Checking and adapting the Volkswagen Touareg air suspension
Content
To make driving a Volkswagen Touareg safer and more comfortable, the manufacturer introduced an air suspension into the design of the car. When buying a car with such a device, you should study in advance its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the main characteristics. Otherwise, you can stumble upon pitfalls that you did not expect at all.
Air suspension Volkswagen Touareg
Air suspension is a damping system that allows you to automatically adjust the vehicle's ground clearance by changing the height of the chassis. It is possible to change the ground clearance in the range of 172-300 millimeters. Reducing the clearance increases the directional stability of the vehicle and reduces aerodynamic drag. When the vehicle reaches a certain speed, the lowering of the body is performed automatically.
When you turn the ride height adjuster to the stop, the air suspension will increase the ground clearance. Now Touareg is ready to overcome water barriers up to 580 mm deep and slopes up to 33 degrees. To overcome serious obstacles, the ground clearance can be increased to 300 mm. To facilitate the loading and unloading of luggage, the body can be lowered by 140 mm.
The air suspension switch is located on the center console.
The right rotary switch is for changing the ride height. In the center is the suspension stiffness switch. The LOCK key limits the maximum driving speed to 70 km/h when the off-road mode is activated. This prevents the body from lowering.
Photo gallery: air suspension Volkswagen Touareg
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- The air suspension of the Touareg is based on a similar system on the Phaeton, which is adapted to the weight of the SUV.
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- The pneumatic system offers many advantages over conventional suspension.
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- The main power element of the air suspension is a steel shock absorber with an air spring
How air suspensions work
Structurally, this is a complex mechanism that consists of the following components:
- ECU (electronic control unit);
- compressor;
- receiver;
- air struts.
The air suspension can operate in three modes.
- Automatically maintain body position. Position sensors regularly record the gap between it and the wheels. When it changes, either the boost valve or the exhaust valve is activated.
- Forcibly change the height of the suspension. You can set one of three modes: reduced, nominal and increased.
- Adjust the level and position of the body depending on the driving speed. When the car accelerates, the air suspension smoothly lowers the body, and if the car slows down, it raises it.
Video: how Volkswagen Touareg air suspension works
Advantages and disadvantages of adjustable suspension
The presence of air suspension in the car provides additional convenience when driving.
- You can adjust the clearance by controlling the height of the body. Perhaps this is the dream of any driver who has driven enough on our roads.
- Body vibrations on bumps are smoothed out, vehicle shaking is reduced.
- Provides excellent handling due to stiffness adjustment.
- Drawdown is prevented when heavily loaded.
Despite a lot of advantages, air suspension has a number of disadvantages.
- Incomplete maintainability. If any node is broken, it must be replaced, but not restored, which is more expensive.For a new air suspension compressor, you will have to pay from 25 to 70 thousand rubles, depending on the model and manufacturer
- Frost tolerance. Low temperatures affect the suspension very negatively and significantly reduce its service life.
- Poor resistance to chemicals that are sprinkled on roads in winter.
Sports air suspension
Sports air suspensions differ from conventional ones in that the ground clearance in them is lowered in standard mode. In addition, there is an option to compensate for rolls in corners.
Possible air suspension problems and how to fix them
The main symptoms of a Touareg air suspension malfunction:
- when starting the engine, the front or rear of the body spontaneously rises;
- when the engine is off, the rear of the car lowers;
- ground clearance often spontaneously changes;
- sank one of the racks;
- the service mode in the ECU blocks access to information about the wheel alignment.
The sooner the prerequisites for malfunctions are detected, the less the repair will cost.
The average service life of an air spring is 100 km. mileage, but it depends on the operating conditions of the car. Quite often, the air suspension fails as a result of the fact that some car owners pump up the tires of the car with a compressor, which is designed to pump air into the suspension system. This entails wear on the fittings, which begin to poison the air in the opposite direction. The consequences are very deplorable - the car lies on its belly so that even a tow truck cannot lift it. The clearance in this case will be less than five centimeters, so the only way to fix the problem is to use mobile jacks, with which you need to evenly raise the entire car, put supports and replace the pneumatic system.
If the car sank on one wheel, this indicates the destruction of the air supply fitting or the loss of tightness of the air bag as a result of abrasion of the sealing gaskets. In this case, troubleshooting and repair should be carried out immediately, as this may lead to a breakdown of the main compressor of the system.
It is necessary to replace both air struts on the axle at once - practice shows that replacing one strut will quickly lead to a breakdown of the second one on this axle.
If the car refuses to pump up the suspension at all, or two or more wheels sank, most likely, the air compressor broke down or it lost power. In any case, you need to contact a car service.
Video: air suspension compressor check
How to check the air suspension yourself
First of all, let's check the air spring. To do this, you need a soap solution. Apply it with a spray gun to the place where the air spring connects to the air supply tube.
It is important that the suspension, when performing such diagnostics, is in the highest possible position.
Therefore, to check the car is driven into a pit or overpass. On the lift, you won't be able to determine anything, because the suspension will not be loaded. Bubbles of soap solution will indicate an air leak.
If the air springs hold pressure, the body rises, but does not fall, which means that the pressure relief valve of the air compressor or the valve block has failed. It is necessary to drive the car into a pit, unscrew the air supply pipe from the valve block, turn on the ignition and press the body lowering button. If the vehicle lowers, the pressure relief valve is broken. If it doesn't go down, the valve block is faulty.
Video: checking valve air suspension Touareg
Air suspension adaptation - step by step instructions
Touareg suspension adaptation is carried out using the VAG-COM program. You must follow these instructions exactly.
- We park the car on level ground. We start the car and connect the VAG-COM.The VAG-COM device allows not only to diagnose the actuators (for example, the throttle), but also to help fix the problems that have arisen
- We turn on the "auto" mode and measure the height from the arch to the middle of the wheel.For further work, it is necessary to measure and fix the distance from the arch to the axle on all four wheels
- Without fail, we record the readings, for example, in the form of a table.
- Apply setting 34.Setting 34 is responsible for working with air suspension
- Select function 16.Function 16 allows you to enter the adaptation program using a password
- Enter the numbers 31564 and click Do It. After entering the adaptation mode, it is necessary to carry out all further operations to the end, otherwise the parameters will fail and you will have to carry out cardinal repairs and restoration.After entering the password, it is necessary to bring the adaptation process to the end
- Go to the point "Adaptation - 10".To go to the adaptation section, you must click on the button Adaptation - 10
- Select channel 1 (Channel Number 01) and click the Up item. The suspension will lower on its own, after which it will rise to the “auto” position. You have to wait until the end of the procedure. In this case, you will see an error along the chassis, but this is not a malfunction. It will stop showing when the process ends.
After the end of the process, in the New Value field, you must enter the previously measured value of the height of the front left wheel - Enter the previously measured value of the height of the left front wheel in the New Value field for the first channel. Click the Test button and then Save. After that, confirm the new information with the Yes button. Sometimes the controller does not accept data on the first try. If the system refuses to accept them, try again or enter other numbers. We repeat the procedure for the other three channels (right front, left rear and right rear wheel). To decrease the clearance, increase the values, to increase, decrease them.. The nominal values are 497 mm for the front wheels and 502 mm for the rear. So, if you want to reduce the ground clearance by 25 mm, you need to add 25 mm to the nominal values. The result should be 522 mm and 527 mm.
- For the fifth channel, change the value from zero to one. This will confirm the values you entered in the previous step. If you do not do this, the changes will not be saved.. After a few seconds, in the Adaptation field, the green text will change to red with an error message. This is normal. Click Done and Go Back. The car should rise or fall to the values you specified. You can exit the controller. Adaptation completed.
Video: adaptation air suspension Touareg
Of course, air suspension has many advantages over springs. Not without drawbacks, too. But with a moderate driving style, as well as proper and timely maintenance of the air suspension, you can minimize the number of breakdowns and increase its service life.
