2000c230sport

wheel almost fell off due to a wheel bearing failure, car is a 2000 with 57,000 miles. Warranty covering spindle and bearing but I have to pay for hub, two rotors and pads and they are charging me $580, sound about right for a Mercedes dealer or am I getting screwed? Car has been in there 6 times in six months and every time it was for a vibration problem. Mechanic told me today there was no way he could have diagnosed a bad bearing without taking it all apart and that most likely there was no signs it was going to fail as he had checked the car out a week and half before and said he had found nothing. All has resulted in majorrrrrrrrrrrr arguments with the dealer. Never use St. Charles Mercedes in Illinois!

Whatstheprtnmbr

Those prices sound right for the repair but since you had the vehicle in the shop I feel they did not do a thorough job of checking out the original problem.
Sometimes its good to bring the car to a local mech and have them give you a second opion, prices on labor are usually much more reasonable.

Wadster

St. Charles IL? You'd think a dealer in that town would provide better service. Definitely a mis-diagnose or just plain laziness. If I can tell that a bearing is bad, a factory trained mechanic should've figured it out instantly. Not much else makes the distinct whirring noise of bad bearings.

MikeF

a trained technician should be able to diagnosis a wheel bearing problem by lifting the car in the air with an assistant in the drivers seat and having the assistant put the car in drive and run the wheels at driving speed on the lift. The tech should use a stethoscope and place it on the hub and listen, you can hear a bad bearing or one that is going quite easily.

-Mike

2000c230sport

I got the car back, Mercedes did end up giving me a few hundred off and salvaged the hub. Easy Care warranty covered more than half, but the biggest shocker was the car still vibrated a little when I got back. Not as much as before the bearing but still vibrated. So after new rims, wheels, ball bearings, ball joints, control arm bushings, an alignment, and balancing I took it back to Discount Tire where I got the tire from and told them I wanted to have them really look into the balancing. They informed me they had a machine that was $10 per tire that would definetly tell me if the vibration was a tire or rim problem. Normally balancing is free, so I wondered why they even had this machine and what the free balancing really was. I agreed to the $40 and the car came out completely vibration free......Better balancing machines than others?

MB AMG

Holy!! Were there any prior symtoms that you noticed? I mean something like noises coming from the wheel area?

2000c230sport

Yah that's what the mechanic kept telling me, you should have heard a noise. In this case there was no noise. Simply 1/2 mile from my house and it suddenly felt like I was going over a couple little bumps before I hit a light, stopped at the light and took off again slowly and it then sounded like a frozen caliper with grinding, although with the addition of a wobble like the wheel was detaching from the car.

MB AMG

Jeeze, my car sounds like a wheel bearing is going bad on the front right side. At around 30-40MPH I sometimes hear a moaning noise that lasts about 1-2 seconds then goes away for a while. Better get that checked out!