Air Compressor Replacement + Air Line & Air Shocks inspection DIY

Thought I'd post this as it may be helpful for others. Especially if you can DIY and don't want to pay Tesla many £1000's to fix these air compressor/suspension-related issues.

I started to hear my air compressor turning on a lot more than it used to and it was getting a lot noisier than it used to be. At the same time, I started getting 'Air Compressor Disabled, Car Cannot Raise' messages, these increased as the temperature dropped to 0c and below.

The other issue I noticed was that the front left suspension was losing pressure and making the car sag on that front side. Clearly, this air shock or the lines to it were leaking and in turn making the compressor run a huge amount more than it was designed for.

To test the lines and suspension I got some leak detection spray and covered all the lines, connections, pumps and tank with it to see if anything was leaking. It wasn't. On to the shocks and the suspect shock created a nice foam party The other front one is fine as were both the back ones.

Good one:

Bad one:

Next thing to tackle was the Air Compressor itself. I would have loved to rebuild this but I can't find the parts, unfortunately. I found that this pump is used in the Audi Q5, Lamborghini Huracan, Porshe Panamera and probably others. It's made by Wabco with the motor by Lucas. I took it all apart and it was full of rust and most probably the press-fit piston ring shot. I have pics of this dismantled if anyone wants me to post them. I ordered a 3rd party part for £300. It has arrived and I fitted it today. It works well and is super quiet! The replacement air shock won't be with me for another 10 days so it will have to handle being used a little bit more than usual for a few days.

While changing the compressor I found another issue. One of the lines from the pump had been rubbed away by its surroundings. It's probably 0.1mm away from a pinhole! I'll order a new piece of line for this and move it away from the rubbing parts near it.

Compressor location (after I removed it) and 2nd pic circled where the black line had been rubbing against the electrical connector:

You need a few hours to troubleshoot, take things apart, and remove and reinstall the air compressor but it's an easy job. You do have to jack up the car (put it in jack mode) and remove the FR wheel so for anyone attempting this, make sure you use the right safety measures, Jack stands etc.

 

[hydro]

My X has been complaining intermittently about a leaking air shock - and I have seen where it appears to be the front right lower than the others under certain conditions. Yesterday though I got a new symptom: An alert that the suspension was disabled entirely and on investigation in service mode, an error that the pump was unable to build pressure at all when energized.

Hmm, that's not great.

Go through a few steps and not much accomplished, so I go for the hard boot option - pull all the power to reset everything. THAT got a result, the pump comes on, and makes a very unhappy grinding / clattering type noise for about 2 seconds before the computer kills it again. Joyful, seems the pump has mechanically come apart. I suspect I will find a blown piston when I pull it apart. STILL have the air leak at the shock, so I guess I need to deal with that now too.

Two questions: Has anyone got any experience with the "A Premium" pump from Amazon? Yeah I know it is 100% Chinesium, but I couldn't find a Wabco unit and I'd rather not pay the Service Center upcharges there. Second question: Are the air shocks at all special / must be replaced in pairs or only the same brand? I wouldn't THINK they are, but just looking for confirmation here. I've found a few options but no real brand names to speak of. Again probably 100% Chinesium.

I'm already dealing with an issue on my sister's S at the moment, so having my X go down right now was really inconvenient. Trying to drive it just a few hundred feet showed me exactly how BAD the ride without air could possibly be - so driving it pretty much anywhere is a non-starter.

Look for an Arnott compressor at Rock auto. Lifetime warranty, perfect match and half price compared to Tesla's prices

 

[MobileClimate]

you should never hear the compressor running if you do when your parked that means the system was below 7 bar and runs just enough to get the pressure up to 9 bar ..when you drive past 35 mph then it goes to fill the up to 18 bar ..I have watched this process many times ..and if your leak free you will never here the compressor run at all because the lowest you will drop in rhe reservoir will be 15 bar at max .if you have a small leak it will cause that compressor to run a lot when you can’t hear it which is over 45 mph and will also use a lot of 12 v power which will reduce range ..I was using 16% more 12 v power than I should have been which was from having a leak on the reservoir

 

[hydro]

In case you want to change the compressor, I found the link:

2016 TESLA X ELECTRIC Air Compressor | RockAuto

RockAuto ships auto parts and body parts from over 300 manufacturers to customers' doors worldwide, all at warehouse prices. Easy to use parts catalog.

www.rockauto.com

 

[brainhouston]

Two questions: Has anyone got any experience with the "A Premium" pump from Amazon? Yeah I know it is 100% Chinesium, but I couldn't find a Wabco unit and I'd rather not pay the Service Center upcharges there. Second question: Are the air shocks at all special / must be replaced in pairs or only the same brand? I wouldn't THINK they are, but just looking for confirmation here. I've found a few options but no real brand names to speak of. Again probably 100% Chinesium.

I'm already dealing with an issue on my sister's S at the moment, so having my X go down right now was really inconvenient. Trying to drive it just a few hundred feet showed me exactly how BAD the ride without air could possibly be - so driving it pretty much anywhere is a non-starter.

I'd personally get oem one from eBay, I trust used oem more than Chinesium...
I replaced only one front air spring with oem used one from ebay (newer rev also), no issues.
Like others said, extra load on compressor due to leak prolly killed it faster... but not 100% sure...

 

[geordi]

In service mode, it was showing reservoir pressure at 11 bar after the compressor failed. The assisted inflation procedure wants it up to 14 bar though. I can appreciate the reduction in range from the 12v power usage, that might explain a lot b/c the range HAS been atrocious for a while now, pushing 450+ wh/mi at highway speed.

Fine print from Rock though... NOT a lifetime warranty any longer, they just changed it last month. Now it is a 24 month warranty. That's craaaaaaap.

 

[hydro]

In service mode, it was showing reservoir pressure at 11 bar after the compressor failed. The assisted inflation procedure wants it up to 14 bar though. I can appreciate the reduction in range from the 12v power usage, that might explain a lot b/c the range HAS been atrocious for a while now, pushing 450+ wh/mi at highway speed.

Fine print from Rock though... NOT a lifetime warranty any longer, they just changed it last month. Now it is a 24 month warranty. That's craaaaaaap.

good to know about the change in warranty. Just to let you know however that it fitted perfectly and appears to be a top quality product from my own experience with it.

 

[geordi]

good to know about the change in warranty. Just to let you know however that it fitted perfectly and appears to be a top quality product from my own experience with it.

I appreciate the real-world results, and possibly will jump over to that one eventually. Because of schedule reasons I need to get vehicles back up quickly, I'm probably going to try this one from Amazon for at least a bit - One advantage is that it is $282 and will be here tomorrow... Yeah probably TOO cheap, but that's what the Amazon warranty is for. At least if it fails, it can't hurt anything else when it goes.

 

[MobileClimate]

there’s a service tip also just released about boost oring leaking internally in the compressor so anything over 14 bar just leaks out ….and you cannot hear that compressor running when your going 50mph even when your expecting to hear it the tire just washes the noise out

To think about how many people have range issues with the x and no one thought of this being the issue

 

[geordi]

Got a link to that service bulletin? Any chance it comes with a replacement of the pump to prevent failure? Amazon is being obtuse about this pump and STILL hasn't gotten it to me - even though it started from a warehouse just 75 minutes from me! It's been FIVE DAYS and they have given up, it hasn't had any movement in three days (since Tuesday, it was ordered on Sunday for a Tuesday delivery) other than "delayed in shipment" which means nothing.

Numpties. Hopefully the replacement will be here tomorrow.... But I'm not holding my breath.

On another note - does anyone know whether the pump wiring is positive-switched (always grounded) or negative? It might be interesting to try and add an LED in-circuit so that whenever the pump is live, a little light can show somewhere - at least for testing purposes. It would be a LOT easier if the positive is the switched side, b/c then it would only be on when the pump is, and the LED can be grounded anywhere.

 

[MobileClimate]

There is an air leak from a boost valve O-ring within the Tesla Air Suspension (TAS) compressor. This causes reservoir pressure to be lost when over 10 - 13bar without any system activity. The O-ring that seals the boost valve to the compressor housing might be deformed, causing air to leak through the valve seat and out through the intake


also posted fuse issues on tas compressor at front fuse box

There is a timer on the air compressor to stop working when operating for too long so i wouldn't think that the air compressor would use a whole lot of range just some. That's what the air compressor disabled mode basically is for so you dont just keep running the compressor without you knowing about it

 

[geordi]

I had a thought about your comment about the runtime of the pump - Unless there is a leak volume sufficient to make the pump exceed its own duty cycle, there may NOT be a reason for the computer to shut off the pump, and instead just continue sucking down excessive DC power as you drive. The tank pressure would be used to "top up" the suspension as flexing causes the air to move around - it's not a zero-sum game, some is always going to escape the struts as it flexes with the road. The computer might not see a drop of 3 bar as being that big of a deal under normal conditions, within the expected variations of pressure. If the pump wasn't capable of building to that 14 bar, THEN it might throw the pump disabled error - especially if the pressure refused to rise within the duty cycle.

On mine, when the pump was asked to run initially, it failed out with the error in just a couple seconds, so the computer is VERY sensitive to lack of pressure change, since obviously it couldn't know that there was a mechanical grinding type sound. I have FINALLY gotten the replacement pump today, so I will see about disassembling the other one tomorrow after I have swapped out the leaky strut and the pump and gotten my car back operational again. I'm curious to see what came apart in there.

 

[wodnik7]

Same happened to me. A lot of water inside. Compressor is only 1 year old! Water damage and the magnets are no longer glued to the tube.

I will glue it if I find time but in the meantime I bought a compressor at Tesla directly paying about 300$.

 

[brainhouston]

Same happened to me. A lot of water inside. Compressor is only 1 year old! Water damage and the magnets are no longer glued to the tube.

I will glue it if I find time but in the meantime I bought a compressor at Tesla directly paying about 300$.

any chance u have that pic of loose magnet? just curious...
thats a good price for OEM part. many resellers on eBay want much more for it lol

 

[wodnik7]

I have a video of it, but can’t attach it here

 

[Zuikkis]

Same happened to me. A lot of water inside. Compressor is only 1 year old! Water damage and the magnets are no longer glued to the tube.

I will glue it if I find time but in the meantime I bought a compressor at Tesla directly paying about 300$.

Did you disassemble the dryer? I'm not sure where it is exactly, other than it is inside the compressor assembly.

It is perhaps servicesble, just replace the "beans" with dry ones.

Did you have the system flushed with nitrogen when you swapped the compressor year ago?

Air always contains some humidity and this is picked by the dryer, until it becomes completely saturated.. in a closed system there is no way out for the water.

I'm having an issue that the compressor freezes at cold weather and burns a fuse. So there must be water there ..

I'm trying to decide if I just try to replace the compressor myself, and then possibly take it to Tesla for nitrogen fillup... Or just let Tesla take care of the whole thing.

 

[geordi]

The nitrogen isn't that important as getting any possible leaks solved is. I'm STILL chasing a leak on mine, but now it is the gallery pressure (which seems to be inside the valve block and NOT the actual reservoir)...

The gallery pressure will leak UP. Yes, that's right - as I'm driving around at 30mph or so, the gallery pressure will start at 2-3 bar and work itself up to 8-10, then something opens and the gallery pressure will shoot up north of 11-14 bar for a half second, then drop instantly to 2-3 again and the process repeats.

What the ever luvin heck is happening? Which component is leaking now, and how can it be leaking UP in pressure?

 

[Zuikkis]

My gallery pressure is going up too, just like you said. Not that much, though, but maybe 1bar per 24h.

It has to be a leaking valve. Air is leaking from the strut(s) to the gallery.

The system uses the compressor to empty the gallery into the reservoir. I think gallery should be at almost 0bar normally.

When car needs to raise a strut, a valve opens and lets reservoir air enter the gallery. This is what you see when it spikes to 14bar. After that the gallery is emptied again.

I often have over 16bar at the reservoir when car decides to run the compressor and blows the fuse and then puts up the warning. So the compressor is not run because of low pressure, it's run to purge the gallery. This seems to happen every time car is powered on, if gallery pressure is over 1bar or so. Compressor runs for 2-3 seconds only.

 

[kingpleb]

Did you disassemble the dryer? I'm not sure where it is exactly, other than it is inside the compressor assembly.

It is perhaps servicesble, just replace the "beans" with dry ones.

Did you have the system flushed with nitrogen when you swapped the compressor year ago?

Air always contains some humidity and this is picked by the dryer, until it becomes completely saturated.. in a closed system there is no way out for the water.

I'm having an issue that the compressor freezes at cold weather and burns a fuse. So there must be water there ..

I'm trying to decide if I just try to replace the compressor myself, and then possibly take it to Tesla for nitrogen fillup... Or just let Tesla take care of the whole thing.

That's what I did.

 

[kingpleb]

C

The nitrogen isn't that important as getting any possible leaks solved is. I'm STILL chasing a leak on mine, but now it is the gallery pressure (which seems to be inside the valve block and NOT the actual reservoir)...

The gallery pressure will leak UP. Yes, that's right - as I'm driving around at 30mph or so, the gallery pressure will start at 2-3 bar and work itself up to 8-10, then something opens and the gallery pressure will shoot up north of 11-14 bar for a half second, then drop instantly to 2-3 again and the process repeats.

What the ever luvin heck is happening? Which component is leaking now, and how can it be leaking UP in pressure?

Check your strut pressures if you can

 

[TXExpress]

Seems there is a lot of knowledge and experience here so I'm hoping for some advice for my airsuspension problems.

Problem: Driver side front suspension lowers all the way when parked. System says there is a leak on the passenger side front.

Diagnosis so far:
- No leaks in airstrips left and right side using soap test.
- Getting some weird number from the service mode (left front is about 7-8 mm lower than right front), not sure what to make from the measured pressure.
- Soap test does show air leakage at the airline connector port for left front strut. Although air seems to come from below the connector.

Concerns a Model X -2017 model. See attached image for more information on car.