An air bag suspension broken will cause rear suspension sag. If meeting this problem, you gotta change an air bag suspension. But just how to do that? This is the ultimate guide for you. Hope this helps.
This was a pretty easy DIY as others had posted. But please be careful and no to injure yourself or damage your vehicle.
1, loosen the lug bolts on your wheel.
2, raise the rear and place on jack stands.
3, remove wheel.
4, this morning was one of the mornings where my bag wasn’t sagging so I had to remove the underside panel on the right side of the vehicle to locate the compressor and loosen the line going to my driver’s side bag. On our X5’s there are 2 lines; a blue and a red. The driver’s side line is the red line. However, in case yours aren’t color coded, if you are looking at the compressor from the passenger side of the vehicle looking toward the center of the vehicle the left line goes to the driver’s side and the right line goes to the passenger side air bag.
Just loosen it slightly until you hear the sounds whistling out of the line. This will deflate the suspension air bag completely. Once finished, remove the suspension air bag by unclipping the bottom of the air bag from the suspension hole. This is easily done with a flat head screw driver by pushing in on the tabs on either side and pushing up at the same time. It will “pop” right out.
5, turn the top of the bag clock-wise (IIRC) 90 degrees and the whole bag will come out.
6, loosen the 10mm nut on the air line going into the air bag and remove and discard the nut and collar. IF YOU ARE USING OEM BAG, DO NOT remove the collar and nut. You will re-use it.
Once the line is removed, discard the old bag and insert the line into the new Arnott air bag. Note, remove the white cap on the Arnott bag first. This line will not need to be tightened in place and instead will stay in place. Just make sure to push the line all the way in and secure the line along the side of the air bag (this will be obvious when you install, sorry no pics).
7, install the new bag into the upper part of the vehicle where it secures by a counter-clockwise rotation. This part was the hardest for me as I couldn’t get the tabs to line up into the whole. Once in place, you’ll notice that the air bag doesn’t extend all the way to the bottom suspension. That’s because the air bag comes deflated.
CAUTION: Note how much distance there is from the bottom of the air bag to the bottom of the suspension whole.
8, raise the driver side suspension slowly to guide the bottom of the air bag into the whole in the bottom suspension. It will easily pop into place.
Button everything back up, install wheel, start the car and wait about 2 minutes before you begin lowering the vehicle. Slowly lower the vehicle in increments so the bag can fill with air. NEVER EVER LOWER THE X5 ON A COMPLETELY DEFLATED AIR BAG.
I only did one side today but I will tackle the other side soon. Since I’ve done it once and know what I’m doing it shouldn’t take me more than an hour to do the other side.
Hope this helps for anybody experiencing the dreaded suspension sag.