seen F11 one fail at 5 years.

[BFleming]

Touring442 said:

Arnott bags only. There's no point in paying BMW prices seeing how quickly they seem to fail. E39 bags used to last 10 years plus, I've seen F11 one fail at 5 years.

Mine both failed at 5 years old - but they had done 126,000 miles to be fair!

[74merc]

If the car sinks onto the bumpstops, I would guess that the solenoid in the compressor has seized. They can be freed up with some wd40 though. Aerosus bags are another option and slightly cheaper then Arnott. Quality seems to be at least as good as OE.

[roly79]

Recently repalced bag on mine 2011 owned from new which fixed it for a couple of months. Couple of weeks bag same side dropped (drivers). Took it to BMW specialist, turned out to be a module withing the pump (not sure on name but where the blue and red pipe comes out of the pump). Garage took one off there pump and fitted it to mine all good since. You cant buy the part on its own from BMW you have to buy the whole £1200 pump. Ebay have copies for sale though at about £40 so worth bearing in mind. Bag was a simple DIY and provided 9 years service so not bad really

[Don Phil]

Have a look at Aerosus. I got a new compressor from them and it was fine and a decent saving over OEM.

I bought the airbags too but never needed them while I owned the car so can't say how good they were.

[P700DEE]

Mine was airbags. Should have changed them as soon as it started sinking because the pump wore itself out trying to keep the leaking bags inflated. About 5 years 120K miles

[BFleming]

When one of my bags failed, I drove the short distance home on it; the car sat on the bump stop on the failed side, and destroyed it. It's a quick job to take the shock out to replace the bump stop, just an annoyance though!

[Huskyman]

Right. Thanks all, there is a leak on the N/S bag so it’s a simple repair. Thanks for all the help, photos of the repair to follow soon
Arnott air springs purchased ready for the swap this weekend!

Edited by Huskyman on Thursday 4th February 14:18

[BFleming]

Huskyman said:

Right. Thanks all, there is a leak on the N/S bag so it’s a simple repair. Thanks for all the help, photos of the repair to follow soon
Arnott air springs purchased ready for the swap this weekend!

It'll be really obvious what needs to be done once you start looking at it. The one tip from me...
When you disconnect the air line from the current bag, you can't then pull the air line through the hole on top of the air spring as the collar & nut is too big - so you have to remove the compression collar from the air line, then the nut just slides off. But the collar will more than likely snap, so there should be a new one with the new airbag. It'll compress when you tighten the nut over it when you're reinstalling.

This sort of thing:


Also, they may include spring seats in the pack with the new Airbag, not sure they are required though. Just replace like-for-like.

[Huskyman]

BFleming said:

Huskyman said:

Right. Thanks all, there is a leak on the N/S bag so it’s a simple repair. Thanks for all the help, photos of the repair to follow soon
Arnott air springs purchased ready for the swap this weekend!

It'll be really obvious what needs to be done once you start looking at it. The one tip from me...
When you disconnect the air line from the current bag, you can't then pull the air line through the hole on top of the air spring as the collar & nut is too big - so you have to remove the compression collar from the air line, then the nut just slides off. But the collar will more than likely snap, so there should be a new one with the new airbag. It'll compress when you tighten the nut over it when you're reinstalling.

This sort of thing:


Also, they may include spring seats in the pack with the new Airbag, not sure they are required though. Just replace like-for-like.

Thank you for the great advice, much appreciated. Looks to be the same as the water cooled stuff I worked on with nylon tubing for the water flow. I always trimmed the pipe back if I couldn’t get the olive off the pipe as I found it leaked like buggery if I didn’t.

[Huskyman]

All fixed now and the car is handling better with less roll at the rear, and the handling has improved, and it’s nice to go out in the morning and not find my car sat on its bump stops!
That’s the only big bill (fingers crossed) the car has thrown at me in 53 thousand miles and 3 1/2 years, but then again it gets an oil change every 10k and I did the transmission fluid at 50k. Roll on the next 50k miles