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?

[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!

[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

[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

[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