Air bags or Coils

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yorkie123

Member
Posts
17
Well it finally happened, back up and front down, and boy was it awful to get home. So now the big decision, as I DO like the ride the air bags give. I have tried the coils on a friends.
Not sure what the problem is at the moment, but have had a couple of quotes on both,£ 650 complete set of coils supply and fit
and 120 each bag plus 2 hours to fit. thank you
 
Bags for as little as £60 each if you look around, fronts about 20 minutes each to fit. Easy DIY job, if you want to have a go I can send you a guide. Replace all 4 at the same time as the others will be on their way out if the are more than 7 years old. IMO it's worth paying a little extra and fitting Arnott Gen 2 airbags.
Remember, if the stuff on the VOSA site about type approval and the MOT is accurate, fitting coils will be an MOT failure as they are not type approved for the P38.
 
Datatek said:
Bags for as little as £60 each if you look around, fronts about 20 minutes each to fit. Easy DIY job, if you want to have a go I can send you a guide. Replace all 4 at the same time as the others will be on their way out if the are more than 7 years old. IMO it's worth paying a little extra and fitting Arnott Gen 2 airbags.
Remember, if the stuff on the VOSA site about type approval and the MOT is accurate, fitting coils will be an MOT failure as they are not type approved for the P38.
Click to expand...

Datatek's guide is easy to follow. Certainly DIY rather than pay to have them fitted. Got my rear air bags from Island 4x4 for £120ish the pair delivered next day. Don't know if they do Arnotts tho' Good luck with it!
 
Just wondered where this new MOT rules go, does it mean that all mods will have to be put back to original, coils, chips, tuning etc. Surely they can't say that it is perfectly safe 1 year then outlaw all that cars the next. Can see it if the mod is not done by a certain date but can't if it is retrospective. For me it would just be fitting new air bags and air reciever but really don't want to do this as I'm really happy with my conversion and see it as an improvement. £650 is a rip off, I got my coils for £310 and fitted them myself, it took 3 hours and was straight forward and that was dicking around with a siezed pin. If they do go back then there will be some amount of motors to sort or scrap, half the Rangies I know have been converted and that does not include Discos and cars with lowered suspension.
Davie
 
Ok found this under the new rules
Type II alteration is for more substantial alterations such as replacement of the suspension or brakes and usually requires an examination at a test station to confirm that the vehicle still conforms to safety and performance standards.So that says to me that if the kit is recognised and fitted correctly and is considered safe then it should be ok.
Davie
 
Davie F said:
Ok found this under the new rules
Type II alteration is for more substantial alterations such as replacement of the suspension or brakes and usually requires an examination at a test station to confirm that the vehicle still conforms to safety and performance standards.So that says to me that if the kit is recognised and fitted correctly and is considered safe then it should be ok.
Davie
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Who knows? We won't find out until some pratt starts to over interpret the rules as is usual in the UK. However you could argue that as the P38 was never designed or intended to run on coils that it cannot pass.:eek:
 
Hi, thank you so much for this info, please can you let me have the info, and which bags are best, and where to get them from please.
 
yorkie123 said:
Well it finally happened, back up and front down, and boy was it awful to get home. So now the big decision, as I DO like the ride the air bags give. I have tried the coils on a friends.
Not sure what the problem is at the moment, but have had a couple of quotes on both,£ 650 complete set of coils supply and fit
and 120 each bag plus 2 hours to fit. thank you
Click to expand...


Defanatly airbags, i hear so many horror stories about air bags but i had mine changed 2 years ago (previouss owner) and i off road my rangie all the time up in the lakes and ive never had a problem.:D:D
 
Datatek said:
Arnott Gen 2's from P38 spares on Ebay are the best buy in opinion:D:D:D
Click to expand...

Or you could ring them direct and ask him to give you his ebay price - that's what I did.

To all those on coils - remember that incident a couple of years ago when that modified landy went into the river and killed some people? I think he ended up in prison because his mods were considered to be dangerous and were deemed to have contributed to the accident by making it more unstable, but that had passed MOTs up to that point...

The air suspension that was a key design element of the P38 reduces the centre of gravity at speed - something you simply can't do with coils. Be interesting to see if any coil fitted P38 passed the 4x4 swerve test. I doubt it unless they're so low that the slightest bump in the road would defeat it.
 
kooky_guy said:
Or you could ring them direct and ask him to give you his ebay price - that's what I did.

To all those on coils - remember that incident a couple of years ago when that modified landy went into the river and killed some people? I think he ended up in prison because his mods were considered to be dangerous and were deemed to have contributed to the accident by making it more unstable, but that had passed MOTs up to that point...

The air suspension that was a key design element of the P38 reduces the centre of gravity at speed - something you simply can't do with coils. Be interesting to see if any coil fitted P38 passed the 4x4 swerve test. I doubt it unless they're so low that the slightest bump in the road would defeat it.
Click to expand...

if you look into it the landy he "FIXED" was more than a case of coils rather a 110 DANGEROUSLY put together
 
Mines had the conversion to coils so ive never had a chance to try the difference, as mine was done a while ago before i brought it is there a set way that the airbag system is removed, would i just need to buy the airbags and replace them. I get EAS manual on the info screen when starting. it looks like all the parts are still under the bonnet.
 
I got to the end of my tether last year when I had more probs last with my suspenion. I had had enough of spending a small fortune getting the suspenion fixed almost every year and wanted to change to coils. I took the advice freely offered on this forum and fixed the faults myself. I am now going to change my air bags ths summer, the beast has done 160k miles, so I think its about time!!! I am confident that having read everthing you can on this forum about the process, that I am more than capable. So please take the beasty by the horns and have a go yourself you really can't mess it up!
 
juiceyv8 said:
if you look into it the landy he "FIXED" was more than a case of coils rather a 110 DANGEROUSLY put together
Click to expand...

Yes, but the point was the accident was deemed to be caused by the dangerous modifications/repairs. I would think coils on a car that was never designed for them might fall into the same category.
 
dougdotcom said:
Mines had the conversion to coils so ive never had a chance to try the difference, as mine was done a while ago before i brought it is there a set way that the airbag system is removed, would i just need to buy the airbags and replace them. I get EAS manual on the info screen when starting. it looks like all the parts are still under the bonnet.
Click to expand...

If all the stuff is there, valve block, EAS ECU, height sensors etc it should just be a matter of replacing the airbags, however bear in mind that the compressor may be shot and as the valve block has not been working you may also need to do an overhaul on that.
I would check the compressor and ovehaul if necessary, overhaul the valve block and only then do the airbags.
 
Yes, but the point was the accident was deemed to be caused by the dangerous modifications/repairs. I would think coils on a car that was never designed for them might fall into the same category.
I would have thought that any company that is advertising a product like coil conversions specificaly designed to replace the air bags would leave themselfs open to legal action if the accident was proved to be caused by the modification, I would think (and hope) it would also need to be approved by the DOT before being allowed to be marketed and let loose onto our roads. As I have said in the past I am completely converted to the benefits of coils but if there is a legal case against them then they should have been banned long ago before others had the oppertunity to buy them and endanger other road users. Was this case using a proper kit or a made up bits and pieces from a scrap yard, it would be intresting to find out.
Davie
 
Davie F said:
Yes, but the point was the accident was deemed to be caused by the dangerous modifications/repairs. I would think coils on a car that was never designed for them might fall into the same category.
I would have thought that any company that is advertising a product like coil conversions specificaly designed to replace the air bags would leave themselfs open to legal action if the accident was proved to be caused by the modification, I would think (and hope) it would also need to be approved by the DOT before being allowed to be marketed and let loose onto our roads. As I have said in the past I am completely converted to the benefits of coils but if there is a legal case against them then they should have been banned long ago before others had the oppertunity to buy them and endanger other road users. Was this case using a proper kit or a made up bits and pieces from a scrap yard, it would be intresting to find out.
Davie
Click to expand...

One of the problems with vehicles like the P38 is they have a high centre of gravity. Which means they are unstable if hard swerve manouvers are undertaken at speed. The P38 is specifically designed with a suspension system that squats down at speed to lower that centre of gravity, and make the vehicle more stable and therefore easier to control if evasive manouvers at speed are required. The fitting of none standard springs that preclude this squatiing make the vehicle potentially more dangerous than a standard vehicle making the same manouver. So it is quite possible that in the instance of a P38 rolling over at speed and killing it's passengers or anyone else when fitted with springs. The blame for that would most certainly be considered to be the lack of stability the fitting of those none standard parts caused. The fitting of those springs has removed one of the vehicles safety features.
 
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Davie F said:
Ok found this under the new rules
Type II alteration is for more substantial alterations such as replacement of the suspension or brakes and usually requires an examination at a test station to confirm that the vehicle still conforms to safety and performance standards.So that says to me that if the kit is recognised and fitted correctly and is considered safe then it should be ok.
Davie
Click to expand...

Probably not mate. Cars must have headlamp levelling, and on the p38 this was achieved by the air suspension doing its bit. Ditch it for springs, and unless you can fit adjustable headlamps, you should fail for no levelling..
 
I think it's probly up to the owner to check that what he's fitting is legal - I certainly wouldn't trust a seller to necessarily say so or even care.

We're probly all getting excited about nothing here. Personally I wouldn't fit coils to a p38 because you're removing one of the best features of the car.
 
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