C5 Rear suspension sinking when parked

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The Hatter
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Joined: 05 May 2014, 21:32
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C5 Rear suspension sinking when parked

Post by The Hatter »

I've had a 2004 C5 2.0 HDi estate for about 10 weeks, and it's suddenly disgraced itself after a long run by sinking very low at the rear when parked on my drive and leaving a pool of what looks like LDS fluid under the offside front corner of the car. It seems to be leaking fluid from somewhere under the LDS reservoir in the engine bay. There's no warning messages on the dash, and when I unlocked/started it up it rose to the correct height and seemed to be operating correctly. The trailing arm bearings need doing but I don't see how that could be linked.

Has anyone else had this rear sinking/front leaking thing? Any advice before I start pulling things off and looking for the leak under the reservoir?
The Hatter
Posts: 4
Joined: 05 May 2014, 21:32
Location:
My Cars:

Re: C5 Rear suspension sinking when parked

Post by The Hatter »

I've now found one of the gaiters on the rear struts also has a small amount of fluid leaking out and dripping.

Having done a bit of thinking; I can only see a couple of ways for the rear end to sink; it's either losing fluid through the height corrector valve (or whatever it's called on a c5!) or it's losing fluid through the strut seals. In either case there shouldn't be an external leak, but I'd have though that the most likely scenario is a strut leak as a fluid leak through the height corrector would direct fluid back to the pump. I wouldn't think the line back to the pump would be leaking externally under the 'back' pressure of the weight of the car and not leak under the 'normal' pump pressure.

So... I'm thinking I have a strut seal leak and also a leak somewhere on the return line from the strut gaiter to the reservoir, hence the dumping fluid on the floor on the o/s/f of the car.

I'm still confused though, each of the gaiters on the rear struts has two connections; one is supposedly the line to the reservoir and the other is supposedly a 'vent'. I guess that if the 'vent' was open to the atmosphere then fluid would leak out, and if the return line was somehow under a vacuum to pull the surplus fluid back to the reservoir then the vent would also be under a vacuum and be likely to pull dust/dirt into the system. Does anyone know how the vent/return lines are connected up and either 'vented' or returned to the reservoir?
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