My air suspension literally exploded! (With pics)

[hankhill]

Thought this might be of interest to some folks. Despite having an A7 I tend to post in the A6 forum for things that are common to both cars, hope that's OK. I was driving around 40mph in the outside lane of the M1 in heavy traffic last Friday, in my 2010 A7 Tfsi, with air suspension, which I’ve only had for a few months. Suddenly a VERY loud bang. At first I thought I’d hit something, then car felt strange so I pulled over immediately and saw the nearside rear had dropped.

After a rather drawn out 5 hour recovery on Friday afternoon/evening, we finally got it home. Some hairy moments getting it onto the second recovery wagon, as the rear had dropped and was fouling the ground; in the end we had to lift it by the wheel arches to get it on. Next day after calling my local (very good) Audi independent and confirming that it would be OK to do so, I drove it (slowly!) a couple of miles to them. That was a bumpy ride, as by then the offside rear had also sunk in sympathy.

As expected, it was the suspension airbag. The independent had only had one go “with a bang” once before on an A6, and mine was more catastrophic in appearance, see photos. Apparently normally they just leak when they fail, a sudden failure is rare so I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has had such an explosive event? He couldn’t think of any reason for it to fail like this other than either a manufacturing fault, or I’d hit something. Had I gone to an Audi dealer I may have tried for some goodwill from Audi UK, but the car is 5 years old and way out of any warranty so I doubt I’d have got anything.

So £700 lighter, I’ve told the old girl that she’s got one more chance - any more adventures like this and she’s going back on AutoTrader. Looked pretty cool as a lowrider though…

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[wildbore]

My BMW 5 series did the same thing. I sold it onto a friend and he reported to me that a rear air spring failed catastrophically. He described the event exactly as you have (no danger or loss of control - but a big bang and a sagged rear). He was told by the garage that "it happens sometimes".

[MarkTM]

Clearly there are advantages to air suspension, but when I had to change both rear springs (did the shocks as well at the same time) of my standard suspension C6 A6, the total cost fitted was less than half that of one side of your air option.

You'd hope they'd last more than 6yrs though!?

[robbyg]

I guess they are just a fancy balloon. Some old balloons go pop, most deflate. Maybe more so if they have had a hard life maybe heavy loads/rough roads, fatigue to the material. Personally i love my air suspension and would spec it again without a thought.
Did they check the others for signs of failure too?

[hankhill]

I asked, they said they had a quick look but a catastrophic failure like this wouldn't have any visible signs in advance, which sounds fair. From the few replies it does sound like a rare occurrence. I'm just hoping this isn't an unlucky car.