Air Suspension Sag

[Daniel12]

I’ve been noticing lately that my truck is sagging on the rear passenger side. It’s never been past the point seen in the picture.

I figure if its a leak, that corner would be much lower. Maybe when it gets to a certain point, the bag folds over and plugs the leak temporarily.

I ran a scan with AlfaOBD and it shows that bag pressure is about half of the other 3 bags. To me, that indicates a leak. Am I on the right track. I’m thinking I’ll switch over to an AirDelete kit and never worry about it again.

Thanks

 

[chopperman1]

If it were a leak the compressor would continue to run to bring it to the correct ride height. Have you tried running a calibration in Alfa?

 

[Daniel12]

If it were a leak the compressor would continue to run to bring it to the correct ride height. Have you tried running a calibration in Alfa?

I have not tried doing a calibration. Is that done by measuring and re-writing the height values to each bag?

I went for a short drive, then checked the bag pressures at each ride height setting. They seem to be fine after that. But if the truck sits over night, the bag pressure will drop back down to 4.x in the rear right.

 

[mrack]

Before you do anything in Alfa make positive you have a backup of your bcm saved to a Google drive. Tons of horror stories out there particularly with air suspension about guys screwing up there whole truck by accident.

If you go the delete route, which I would definitely reccomend, you can save a lot of money by sourcing the parts yourself instead of airdelete. All you need is front struts, rear coils and rear coil isolators.

 

[Daniel12]

Before you do anything in Alfa make positive you have a backup of your bcm saved to a Google drive. Tons of horror stories out there particularly with air suspension about guys screwing up there whole truck by accident.

If you go the delete route, which I would definitely reccomend, you can save a lot of money by sourcing the parts yourself instead of airdelete. All you need is front struts, rear coils and rear coil isolators.

Will do that now. Thank you. I’m able to get the measurements from the ground to the fender where I want them. I go for a drive and measure again after a height adjustment and the numbers will be slightly off again so I’m just trying to dial it in.

EDIT: Should the new values be from measurements I take with the truck in its normal ride height or the measurements taken after I press "Write Suspension Height" and the truck re-adjusts to a non-calibrated height?

Thanks

 

[olyelr]

Before you do anything in Alfa make positive you have a backup of your bcm saved to a Google drive. Tons of horror stories out there particularly with air suspension about guys screwing up there whole truck by accident.

If you go the delete route, which I would definitely reccomend, you can save a lot of money by sourcing the parts yourself instead of airdelete. All you need is front struts, rear coils and rear coil isolators.

Im sure theres a bit of electronic needed to keep the christmas tree off the dash to, no?

 

[HarryN]

I am not sure why you would delete the air bags. That is a nice feature.

 

[rammus]

Have you noticed any changes in ride quality since the sag started?

 

[mrack]

I am not sure why you would delete the air bags. That is a nice feature.

Because it’s an extremely flawed system that has a horrible reputation of constantly and completely failing. Walking out the door to find your truck on the bump stops is a pretty stupid feeling, like wow if I had a truck and not a luxury car wannabe I wouldn’t have this problem. Lol

 

[mrack]

Im sure theres a bit of electronic needed to keep the christmas tree off the dash to, no?

Not really, surprisingly. If you don’t do anything it will just give a “service air suspension warning immediately” on startup and nothing further. Or of course that can be removed with Alfaobd: https://www.ramforum.com/threads/how-to-delete-air-suspension-on-2013.206964/

 

[jr27236]

Because it’s an extremely flawed system that has a horrible reputation of constantly and completely failing. Walking out the door to find your truck on the bump stops is a pretty stupid feeling, like wow if I had a truck and not a luxury car wannabe I wouldn’t have this problem. Lol

"Extremely flawed system" why, because the Internet has people who post about issues there having with it? Well if that's your reasoning and it's not first hand then I better get rid of every lightbulb in my house because the world keeps having to change them when they burn out. Seriously just change the one leaking bag and call it a day if that has been your only issue with the air suspension. I personally love it and the way my truck handles the ride and being able to raise it and lower it for trailers or when doing an oil change or other repair) maintenance under it is priceless to me.

 

[mrack]

"Extremely flawed system" why, because the Internet has people who post about issues there having with it? Well if that's your reasoning and it's not first hand then I better get rid of every lightbulb in my house because the world keeps having to change them when they burn out. Seriously just change the one leaking bag and call it a day if that has been your only issue with the air suspension. I personally love it and the way my truck handles the ride and being able to raise it and lower it for trailers or when doing an oil change or other repair) maintenance under it is priceless to me.

If the issue is a leaking bag, you’d be lucky. Yes I’m speaking first hand. Not only is the air ride very prone to issues especially in cold areas, it’s very difficult to troubleshoot and very expensive to repair. That’s why it’s always more cost effective to delete it, especially because it’s going to fail again eventually. Replacing the compressor costs thousands, deleting it costs under $1000.

That’s great yours is still working for you, it’s definitely a fun feature when it works. But electronics will fail, and eventually yours will to. It’s only a matter of when.

 

[jr27236]

If the issue is a leaking bag, you’d be lucky. Yes I’m speaking first hand. Not only is the air ride very prone to issues especially in cold areas, it’s very difficult to troubleshoot and very expensive to repair. That’s why it’s always more cost effective to delete it, especially because it’s going to fail again eventually. Replacing the compressor costs thousands, deleting it costs under $1000.

That’s great yours is still working for you, it’s definitely a fun feature when it works. But electronics will fail, and eventually yours will to. It’s only a matter of when.

Come on now you jinxed me LOL

 

[jr27236]

If the issue is a leaking bag, you’d be lucky. Yes I’m speaking first hand. Not only is the air ride very prone to issues especially in cold areas, it’s very difficult to troubleshoot and very expensive to repair. That’s why it’s always more cost effective to delete it, especially because it’s going to fail again eventually. Replacing the compressor costs thousands, deleting it costs under $1000.

That’s great yours is still working for you, it’s definitely a fun feature when it works. But electronics will fail, and eventually yours will to. It’s only a matter of when.

Hey I said you JINXED me and guess what!!! On a ride yesterday from Long Island, New York to New Hampshire. The system took a complete ****. The rear squated on me while I was driving and it felt like I was driving in LA low rider bouncing down the road. Long story short it seemed to air up again and I was okay for the remainder of the day until on the way home about 2 mi from my house. After hitting some bumps on the parkway it seem to squat again and now it's in my driveway. It's all your fault LOL. (Kidding on the fault part of course)

 

[mrack]

Hey I said you JINXED me and guess what!!! On a ride yesterday from Long Island, New York to New Hampshire. The system took a complete ****. The rear squated on me while I was driving and it felt like I was driving driving in LA low rider bouncing down the road. Long story short it seemed to air up again and I was okay for the remainder of the day until on the way home about 2 mi from my house. After hitting some bumps on the parkway it seem to squat again and now it's in my driveway. It's all your fault LOL. (Kidding on the fault part of course)

Oof, guess I better watch what I say lol. That’s very similar to how mine started, would drop all the way down on all 4 corners on a bump and then air back up, until it never aired up again. Start saving them pennies for a delete!

 

[rule18]

The 4 corner air suspension system is known to have leaking issues over time. Mine (2017) started slowly, one corner and so on. Every so often I'd be away from the truck for a few days and I'd come back to the front squatting down in Entry/Exit position. I'd start it and eventually the system would pump back up. I took it to my dealer and told them to let it sit until the pressure dropped. Four days later they called me saying they finally saw the issue. They wound up replacing a couple of bags that had micro leaks as well as some of the nitrogen distribution fittings, all under warranty.

 

[jr27236]

So it's all fixed. Thankfully I have a lot of experience working on cars. had to do front pads anyway, so starting at the front driver's wheel I did the pads and inspected the airbags and lines for leaks. Working my way around to the passenger side again. Inspecting the bag and lines for leaks pulled off the rear wheel and wheel liner and sprayed the fill ports and there it was. It was both fill ports leaking. Pulled them out and inspected, there was some minor typical corrosion on them that may have played a roll in the O-ring leaking. O-rings were still perfect but also had a small amount of white corrosion transfer. Cleaned up and lubed up the o-rings put a small amount of thread sealer at the beginning of the threads and hand set them and no more leaks. Put a vacuum on the system to remove any moisture and filled and released all corners to atmosphere a couple of times while recharging the system properly with Nitrogen to 150 PSI (the service bulletin says 175psi or 12 bar) but the truck automatically released back down to 150 Hasn't ridden as good as it is now in a long time. Keeping my fingers crossed.