Mercedes S Class Air Matic Pump Replacement

If your S Class has suddenly dropped itself on to all 4 wheels where the inner wheel arches are almost resting on the tyres and your dashboard is displaying a warning related to the Air Matic system and asking you to visit the workshop, then the most likely cause of this problem is the air matic pump failure.

The Air Matic system is located on the driver’s side ( UK RHD Models ) under the wheel arch mud guard. The mud guard is held in place by quite a few plastic nuts as shown in the pic. After disconecting the negative terminal on your cars battery, you can start removing the mud guard.

Removing the mud guard reveals the Air Matic Pump which is held in place by 3 nuts which go on to spikes protruding downwards. There is a single nylon pipe which connects to the air matic pump, a single black hose and two electrical plug connections which need to be disconnected to remove the air matic pump.

We had problems removing one of the electric plug connectors as it would not move at all from its position so we decided to cut the wires as shown in the pic. Once the pump had been taken off, it took the use of a pair of pliers and a straight head screw driver to get the plug to come off.

Once the new Air Matic pump had been sourced from Mercedes Dealership, we realized that the design for the new pump was slightly modified. The hose connection for a rubber pipe had been moved from its original position to the other end. We decided to improvise and use a slighly longer hose to get the job done making sure the new pipe had no kinks which would hinder the flow of air to the pump.

Once all the connections were back in place, starting the car and pushing the air matic button on the dash to raise the car did its job as it should and warning message on dashboard disappeared after driving for a bit.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 and is filed under Mercedes DIY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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2 Comments

1. Kevin Brown, December 17, 2008:

   Thanks a bunch! My ‘03 S500 has dropped a bit all the way around. I will replace my airmatic pump this weekend and hopefully it will be as easy as your directions.

   Many thanks again!

2. Automotive, December 17, 2008:

   Let us know how you got on