I have a '90 Legacy wagon with the adjustable suspension. I bought this vehicle used, and the previous owner had "disabled" the suspension components.

 

I believe that the front struts have air in them but the air lines have been disconnected from the solonoid and clamped shut. I don't know about the rear struts.

 

The previous owner said that the parts to render the system operable again were very expensive (what isn't??) and that's why he made the modifications.

 

After an indeterminate amount of time, the height control button light starts to blink. I can remedy that by either shutting off the engine and restarting, or by just covering the light with electrical tape so it's not an irritant.

 

My questions are:

 

Is this system worth the effort and cost to repair? All of my driving is done on the road, and if I REALLY need to have clearance, I'll drive my 4x4 Suburban.

 

If it's not worth repairing, how hard is it to replace the air struts with standard coil over struts and just be done with it?

Do a search on this, a couple of people have done this recently or are doing this conversion presently. Should be able to find all info. pretty easily Any other problems someone will chirp in to help out.

You could spend $100 or thousands. It's not likely the whole system has failed so the trick is to find what is wrong. Your struts are likely fine as you been driving on them so it's likely the compressor, computer or solenoids. (That doesn't help a lot , huh?).

 

 

Chef did some great research when troubleshooting his car. Read through this post and the links and it might help you narrow it down.

 

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33782

Chef did some great research when troubleshooting his car. Read through this post and the links and it might help you narrow it down.

 

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33782

 

Thanks, although I merely found other people's stuff and resummerised it so I can't take too much credit.

Personally, I gave up trying to diagnose the problem and have resigned myself to replacing the struts with conventional ones. I managed to get four used strut assemblies cheap from another member here (totech - thanks a million man!), and will be replacing my air ones shortly.

 

Brad - Your issue could be a ton of different things unfortunately. The fact that the struts aren't leaking is great news. The whole raising the height thing is mostly overrated, and not worth the time and money to fix it unless you REALLY want an adjustable suspension, which it sounds like you don't.

 

PErsonally if I were you I'd leave it alone. Could be a simple as a busted compressor (easy to replace, but probably expensive), or a messed up ECU. IF you really want the flashing to stop, you can yank the ECU. Not sure if pulling the relay under the hood will have the same effect.

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showpost.php?p=272528&postcount=9

I'd say switch to regular coil over struts. Lots of options if you want the car to handle better.