Replacement shock absorbers on a 4-corner air-suspension Ram.

[2019Limited_1]

Pretty sure alfa OBD has the ability to pump down the bags without dumping all the gas. What are your plans for recharging the vented nitrogen?
Asking because I feel that this coming up for me in the not so distant future.

Yeah... I didn't have the alfa OBD tool... so that would have been smarter. As of right now... I'm going to see if it gives me any issues. I've heard the air compressor on the truck uses ambient air to add pressure as needed... if this is the case... then filling with pure nitrogen seems like a wasted effort... if it isn't the case... I'll probably head over to the dealership and have the purge and recharge the nitrogen. I generally drive in Aero mode everywhere I go... Yesterday, after getting everything put back together, I took it for a drive... pumped it up to "normal" height... and everything seemed normal... I tried to go to Off-Road 1... and it gave me a message that it couldn't perform the action (I don't remember the exact message... but something like cannot perform action at this time)... then I tried to lower it to Aero and it gave me a message of suspension system needed to cool, please wait (I've read it's a safety feature on the compressor).... this morning I was driving around in "normal" mode and put it in off-road 1 for a minute... and then back to normal... no error messages to speak of. As I said... I typically leave it in aero mode most of the time, unless there is deep snow or some other reason to use the other modes. If it doesn't give me errors... I'll probably drive it another 80,000 miles... if I get a feeling that the system isn't working correctly, I'll probably take it in for professional help.

 

[2019Limited_1]

Okay... so now the cautionary tale. Such is my life.

I was driving to work this morning and the truck started in Normal... as I got onto the interstate and got up to speed... it dropped back to Aero mode... then when I exited the Interstate... it raised back to Normal. I was driving on a stretch of road that was under construction and in an area where they stripped the payment down several inches, but created little "ramps" to get onto the bridges and overpasses. These transition ramps are pretty abrupt and I hit one kind of hard. Then my dash dinged and there was a message to "service air suspension immediately".

I limped my truck home from work... (worst ride ever)... and discovered that the front passenger side air bag had popped. My assumption is that I must have twisted it slightly when I was aligning the strut with the lower control arm bracket... this twisting internally caused stress and strained the air bag and hitting the massive bump in the road was just too much.

So now I'm ordering the factory replacement struts (whole airbag assembly... why is the left side $16 cheaper than the right side?)... and I have some "gently used" Bilsteins for the front if anyone wants them on the cheap.

 

[Jaynet]

Thanks for the pics. Was curious if Mopar had a different part number for the shock inside the airbag but suspected they wouldn't. Talked to the parts department at a dealer a few days ago to get the rear shock part number you posted there (68262591AC) and asked them the difference between that and the 68262590ACs, and of course they didn't know anything except that the 2591s are for the air suspension. Buddy offered me a set of basically new 2590s for free so that's why I was curious, but my application is essentially the same as yours (all highway and no offroad) so probably going with the 4600s.

Hey, just curious. Did you try the 2590s and how do they feel? I have a line on a pair as well but I'd have to buy them first. Hoping to save myself a few bucks if they won't work.
Cheers!

 

[2019Limited_1]

So... I was kind of in a pinch (timing wise)... so I ordered the factory replacement front airbag assemblies from the dealership... ordered before 4pm and they arrived at my local dealership before 9am the next day. I probably could have gotten the parts cheaper just about anywhere else, but not delivered that quickly. Re-installing the complete assembly was pretty straight forward and took me about an hour and half to do both sides.

After everything was buttoned up, I started the truck. The air suspension lift/lower switch on the lower console was blinking... and if I tried to adjust the height... it just said desired height cannot be achieved... so I drove it around the block... and the ride was just as bad as when the front air bag was blown out. So I parked it in the garage and I noticed the front end raise a little bit. Progress. I let the truck sit for a little while and then went for another drive. Now the truck has reached "Aero" mode... and the ride is much much better. But when tried to adjust the height, I still got the error of height cannot be achieved... and then "air suspension system needs to cool, please wait"... so I parked it and went into the house.

The next morning... I started it up... no blinking lights of any sort... pressed the button to raise it to "Normal"... and it did it without complaining. I drove to work, and going down the interstate, the truck never self-lowered into "Aero" mode, but the ride was much better.

During lunch, I went out, started it up... manually put it to Offroad 1, then Offroad 2... than back to "Normal"... no issues to speak of.

Then on the drive home... when I got it up to highway speeds... the truck automatically lowered into "Aero" mode... then back to normal when exiting the interstate.

So far, so good.