They are correct in their claim of bag damage. The compressor needs to be turned off when lifting the vehicle because the sensors will see the suspension dropping when the vehicle is lifted up. In response, if the system is turned on, it will deflate the air springs in an unsuccessful attempt to lower the suspension to where it should be. When the vehicle is lowered to the ground, the deflated air springs can squish out and get caught in other suspension parts and be punctured. By turning the system off before lifting, the springs will not be deflated and will remain in their normal shape, so no damage will result.
Ford's air suspension system has always been an extremely high-failure system, and very often they no longer make repair parts available in as little as three years. There are a lot of aftermarket kits available to replace the air springs with regular coil springs. You won't notice a change in ride quality, but you will lose the self-leveling feature.
As far as the failure occurring while the vehicle was at the dealership, we seem to be reading about quite a rash of these things recently, but I would want to know more before putting blame on them. These systems have been around long enough that all mechanics should be aware of how to work with them. For the compressor to fail due to their fault, there would also have to be a punctured air spring. If none of the springs had to be replaced, the compressor would not have been running continuously.
Lots of parts fail on our vehicles. One could fail while you're waiting at a stop light. It's often while you're driving at highway speed. It can even be while you're filling it with gas. Sometimes a part can fail while the vehicle is at the shop for other repairs or services. These cases are frustrating for owners and for mechanics, but very often no one did anything wrong.
Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 AT 7:41 PM
