What brand of strut did you end up going with?

 

SCITOO, sold by Scitoo Auto fulfilled by Amazon. Condition "Used but Like New" @ $297.10. Car strangely just rose up as I left it. I had a rock hard ride home, about 7 miles. If I didn't already mention it I cleared a low system air error prior, but the two above will not go away. Still has open recall regarding air conditioner control unit, but I wonder why that error is in the Level Control section....

 

From what I see that 2nd error related to your AC unit is just a passive error and can be ignored. I would clear the errors and disconnect the negative battery terminal for 30+- minutes and rescan after driving for a bit.

 

Thanks! I will report back.

I wanted also to note that I was sadly misinformed about the pricing of Porsche complete air strut, they only sell the bag, for a whopping $1575. This led to me taking the car home to figure out our options. Also sadly the AutoZone options when I try to place an order say not available.....

 

I had the same issue when I ordered what I thought were complete front strut assemblies from FVD and turned out to be air bag and upper assembly only. Rhonda(FVD) wasn't aware that it wasn't the complete assembly until FVD updated their site with pictures a week after I placed the order. I ended up cancelling and ordering the air bags/upper assembly from Suncore out of Florida for half the price of FVD. These are brand new and from what I've found and tech's I've spoken to it's really easy to swap the existing forks onto the new bags. I'm fine with a little extra manual labor.

Here is what I ordered: https://suncoreindustries.com/produc...e-panamera-970

 

Tried the battery negative cable disconnect, no luck. Strut's most likely bad.

Sigh.

Thanks for sharing what you bought! Lost around $825 labor for now...

 

That sucks....I'm sorry to hear that. I would just replace the air bag this time and not the whole strut. Good luck and I'll be working on my car this weekend so I'll need luck too....not looking forward to it.

BTW did the AC error go away?

 

I'm currently debating on which struts to go with; FVD, RMT, Suncore etc. But damn the FVD's are $1750 *edit $1174 PER! That's pretty steep!

I guess I'm wondering what the average life span of the Panamera strut by itself really is? Through Suncore you can get the bellow assymbly and swap the strut over, keeping costs down and ensuring you have a brand new bag setup vs remanufactured through RMT (which I'm aware a forum member recently had a nightmare dealing with). Has anyone bought a set of reman'd from Arnott?

Excuse my ignorance even though I've worked on my own cars, how can you tell if the strut actually needs to be replaced? If it's still good, doesn't it make sense to go with a new standalone bellow/airbag assembly?

As I don't have a service manual what are the torque specs for the top nut when installing the new bellow/airbag to your OE strut when you swap it? Is there anything else you have to do, or just swap, install the top nut and put it in the car?

 

I ordered the bellow assembly from Suncore and they are being delivered today. I spoke to their senior tech at Suncore before ordering and he said their bags have a 1% failure/return rate so I'm pretty confident that these will be issue free. I'm doing the labor myself this weekend and after watching videos on tear down and assembly of air struts on a Cayenne I'm not worried about the process. For me I know that both of my front struts have an air leak at the top of the strut/bellow assembly so this should take care of the issue.

BTW my brother in law owns a shop in the Miami area and he said both himself and friends shops use Suncore parts all the time in Florida and he's never heard any complaints. Suncore is also located in Florida...

 

That's good to hear, gives me confidence knowing there's quality parts.

My main concern going with a bellow only DIY, is that my 2013 GTS has 64k miles on it and I'm wondering if the front struts actually need to be replaced. How can I tell if I need new struts (not the airbag/bellow portion)? Obviously if my OE set is good, I'll get the Suncore bellows, if not I'll swap the entire assembly out for all new ones. But then I'm not sure which company to go with as two of them are remanufactured, and back to FVD being pretty damn steep.

 

The strut portion is essentially a non mechanical part acting as a "fork" and until you pull them off the car to inspect it's hard to tell if they are damaged. I would find it hard to believe they are damaged but you never know. The tech I spoke to at Suncore said people usually swap the entire unit because it's easier then tearing down, cleaning the forks and installing on the new bellows. I should have at least one of my struts out by Friday and will inspect and if I remember I'll setup a go pro while i tear down and install strut to bellow.

 

I'll send you a PM with a link to my google drive for the service manual...it's about 500MB in size.

 

Oh for sure people replace the whole thing because it's easy and convenient. I'm definitely looking forward to your assessment, and exactly how to install the bellow to the strut. I do remember in that recent RMT nightmare thread, that the strut wasn't fully seated/snapped in place, so be sure to look for those tabs and fully seat the strut to the bellows.

Also I was under the impression the "fork" is like a regular strut though, even with airbags you still need a strut, so I don't think it's "non mechanical."

I suppose the only thing I can do is remove mine, disassemble them and determine whether or not I replace them altogether, or get the Suncore bellows. Not like it's gonna hurt anything if I take mine apart anyway right?


Dude you're awesome, thank you very much I really appreciate it.

 

No problem....sending it now. And BTW by non-mechanical I meant the fork portion of the air strut has no moving or replaceable parts besides the air bellows. I'll post pics of the ones from Suncore when UPS shows up today. Thx

 

Best of luck FIRST_PORSCHE! Are you going to try to bleed the struts before replacing? (Since they are leaking as you mention I'm guessing that may not be necessary). The shop I took ours to replaced the upper control arm with an OE unit.

Do the leaking struts make noise when hitting bumps? The tech told me it's the control arm bushings that made the noise...

I'm afraid I did not check if the AC code is still there as I was sort of in a hurry. Just started the car. With the internal coil short the "Chassis System Failure" comes up almost instantly on start up, (right after the seat belt warning).

I wonder if I can measure the resistance on the two pins on the PASM connector in the strut, before installation, to verify if a strut is good. Still looking for full assembly options. I think the oil leaks out when the strut fails, is that not how to tell it needs replacing?