Service Ride Control

My Service Ride Control message is showing on my dash. I know it has to do with the suspension of the car, but what part(s) exactly need to be serviced? What do they do when they service it? And where can I get this done? I'm sure a Caddy dealer would do it, but the nearest one is about an hour away. Would any GM dealer know how to do it, and what kind of price would I be looking at?

Also, a 95 Eldorado comes equipped with an air bag suspension right? Is there any way to pump air into the rear bags because when the car is sitting on level ground it looks as if the rear is slightly lower than the front, like I have something heavy in the trunk. Maybe that's why the Ride Control needs to be serviced?

My Service Ride Control message is showing on my dash. I know it has to do with the suspension of the car, but what part(s) exactly need to be serviced? What do they do when they service it? And where can I get this done? I'm sure a Caddy dealer would do it, but the nearest one is about an hour away. Would any GM dealer know how to do it, and what kind of price would I be looking at?

Also, a 95 Eldorado comes equipped with an air bag suspension right? Is there any way to pump air into the rear bags because when the car is sitting on level ground it looks as if the rear is slightly lower than the front, like I have something heavy in the trunk. Maybe that's why the Ride Control needs to be serviced?
The ride control refers to the adjustable ride firmness struts, the bcm sets this code from sensor feed backs for the position of each strut, based on the bcm's command to the solenoids on the shocks. The obd can be accessed by using the ac control head to enter diagnostics. This will point you to the general area of the problem but it just begins there, a full diagnostic trouble tree is necessary to repair a system like this. caddyinfo.com has the access procedure.

My Service Ride Control message is showing on my dash. I know it has to do with the suspension of the car, but what part(s) exactly need to be serviced? What do they do when they service it? And where can I get this done? I'm sure a Caddy dealer would do it, but the nearest one is about an hour away. Would any GM dealer know how to do it, and what kind of price would I be looking at?

Also, a 95 Eldorado comes equipped with an air bag suspension right? Is there any way to pump air into the rear bags because when the car is sitting on level ground it looks as if the rear is slightly lower than the front, like I have something heavy in the trunk. Maybe that's why the Ride Control needs to be serviced?you probablly need rear struts, and let me tell you, they are not cheap. YOur GM dealer should be able to do the work, but let me tell you, i have done this, changed the rear struts, and if you know your way around the garage, you should do it yourself. it will literally take about 30 minutes. there are only 4 bolts, and the strut comes off. you had better hope that the compressor that pumps the struts up though is not bad, another expensive part.

Before jumping to the conclusion that struts or shocks are bad. Have it checked out, or do what maxwedge said and check the codes. It could be a suspension sensor. That's usually what happens.
If it is the shocks or struts, there are cheaper aftermarket ones available. I replaced the 2 struts and 2 shocks on my 1994 Deville for under $500.

dude , unless your famaliar with the suspension system of a cadillac, weather it being rss, elc, crsvss, or others, you can spend a ton of money guessing, its not nessesarily the struts, can be anything from a steering wheel sensor to a lateral acceleration device, testing it properly can get pretty involved,although your problem sounds like its in the elc(electronic level control) fortunatly for you, your system just uses a air shock and your typical coil spring, crawl under there and look at the shocks, your prolly gonna find some pretty deteriorated bags on the shock(lots of cracks)

Hi guys,

I think I have a fix for ‘SERVICE RIDE CONTROL / 84’ error message for at least ‘93-’97 STS / ETC with Northstar engine. (I did it on my ’93 STS, but it should be the same or similar for the other years).

There are two main causes for this message – active strut failure and accelerometer failure.

As it’s stated in the shop manual, the resistance of the electric part of the strut should be between 1.5 and 3 Ohm. As it turned out, a resistor within the specified range may successfully simulate this electric load.

I didn’t go into a deep evaluation of this thing but potentially, the current through this load may be high and produce quite an amount of heat (although I didn’t see it getting hot during few weeks of operation). So, as a precaution I would recommend to use resistors for dissipation of 5 or 10 watt. I’ve used two 2W resistors (5.1 Ohm) connected in parallel (for each ‘simulated’ strut). Obviously, the wires going to the strut must be disconnected.

All the resistors have to be connected on one end to CKT 1112 (power). The most convenient (but not that easy to identify) place is the harness in the front of the trunk which makes a loop right in the middle going from the bottom of the rear back seat to the trunk floor.

The wire you’ll be looking for is a thick white one. For its positive identification I strongly recommend to ring it through to the relay. It’s relay ‘F’ in the relay block under the hood (you’ll have to remove the protective cover around the fuse block – under the hood) and it’s the rear one, in the row closest to the fender. Remove the relay and ring through the wire to the trunk.

Once you have the feed from CKT 1112 (in the trunk) you have to identify the wires for the appropriate strut(s) on the 8-pin connector (C3) of RSS module. For RF – D; LF – E; RR - C; LR – E (see the drawing). Cut the wires for the struts to be ‘unsupervised’ and connect each one through its own resistor to the feed (CKT 1112).

Isolate the wires and attach the resistors in a suitable place – remember, they MAY produce a lot of heat…

The second cause may be the accelerometer’s fault. Fortunately, they also can be simulated by the resistors. As it’s said in the description of error codes S070-S073, which are relevant to the problem, the codes and the error message are set if the voltage from an accelerometer is out of 0.5 – 4.5Vrange for more than 0.5 sec. As I’ve figured out, this should be the voltage between ‘+’ and ‘-‘ signal wires of the accelerometer (not the voltage from ‘-‘ or ‘+’to the ground).

As a result, I’ve got a three-resistor divider, which has 100 Ohm resistor from the ground to the ‘-‘ signal wire (as it is in the real accelerometer), 63 Ohm resistor from ‘-‘ signal wire to ‘+’ signal wire and 470 Ohm resistor from ‘+’ signal wire to +8Vsource for the corresponding strut (see the drawing). I believe 5-10% deviation from these values should be ok. (The actual accelerometers, obviously, should be disconnected).

Here the current is minimal so you can use regular ‘throughhole’ resistors 0.25 or 0.125W and it may be a very good idea to install them on a piece of a blind board.

The parts you can order at digikey website (with delivery to your place).

Guys, this board is stupid enough not to let me put in two-three drawings I have. They can be quite informative, but I can't post them. (Express your 'warmest regards and appreciation' to the hosts and their smart by half protective policies!)

So, if you want the drawings, have any comments or would be so exited that you’d want to send me a couple of bucks for beer for going through the hassle of posting this info :) just contact me at caddybear at live dot com.


Good luck!