F355 M5:2 Suspension light on

Get some reading glasses and double check (inspect) the gear on top of each shock. I bought a known good actuator and moved it to each location, and could not get the light to go out. All the gears on top of the shocks looked good. I got frustrated and took it to the local dealer who diagnosed with and SD1 or SD2 and told me my problem was the right rear shock. I'll be damned, when I looked really close, I could see there was damage and missing teeth on the gear on top of the shock. It looked fine from above, and looked complete, but when you looked closely from the side, you could see a bunch of it was missing! I ordered a new gear (two so I would have a spare) from Ricambi America and once installed, all was good. I drove it for a short drive and the light went out on its own.

 

Klas, I had a similar problem. I found one of my actuators had a broken plastic gear at the top but what I didn't know ( and what apparently can't be seen without taking it apart) is there is another part (gear?) below that can also be broken. I found this out when I sent all 4 actuators to Captain Z to have them rebuilt. During the process, even though only 1 had a broken top gear, he found all 4 of them had the lower part broken.

So, even if you replace a top plastic gear, there may be other problems lurking further down inside.

 

Is Captain Z actually taking them apart to get to the inside? From what I read , they replace the visible parts wit durable gears, but do not open the thing (as it is not designed to be opened)

 

don't rule out a faulty suspension eco, i replaced mine with a second hand one from a maserati 3200 (same part no. as 355) after checking everything.

 

Robbie, Here's the note I got from Captain Z. Besides replacing the plastic gear in all 4 with new ones machined from billet aluminum, they replaced the black outer cross (??). Not sure what a "black outer cross" is but that's what else was broken in all 4. I'm pretty sure they did open them up too because there is a white plastic band around all of them about half way down the red top where I believe they took them apart.

Hi Jerry

We have received your actuators and have them inspected, tested and rebuilt.

They are ready to return to you by US priority mail.

Your decision to have all 4 rebuilt was a good decision as every actuator had the black outer cross that we replace during rebuild broken

Your actuators are all in stronger than OEM condition and will give trouble free service

 

Sorry Klas not sure but 5 years ago sent all mine to captain z and had no problems since.

Knew i was keeping car a long time so money well spent

Mine also had two crosses damaged and no top ones were damaged. They still worked intermitently so not completely broke but i hate lights being on and after a yearof intermittent lights I just fixed.

 

"I'm pretty sure they did open them up too because there is a white plastic band around all of them about half way down the red top where I believe they took them apart." Jerry.

Ok, that's clear then, thanks Jerry. I guess I read some old articles about them, on some Corvette forum. But when they indeed open them, they can replace anything that is broken, so good to hear. (have a suspension light on as well, but not did anything with that except replacing a broken actuator, which did not help. Will get to this soon, so informative thread!)

 

Just to add my 2 cents.

If the car is not running you must have a battery charger connected while testing. This system is very sensitive to low voltage. Also, when you take off a red motor, turn the gear on the top of the shock to see that it turns freely.

 

Just found this thread.

If you have an update it would be nice to know?

 

Drive to the dealer and have the faults reset!
as explained 3 months ago.
then see if the faults come back.

 

I will take it as a spare thanks.

 

Sorry grant its sold