Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them

Air suspension repair nightmare - solve the mystery

Matt Wright

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
474
Garage
Country Flag
south_africa
Hi guys

My first foray in to the 100 series section. It's for a friend who has a 100 series and recently had some repairs done to his suspension. Long story short, it took Toyota 2.5 months to resolve the problem at a cost of £3500 odd (which I thought was excessive to say the least!). He has the extennnnded warranty so it was paid for but the question is :

Can anyone decipher what could have gone wrong from the parts list, and why it would have taken well over 2 months to fix??

http://www.capetowndivers.co.za/100Series-invoice.pdf

Interested to find out your views
Thanks as always
 
Looks like they just needed to change the spheres, which they did last, but decided to change the pump first for some reason. At main dealer prices £3500 is not excessive for an AHC repair.
 
Thanks JW :) I'll pass the info back. Maybe the 2.5 months was due to parts availability? All I can think of?!

My mate says the suspension still doesn't feel 100% 9but it could be in his head after the negative experience). Is there anything the lay person [me!] can check or is it complicated? I've never looked under a 100..

Hope it's not tooo cold up there! I cycled 40miles around the mountains with panoramic sea views this morning, like i do almost all mornings.. Looking forward to Lincomb next year tho :)
 
the easiest test is the kerb test imo - driving it on and off kerbs should be a completely damped non event if it's working well. Other than that, if you can tell a difference with the various damping settings and if it goes up and down as it should and the pressures are correct I'm not sure there's much else you can easily check. The actuators themselves (what the spheres are attached to) can fail which would affect damping for the wheel it serves and I think there have sometimes been problems with the rotary switch used to choose the damping setting. There are all sorts of diagnostics you can do in the FSM but I don't know how useful they would be for a general health check, more likely to be useful chasing a specific problem.

Temperature here is just right for not working up a sweat when doing anything physical :icon-cool:
 
Great, nice and simple. Even i can drive in to a kerb :) Thanks again

"Anything physical" - you could run a marathon and not break a sweat :lol:
 
Get it to Johann Meyer for a sanity check if needed?
 
Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them
;) I recommended that to him.. Thanks Gary.. My trucks are gong at some point for a health check / prioritised list of things that need doing etc. It' not the same here without you dudes :(
 
;) I recommended that to him.. Thanks Gary.. My trucks are gong at some point for a health check / prioritised list of things that need doing etc. It' not the same here without you dudes :(

Matt, I've been in South Africa for three months now and you are the first dude, in this country, I know of, who is STILL driving an LC100 with it's AHC system intact. Everyone else has gone for standard shocks and springs (most Old Man Emu). Now anybody who knows me on this forum, can testify that I swear by the AHC system but here's the rub, only in England. getting your truck serviced by Mr T in the UK is bad enough but getting it serviced here, oh man, you don't how lucky your mate got away with an £3.5K bill. Now I don't know this Johann Meyer but I'm guessing your mate should have taken your advice and seen him first before getting ripped off at Mr T's. And when he does and I don't believe that I'm saying this, he should rip the entire AHC system out from under his truck and replace as adviced. When I eventually pitch up in SA with my Toyota Landy, I've already taken the decision that it won't be
equipped with a functioning AHC system but if the thought of gutting the AHC system from your mates truck is too hard to bear, you might be able to contact the dudes at Pleiades and save yourself and your mate a truck load of money. Here's the e-mail:
[email protected]
 
I'll pass on the info John, thanks
This vehicle isn't driven off road and was covered under the maintenance agreement.

I'm still perving over Oily and Warrens new beast! Truth be told tho, I'll never give up my 80's :) they suit my lifestyle and budget perfectly..
 
Was it me or did the final invoice say £20490.15 (on the last page)? In anycase, I've found that dealers, will often diagnose by a process or elimination at the customers expense. It seems that if the first part they tried didn't fix it and they often start with the most expensive bit, it's probably not that bit, but they don't take it off.

In the '90's I had a Citroen XM that was missing at 3500rpm but only when warm. The dealer told me that it was the ECU, but somehow I doubted it. So I took the ECU off and sent it for testing - guess what? It was fine. I got some advice, which was to swap out parts starting with the cheapest (fuel pressure regulator - £30) and this worked... Going a bit of topic you might think, but the point is that the dealer would have put a new ECU in at £550 plus vat and fitting and told me that he fuel pressure regulator had gone as well and charged me for this plus some more labour.

Toyo stealers, very rarely see a 100 and other toyo's don't have AHC. Answer... go see Martin at pleiades. He's played with nothing but active sphere type suspensions on Citroens, Rollers, Maserati, Porches and now Landcruiser. He undertands the principles at work and won't just change parts until it works again!
 
I always prefer a mechanic who can't read or write , he never went to school or college therefore he is a mechanic because he knows how things work . Also fixing a problem for him is far easier than tying to order parts . Engineers know what thier doing but rarely work at dealerships . Unfortunately nowadays part fitters are allowed to call themselves mechanics .
 
I'll pass on the info John, thanks
This vehicle isn't driven off road and was covered under the maintenance agreement.

At the end of the day, it was ALL covered. You and your mate didn't have to spend a penny, unless you guys went for a pee.......
 
Back
Top