BrokenLS

I was lucky enough to become the owner of a 1 owner, 80,000 mile, clean title LS400. The front passenger side air strut seems to not work, is it worth changing the entire air suspension setup with coils or just buy air struts off ebay for $3-400? The car was sitting in a temperature controlled garage for about 10-12 years and needs some TLC. If you have any suggestions on what needs to be done on a LS400 sitting this long please let me know! (The guy that towed the car ended up pulling the front bumper outwards






- Things Ive done so far
1. Put a new battery in and the car started right up, some misfiring from spark plugs.
2. New coolant, New power steering, and brake fluids.
3. New rotors and tires

CLLEXUSS

If you change the air suspension to coils you are changing the factory specs. as long as you don't mind doing that it's entirely up to you. Air systems can cost you both time and money, just depends if you want to deal with it and have the means to trouble-shoot leaks, replacements, etc. They just can be expensive. Coils are cheaper just pop them in and your car sits normal again. You might have sticky injectors from sitting so long, might not be your spark plugs. Sorry to see the front end got damaged, hopefully you can sort that without too much of an issue.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

if you fix just one strut, the rest will follow so you're likely better off going the conventional strut/spring combo on all 4 corners now.

timing belt and fluids change is the first thing i would do, apart from getting new(er) tires as tires only good for 7 years depending on climate.

400fanboy

Was the car driven in those 10-12 years? Did you drain the gas before starting it...?

If it was just parked & ignored (based on the dust, it looks like it), there are a potentially unknown laundry list of issues. I'm amazed you got it to start so easily honestly - maybe it was started\driven during the storage period?

BrokenLS

I thought it was a miracle too, and the previous owner had lost the keys to the car so I doubt he had turned it on and let it run after more than 2 years of sitting. We also didn't drain the gas (not my choice)

BrokenLS

I'm really thinking of going the coil over route but I dont have full control over what happens to the car

BrokenLS

I dont really have the means to take care of the air suspension, but there are some people in my family helping with the car strongly against changing it from air suspension to coils. Regarding the front end I have a friend that works at a body shop that is gonna try and push it back into place, hopefully without cracking the paint.

400fanboy

Oh no. I'm going to guess it didn't have fuel stabilizer added before it went into storage, then you may have done serious damage to the fuel system. You should NEVER "just run it through" if the gas is multiple years old.

You should really drain the tank and add fresh gas or you risk damaging or clogging the fuel pump, injectors, lines, etc.

I mean you might not have a choice about converting it from air suspension. The costs become extreme for air suspension. We're talking thousand(s) of dollars. And it's not a matter of if - but when for problems developing. I mean if you have an unlimited budget anything is possible for keeping the car as-is, but the unreliability of 25 year old air suspension combined with the system being able to write-off the car if it develops problem(s)... means basically everyone just converts the system to standard shock + springs. If you have one broken air-strut so far... there are so many other components that there sure are other issues that will follow.

And this is presuming there is even parts availability for the air suspension system. It wouldn't surprise me is sourcing components is starting to become extremely difficult at any price - but I'll be honest I don't know the current state of inventories for spare parts for the system so I'm just speculating. Very high prices usually are an indicator though.

vidlev

Personally I believe this forum over exaggerates the problematic aspects of air suspension on these vehicles. Are the components expensive? Yes they are. However on the whole it has been my experience that the system is quite robust.

I acquired my 98 from original owner in 2015, four to five years after he had converted to conventional spring suspension. Fast forward 7 years and I recently reinstated my car’s air suspension. Luckily, the shop who did the conversion to springs left the original air system components intact (compressor, dryer, height sensors etc) so I only needed I hook up new air shocks and install new air suspension fuse. Yes I did run into some issues getting the system to jumpstart but that turned out to only be a result of a mistake I made when proactively replacing the height sensor levers. If I’d have left those alone I would have avoided several full days of troubleshooting.

My air system now functions flawlessly with all original sensors, original compressor, original front air valves among other components. Really the system isn’t that complicated to troubleshoot as long as you have access to fsm, basic multimeter skills and the time to do so.

The air shocks are pricey there’s no doubt about that. But they are the only component on my ‘98 that I’ve had to replace on an original air system.

I’ve driven on coil suspension on this vehicle for the past 7 years. And imo the air system is quite easily superior. But it’s true the suspension on these cars is so good conventional coils / struts still ride excellently.