A couple months ago the AHC system started acting up on our 2001 LX470. First the fromt was riding way high, then intermittently would stop working completely. That was very unpleasant and likely dangerous as there was no damping action whatsoever. Took it to the shop who tried to bleed the system but after 14 New England winters, the bleeder bolts were essentially rusted closed. It was also not clear that a flush and fill would solve the problem. At 190k miles, the odds of sensors or diaphragms being bad seemed pretty high. I was not enthusiastic about extensive and expensive diagnostics, nor was the shop I take the rig to enthusiastic about getting into the AHC in a meaningful way. They recommended that I swap the AHC out for a conventional strut/spring setup. So I started researching what was involved - nd while there was some information on the boards, it doesn't seem like a lot of folks have taken this route.
I messaged CruiserDan and he was very helpful in identifying the necessary parts and was kind enough to package them up and ship them to the shop. They spent the better part of a day removing the AHC shocks (had to cut the rears out) and replacing them with the new parts. While they were in there they found a near to bad axle and replaced that as well.
This was a spendy mod - between parts and labor close to $2k. The rig now rides nicely, though not as nicely as it did with the AHC. For the kind of use it gets, the difference isn't really noticeable though. The big benefit is that I know that future costs will be limited and I won't have the AHC system failure hanging over my head for whatever number of years we end up keeping it - which I expect will be alot.
As always CruiserDan was great to work with, very helpful and responsive.
I messaged CruiserDan and he was very helpful in identifying the necessary parts and was kind enough to package them up and ship them to the shop. They spent the better part of a day removing the AHC shocks (had to cut the rears out) and replacing them with the new parts. While they were in there they found a near to bad axle and replaced that as well.
This was a spendy mod - between parts and labor close to $2k. The rig now rides nicely, though not as nicely as it did with the AHC. For the kind of use it gets, the difference isn't really noticeable though. The big benefit is that I know that future costs will be limited and I won't have the AHC system failure hanging over my head for whatever number of years we end up keeping it - which I expect will be alot.
As always CruiserDan was great to work with, very helpful and responsive.
