Help Needed! Rear air suspension malfunction

[Speedy123]

Please be kind to a newbie, first post here. I purchased a 2003 V8 Limited with only 97k kms on it this weekend. It has rear air suspension and the xdeas or whatever. Seller replaced shocks and struts recently with non xdeas shocks but said rear height adjustment still works.

The vehicle drives great except 4wd low not working (separate issue for another day).

Tonight I thought I'd push the height button to high to try it out. It made a compressor noise for about 20-30 sec in the back and did seem to lift and indicator moved from N to H. To lower it back, I pushed the button down and it whirred again for 30sec and moved back to N, nothing blinking. Except only one side seemed to come down. The drivers side rear tire is almost sunk in the wheel well and the right looks more normal. The button now does nothing in either direction. It drives with a side tilt and my previous smooth ride is now like riding a camel over a minefield, banging and crashing over bumps and rear continuing to bounce up and down over little bumps.

I've searched and have thoroughly confused myself reading the suspension threads. I'm not mechanical or technically minded.

How can I get it back to normal?? I'll happily just leave it off after that. Is there a way to manually do it? It is my daily driver and it isn't really driveable as is. Help!!!!

 

[Bossman]

Welcome to the forum ... although sorry to hear it is under these circumstances.

I've also had problems with the rear air suspension (RAS) in the past on my 03 Limited.

Possible problems are a clogged air line or an air leak. More likely it is a height control sensor failure.

My height control sensors failed due to their location on the vehicle - susceptible to road salt in the winter and the corrosion got the best of them.

 

[Speedy123]

Measuring the height from the ground to the middle of the wheel arch is 33 3/4" on the passenger side, and 31 1/2" on drivers, so a 2" difference!

 

[djlandkpl]

Could be a blown fuse if the button stopped working. What does the dash indicator show? If the system is working, it should have self leveled once you started driving at got past 15 or 20 mph.

 

[Speedy123]

The indicator is at N, solid light, no blinking. I've turned the vehicle on and off, driven a bit, no sign the system is doing anything. How and where would I check for a fuse?

 

[djlandkpl]

Going from memory, I think there's one in the fuse block under the dash and there's a bigger one in the fuse block under the hood by the master cylinder.