tommy

I thought I'd take one of those weirdo mileage pics, so here you go:



And no pic of this, but I had the pipe from the Supersprint headers to the Magnaflow cat replaced (I'm assuming it's called the downpipe on a Benz too, but you never know with these silly cars). Boy was it a loud for a week before it was replaced.

So with that and the panorama roof raping, my car should be good for a while, I think. The exhaust shop did say that I'll need a new section of pipe between the cat and muffler within the next six months, which made my day.

Up next: heard from O'Carbon - blue carbon-ed interior parts should start to come in soon......

edgarinho10

Why the dealership though?!

tommy

I wouldn't trust an indy with it, honestly. Yes, it probably cost me many extra clams to get it done, but it wasn't a risk I was willing to live with.

And I do have a full year warranty on it now too, which an indy certainly wouldn't do.

Finally, I got a W204 to trash for a full weekend, which was enough to make me never want to get a brand-new Benz again.

edgarinho10

You should have done it yourself. It isn't hard. Everything is just time consuming.

tommy

Good to know. I'll do all of my own car repairs just after I create this cold fusion generator I've been working on.

Lenin

Don't be so modest. I've seen you take out the cluster at the park and replace the display. The display still looks good.

slimpee

You didn't like it? My gparents bought a brand-new 250 and I really enjoyed driving it.

Except the instrument cluster...looks silly to me

kluvsbenz

Only complaint I have w/ W204's is the interior leather looks/feels cheap. At least on the 08/09's. Other than that, very nice machines.

tommy

Let's see - most egregious is the lack of a true manual across the board.

Others are:
Armrests on doors are uncomfortable and the handle/shelf combo thingy I find weird
Split-screen on a non-nav car is retarded
Split armrest - see results above
Too many silvers, whites, and blacks.
Price creep
Hatch should be an option still, imho
iDrive wanna be - bad!

Given the smallish rear seat room, I'm scared to think how dwarfish you'd have to be to fit inside the rear seat of the CLA

At this point, the only Benzes I'd consider if I won the money / married a Kardashian would be a second gen SLK350 manny or a gullwing

tommy

I just added the following to my gallery here; finally got some pics of the work done by O'Carbon on my trim pieces. The blue on the cf is subtle, but you can see it. Will look very good when combined with the blue cf on the steering wheel and the mystic blue designo center console trim. And perfect as we get closer to Halloween, and Boo Berry cereal comes back on the shelves.









Hoping to get them within the next week or so and install the last weekend of the month.

kluvsbenz

Very nice job! Looking good.

tommy

Yeah, if they're that nice in person, I'll be a very happy camper.

My di-noc window switches have the bubbling that others have complained about in summertime, so it will be great to switch them out.

So if anyone with a coupe is looking for window switches or door handles, let me know - they will be in the classifieds eventually.

dre5373

Wow, that's sweet Tommy!!! It was only a week or so from the time I got the first clear-coated pics of mine until they shipped out...the wait is almost over

tommy

Gracias!

Car's going in tomorrow for the every other year Fund to Get Chris Christie Skinny Enough to Run for President (ie, NJ state inspection). I have no CELs, just swapped out the blue city lights & high beams, and think it should pass with flying colors. Taking it to my normal shop, as they don't care about sound (with the Eisenmann race exhaust, there's no chance I'd pass at the freebie state-run inspection stations). Looking forward to my el cheapo rental tomorrow. I really hope that they have a 500 available, but will probably be a Cruze or similar vanilla transport.

tommy

Couple of new pics, basically done:





Boy, the fabric on my headliner all around, and the B pillars, is all peeling off like clothes off a $25 hooker. Was wondering what it would look like if I just tore off the fabric and painted the backer board itself, instead of replacing the fabric. Probably cheesy as hell, I'm sure. I'll ask them when getting my inspection about redoing it in black alcantara, but I'm sure that option wouldn't be cheap. Whatever I do, I'm probably lazy enough to just leave it as-is until the spring.

tommy

Car's at the shop now getting inspection. I'm driving around my Chevy Sonic rental, which is actually a hoot, except for the blind spots on each corner, which are immense.

Harry mentioned to me about just ordering a brand-new headliner instead of getting the current one reskinned, and I thought he was nuts. But looked up at mymercedesparts, and they're only $466, which is amazing for a Benz part. So may have an out on the headliner replacement. Buy new and live with the color or dye it black. Something to think about...

tommy

A small update:

Got the door handles and window switches in the mail on Wednesday. Everything looks as great as the pics made them to look - blue is really evident in only certain light, but is still very sexy. Nice and smooth as a baby's bottom (being a PSU grad, I should probably stay away from that similie for a while). Waiting on the door cups (the plastic around the door latch that you open the door with); Matt said they should be in the mail soon. Then I'll install everything. And got a set of door sill replacements off ebay for $90 - the stock ones were getting all bubbly on the "Mercedes-Benz" portion, so off they go.

Once I do that, there will be the following available:
Door handles (covered in Di-Noc)
Door cups in decent shape
Window switch covers in D-Noc (easily removable)
Passenger window switch
C7 door sills, with aforementioned wear
And still have two non-C7 steering wheels

So if you need any of those for the coupe, let me know. Prices will go from you pay for shipping to $1,000,000, depending on how I feel about your presence on these forums.

tommy

Threw on the ebay door sills last night. They said they were from a C320 coupe, so I'm looking for +5-10 hp.

I'll keep the old set in case anyone wants a free set of ok-ish sills. If you do, let me know.

Got some pics of the door cups (the interior cups where the door open latch resides); just as nice looking as the other pics. Mmmm. At this point, I'll probably install everything when I'm on vacation in a couple of weeks. I'll be doing the Tail of the Dragon.

tommy

Door cups are on their way from Arizona. Will probably install all of the trim pieces next week when I'm on vacation.

Had my nephews this past weekend, and in their infinite wisdom, they were a bit rough on the passenger's seat getting in. And now, of course, the SRS light comes on. So they obviously f*cked up the sensor. Oy. Now I'm thinking, since I see a couple of cheap cloth passenger seats on ebay, just to buy one, then transfer over the seat back as is from my current seat, and either attempt to transfer the leather from my current seat or have a shop work on it. If that's the case, I'll get a couple of the leather parts redone too. The awful plastic trim at the base is starting to pull apart anyway, so switching to a new seat wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

The car's now getting some exhaust work done - need new piping from the cat to the Eisenmann, since I'll be driving down to NC at the end of the week, figured I'd do it now, and not risk it.

Also, my wiper fluid isn't coming out; I checked, and there is fluid at the bottom of the tank - will fill it up, just in case, but probably looking at a new motor, I'd reckon.

I'll be doing some other minor work, and hoping to get a decent beach photo session with my newish Nikon.

tommy

A couple of pics, since my updates have been so slow.


So for the aforementioned babysitting from hell assignment, I picked up the cloth passenger seat - $165 including shipping from Houston. Looks pretty good - it's dirty, and the fabric is coming off the seatback, but I'm going to get it redone anyway. Been in discussions with Classic Soft Trim to just redo this seat by itself, not including the headrest. They've been awful to deal with - the one by me closed down, unfortunately, so I'll have to be shipping it the Pittsburgh area one, or drive over there sometime - shipping is damn expensive. Once that's done, it should be all a-ok again. I'm going to have my indy clear the SRS light once I get the "new" passenger seat put in, just to make sure that the airbag sensor works on this seat before giving it to CST. On the pic, you can also see the carbon parts that O'Carbon did -the door handles, door cups for the latches, and the window trim. I think you can see the blue in this pic as well. And how about that stylin' carpet?
Hoping to have all of the cf pieces installed on the 22nd, when I have a day off and nothing else scheduled.




And the final pics are what I'm dealing with on the headliner. The b pillars' fabric is also sagging off, as is the main headliner. So I'm still accumulating parts for an upcoming swap in the spring:
A pillars in black (from Steve)
Oh Sh*t handles in black (from dealer, surprisingly inexpensive)
Front dome light from a C32 (has the Teleaid "SOS" thingy - woo!) - have SEM paint and plastic prep to blacken that as well
Need:
headlliner ($450 from mymercedesparts) - they dye it black
Other trim pieces - either paint what I have or get new versions and paint them (rear dome light, coat hanger, clips for sunvisors)
then will send off sunvisors and armrest to Dallas Custom for leather treatment
Hopefully, this will all work out before the engine or transmission give out
EDIT: Sorry for the dwarfish pics - will try to fix tonight.

EDIT#2: Attempt to show a bigger pic

tommy

And because things never end, I had Rogue Engineering replace the strut conversions today. The old ones were pretty grody after 4 years or so of winters here. All shiny and new! Put the old chrome Honda ball seat lugnuts back on to protect the powdercoated ones for the winter.

Will also be swapping to the winter rims/tires on the 22nd. With the winter blast today, can't delay it til Turkey Day or later, so glad that I'll be doing it earlier. Hoping to remove the old passenger seat tonight after work, then swap in the "new" seat in the morning, then make an appt to get the SRS warning removed.

Oh, and needed a quart of oil today, to add insult to injury.

Sometime over the winter, have to get the rims re-powdercoated; current powdercoat has lasted 5-6 years, I think, which is pretty good. Will be doing something lighter - local place has "silver hammertone", which is a pretty cool looking silver/black textured mix.

samaritrey

Good luck with all that!

Eau_Rouge

You don't want to try wrapping your existing the headliner yourself first? It's not hard. It's a two person job when applying the new headliner material so that you don't get any folds or looseness in the material. With two people, it's easy to stretch the material so that it's applied correctly. Micro suede or plain headliner material is pretty cheap. When I did the headliner on an E36 BMW I used to have, I cleaned off all of the foam off the fibre board by sanding lightly with semi abrasive sand paper. I then sprayed glue (a 3M product, don't recall which one exactly) on both the fibre board and the micro suede, let the glue dry to the point it was tacky and then with a friend, we applied the micro suede to the fibre board. It wasn't difficult at all and everything was done in a few hours. If you screw up or don't like the way it looks, there's always that OE replacement.

Lenin

Tommy, if you need any help on the 22nd, let me know.

tommy

Thanks for the offer, but I'll be at my parents' in PA at the time (winter rims are in their basement).

ER - I had thought of that, and I am doing that to my headliner piece on my CRX's sunroof sometime this winter (I think you're referring to 3M's Super 77 spray adhesive).

But the guy who does most of my body work on the car quoted me about $250 to install a new headliner, and combined with not owning a garage, this being my only car until April, and my general fear of doing serious damage to my car with more detailed work, I think that this is the better alternative. Plus, I'd then be confident in the glue holding the material on for the balance of my ownership of this car, which keeps getting extended further and further as I make repairs, then try again to save up for a house down payment. But, I digress...

So I think this is the best way to go for me. It would be really nice to get a black alcantara headliner with diamond stitching, a la Aston Martin, but that will have to wait until my next pimpmobile.