bdzb721

My S500 has been vibrating while I drive down the highway, especially when I go over patches in the road or uneven areas. I jacked up the front end to do the wheel wiggle test and the passenger side front wheel has a lot of movement left and right, but no movement up and down. The driver side front wheel seems ok.

What is the cause of this on these cars? CV joint?

tusabes

Unless your car is 4matic all wheel drive, you don't have cv joints in the front. You do realize no rear wheel drive car has cv joints or half shafts In the front, don't you? Those are only in front wheel drive or all wheel drive cars

Take your car to a good mechanic

lganski

Check the tie rod ends.

_Ryan

Have someone wiggle it back and forth while you look underneath. Jack up from the control arm to keep the suspension loaded. If you jack from the crossmember or jack points on the side, the suspension will unload and the ball joints will have added pressure on them that will mask or completely hide any wear/looseness.

As lganski said, tie rod ends would be my first thought. Keep in mind that wheel bearings on these cars are super common for being loose but will typically show movement in all directions, not just side to side.

I wouldn't normally attribute a vibration to a worn front end component but everyone describes things differently. If a component is worn, it doesn't matter if it causes your vibration or not, it should be fixed either way, so you won't waste time checking it. I'm assuming you have airmatic and not a coil conversion? How long has this been happening? Did it happen all of a sudden or is it getting increasingly worse?

bdzb721

It turns out the rear lower ball joint on that wheel is bad. The upper ball joint looks like it also needs to be replaced.

Do you have to specifically use the Mercedes ball joint tools or will any ball joint separator and press work?