1990 560SEL riding too HIGH
 

First time posting for tech help, but this one has me (and my MB mechanic) stumped.

I have a 1990 560SEL with 85K miles, which was purchased from a family friend. When I bought the car, it had blown accumulators and was sagging to one side.

Since then we've replaced:

- Accumulators
- rear coil springs
- rear struts (which, for self-levelling suspension models, are ludicrously expensive).

The car looked and drove great. But within a few hundred miles, the rear started to ride really high. I had my mechanic look at it, and he adjusted the self-levelling controller arm to its shortest length, which brought the height of the car back to normal. So far so good.

Since then (this is about 2 months ago), I've had the car parked for most of the time, and driven it to dinner two or three times. But this week, I noticed that again, the rear end is really, really high.

I brought it back to my mechanic, and adjustment of the self-levelling controller arm doesn't adjust the height of the car in any way. What??

Let me know if you have any ideas...

Did you use the SLS springs? They are different from non-SLS ones.

Yep, used SLS-specific springs (Lesjofors, from .com). Unless they sent me the wrong ones, which seems unlikely:

If adjustment of the SLS controller arm doesn't change the height of the car in any way, then it sounds like the valve is having issues. Unless of course those are the wrong springs and way too stiff, but since it was okay for a while and then got progressively higher, in my mind that points to the valve.

You might want to try flushing it out. If your old accumulators were shot, there's no telling what got into that hydraulic system. You might just have a blockage in the line or valve body somewhere.......

Indeed, the symptoms sound like the system can get fluid into the accumulators, but not out.

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

My mechanic cleaned out the fluid lines running to the SLS controller box... seems to have worked, and the car's now riding level. I've driven about 200 miles since then, and the problem hasn't returned. :)