Hi all, first time poster here. Looking for some advice.

My mother has a 2005 LR3 that needed to have the rear air struts replaced as one of them was crushed after a sway bar link snapped. The rear air struts were replaced with aftermarket ones by a family friend who is a mechanic. I highly advised against going with aftermarket, but my mother refused as she cannot afford to replace with OEM or better at the moment. Now it seems that the front air struts are not holding air any more at all. The front end won't even lift up, but the rear end seems to hold air with no issue. The mechanic who replaced the struts used a LandRover diagnostic tool to try and scan the air system but gets a system fault error and is unable to communicate with the module. I feel like there are a few things that could be wrong here, but as mentioned before my mother is a little tight on money so throwing parts at it is really not an option.

I personally suspect that one of 3 things. The aftermarket parts are causing issues with the front ones and not allowing them to work properly; the failure from the back struts caused the front ones to fail as well; or the increased pressure in the system from replacing the rear ones caused the front ones to fail as the next weakest link in the chain.

I'm wondering if there is anything else aside from the front struts needing the be replaced that could cause this. I am not familiar at all with the LR3's, but have worked on a few odd foreign vehicles so hoping to figure this out.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

The rear struts will have nothing to do with the fronts not holding air, they are either leaking or the valve block is leaking or failing. Get out the soapy water in a spray bottle and check if and where the leak is.

 

All I can add is, ditto.