Hello All,
New member here, but I’ve been lurking for over a year, and have learned more about this truck here than anywhere else. This place is great! My truck is a 2006 Land Cruiser - 216000 miles (on the dot when I just went to check!) and I’ve owned it for about a year and a half. I’ve put about 17,000 miles on it in that time. The truck grew up in Connecticut until moving to Maine a couple of years ago. I don’t know a lot about the history of the truck, but I do know the former owner, so I can probably find things out if needed. When it moved to Maine it was garage kept and hardly used, but the garage was next to a salt pond. Once I took ownership I had to park it outdoors next to the ocean for 5 months a year for my job. I’m sure that salt air is gonna haunt me throughout the rest of this trucks life. During the off season it mostly lives in my garage, with the occasional road trip to Boston or Philadelphia. I avoid driving in the snow as much as possible, but salty roads are hard to avoid. Yay salt. But enough about me, and on to my troubles…
I’m sorry to start yet another AHC thread, but I’ve dug through a bunch of threads, and frankly, it’s pretty overwhelming trying to sort through everything, and I’m at my wits end.
Here’s what’s going on: a couple of weeks ago I was driving and all of a sudden, things didn’t feel quite right with the suspension. Very bouncy in the rear. When I got home I took one look at the outside of the truck and the rear was noticeably lower than the front. First thing I did was browse these forums, and armed with a small amount of knowledge (due to quick browsing, not for lack of a wealth of knowledge contained within!), went out and cycled the AHC through Neutral, Low, and High. ‘Low’ was adequately low in the front and the rear, ‘High’ was adequately high in the front and the rear, ‘Neutral’ looked okay in the front, but the rear was as low as it was in ‘Low’.
Back to the forums!
Read a bunch, ordered a Mini-Vci cable, dowloaded Techstream from the link found in this forum, and went to work trying to figure things out. I have not yet tried everything, but my guess from what I’ve read is that the rear sensor is the culprit, but I want to get some opinions here before ordering a new one.
Fluid levels:
In ‘Low’ the fluid looks to be right at the seam of the reservoir, so above any graduation marks.
In ‘Neutral’ the fluid is just about at the highest graduation mark.
In ‘High’ the fluid level is at about the 4th or 5th graduation mark (this seems to vary slightly during different tests).
Techstream data:
‘Neutral’ - Initial reading, normal load, no one in the car
-FR Height Control Sensor: 0.2
-FL Height Control Sensor: 0.1
-RR Height Control Sensor: -0.4
-Front Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 0.0
‘Low’
-FR Height Control Sensor: -2.0
-FL Height Control Sensor: -2.0
-RR Height Control Sensor: -0.4
-Front Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 0.0
‘High’
-FR Height Control Sensor: 1.5
-FL Height Control Sensor: 1.3
-RR Height Control Sensor: 1.7
-Front Pressure Sensor: 9.8
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 8.1
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 10.5
‘Neutral’ again
-FR Height Control Sensor: -0.0
-FL Height Control Sensor: -0.1
-RR Height Control Sensor: 0.2
-Front Pressure Sensor: 9.8
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 8.1
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 10.5
Seemed odd to me that the last three data points didn’t change, so I turned the car off and back on and rescanned.
‘Neutral’ after turning car off and back on
-FR Height Control Sensor: -0.1
-FL Height Control Sensor: -0.2
-RR Height Control Sensor: -0.4
-Front Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 0.0
I have not removed the rear sensor yet. Things are pretty rusty under there and I haven’t had the courage to wrench on those bolts yet. I did take the cover off and the springs are bright and shiny. I sprayed some contact cleaner in there and used a pencil eraser on the traces on the cover, but nothing changed. Haven’t tried an ohm meter yet.
So my question is, could this be anything other than the rear sensor? I’m assuming that since the fluid level seems ok (if not a bit high) and I can raise the truck all the way up that the globes and accumulators are fine, but I don’t really know much about how the system works in that regard.
Thanks for any help. Sorry again for another AHC thread. Maybe I need to learn how to search better.
-Mike
New member here, but I’ve been lurking for over a year, and have learned more about this truck here than anywhere else. This place is great! My truck is a 2006 Land Cruiser - 216000 miles (on the dot when I just went to check!) and I’ve owned it for about a year and a half. I’ve put about 17,000 miles on it in that time. The truck grew up in Connecticut until moving to Maine a couple of years ago. I don’t know a lot about the history of the truck, but I do know the former owner, so I can probably find things out if needed. When it moved to Maine it was garage kept and hardly used, but the garage was next to a salt pond. Once I took ownership I had to park it outdoors next to the ocean for 5 months a year for my job. I’m sure that salt air is gonna haunt me throughout the rest of this trucks life. During the off season it mostly lives in my garage, with the occasional road trip to Boston or Philadelphia. I avoid driving in the snow as much as possible, but salty roads are hard to avoid. Yay salt. But enough about me, and on to my troubles…
I’m sorry to start yet another AHC thread, but I’ve dug through a bunch of threads, and frankly, it’s pretty overwhelming trying to sort through everything, and I’m at my wits end.
Here’s what’s going on: a couple of weeks ago I was driving and all of a sudden, things didn’t feel quite right with the suspension. Very bouncy in the rear. When I got home I took one look at the outside of the truck and the rear was noticeably lower than the front. First thing I did was browse these forums, and armed with a small amount of knowledge (due to quick browsing, not for lack of a wealth of knowledge contained within!), went out and cycled the AHC through Neutral, Low, and High. ‘Low’ was adequately low in the front and the rear, ‘High’ was adequately high in the front and the rear, ‘Neutral’ looked okay in the front, but the rear was as low as it was in ‘Low’.
Back to the forums!
Read a bunch, ordered a Mini-Vci cable, dowloaded Techstream from the link found in this forum, and went to work trying to figure things out. I have not yet tried everything, but my guess from what I’ve read is that the rear sensor is the culprit, but I want to get some opinions here before ordering a new one.
Fluid levels:
In ‘Low’ the fluid looks to be right at the seam of the reservoir, so above any graduation marks.
In ‘Neutral’ the fluid is just about at the highest graduation mark.
In ‘High’ the fluid level is at about the 4th or 5th graduation mark (this seems to vary slightly during different tests).
Techstream data:
‘Neutral’ - Initial reading, normal load, no one in the car
-FR Height Control Sensor: 0.2
-FL Height Control Sensor: 0.1
-RR Height Control Sensor: -0.4
-Front Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 0.0
‘Low’
-FR Height Control Sensor: -2.0
-FL Height Control Sensor: -2.0
-RR Height Control Sensor: -0.4
-Front Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 0.0
‘High’
-FR Height Control Sensor: 1.5
-FL Height Control Sensor: 1.3
-RR Height Control Sensor: 1.7
-Front Pressure Sensor: 9.8
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 8.1
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 10.5
‘Neutral’ again
-FR Height Control Sensor: -0.0
-FL Height Control Sensor: -0.1
-RR Height Control Sensor: 0.2
-Front Pressure Sensor: 9.8
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 8.1
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 10.5
Seemed odd to me that the last three data points didn’t change, so I turned the car off and back on and rescanned.
‘Neutral’ after turning car off and back on
-FR Height Control Sensor: -0.1
-FL Height Control Sensor: -0.2
-RR Height Control Sensor: -0.4
-Front Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Rear Pressure Sensor: 0.0
-Accumulator Press Sensor: 0.0
I have not removed the rear sensor yet. Things are pretty rusty under there and I haven’t had the courage to wrench on those bolts yet. I did take the cover off and the springs are bright and shiny. I sprayed some contact cleaner in there and used a pencil eraser on the traces on the cover, but nothing changed. Haven’t tried an ohm meter yet.
So my question is, could this be anything other than the rear sensor? I’m assuming that since the fluid level seems ok (if not a bit high) and I can raise the truck all the way up that the globes and accumulators are fine, but I don’t really know much about how the system works in that regard.
Thanks for any help. Sorry again for another AHC thread. Maybe I need to learn how to search better.
-Mike