Hi all,

I have a C320 (2001 and 87K miles), which got "bit" damaged recently.

My teenager son was driving it , so I cannot say what really happened...and how fast. However, whatever he was doing (don't even want to know actually ), it stopped into a curb...er...sideways. Damaging (=bent) both rear and front wheel on driver side. It seems that the rear wheel took most of the force and is not standing straight, but like \\. But there is quite bit damage in front wheel too.

I haven't had time to investigate damage much in detail, haven't even taken wheels off yet.

In rear, based on quick peek under the car, it seems that subframe has damaged, bracket where wishbone/control arm is attached to seems bent as well as at least tie rod (rear front upper) is bent, maybe others too.

Given the damages, it appears on surface that fixing rear is somewhat straightforward process, albeit bit of work and more $$$ (to get the subframe out and replacing thrust/arms/links on left side)....and whatever else will be there.

At front, wheels (left- and right side) seem to stand straight, but when the steering wheel is "straight" both front wheels are pointing to left

Does anyone have an explanation as why both wheels could be pointing to left?

I can understand if one side is "disoriented" by a bent strut or tie rod, but both??? Could this be a damage in steering rack as well?

BTW: steering works fine both ways, no weird sounds and movement is smooth both ways all the way.

I've worked on my car ever since warranty expired, so at least as of now, I plan on fixing the damage as DIY, except alignment (TBD what else I'll find).

For your entertainment I've attached couple pictures about the "project".

Rear (left) wheel damage:


Front (left) wheel damage:


Front right wheel, steering wheel straight:


Front left wheel in below as attachment (do not know why it went there)

Thanks for any comments, I will provide more details as I have time to open things up more.... meanwhile I'll be driving my truck

K

 

1. Kill child

2. Thats not going to be a cheap bit of work, have you considered contacting your insurance and going through them?

 

#1 - Point taken ( )

#2 - not yet. I was not suggesting that this is going to be "cheap" by any means (the damn subframe alone is $600-$700 at dealer when I checked). However, given age of car (and miles) and cost of parts alone (plus perceived labor), I am afraid that they may want to total the car instead of paying to fix...

K

 

That is a real possibility. You could always take the ACV of the vehicle the insurance gives you, buy the car back and fix it that way.

 

I would say take out a life insurance policy and then deal with kid. then buy new c63 lol

JK of course but dam mercedes rims are very strong and he ****ed those up and speed I gurantee was involved along with showing off. I was good at that but never damaged anything thank god and I was driving an slk55 amg or a 993

 

Teenagers... SMH

 

Probably the tie rod is bent they are connecting by the rack itself. They turn in sync. And your probably looking at a bent lower control arm front and rear. And if thats the cast you might have bent front and rear struts as wheel. I mean the only way to fix that is replace the clear and obvious bent items and get a wheel alignment plus 2 new rims, 2 new tires and a new kid. And is hard to break the rack... you'll most likely snap off a tie rod before actually damaging it. But keep in mind it has 87 dollar miles on that rack. That damage could indirectly cause a leak somewhere along the lines. Cant tell til you visually inspect it

 

ESP work on this car? If not, he might have been doing doughnuts. If so, and he wasn't familiar with dyno mode, not sure wtf happened.

 

Thank you for your comments & suggestions

Yes, the ESP works on the car (and presumably was not turned off).

My guess is that he simply made sharp- and fast right turn and skidded into curb, which is kind of his story too except "fast", "sharp", "not knowing what one was doing" part. Also it was raining that day, which didn't help. Obviously he didn't know how to counteract/steer when the rear end lost traction (steer left in this case). If he did, probably the car would be ok, at least front wheel damage would have been more towards driving direction (tire itself), not directly to side.

Anyway, it is what it is... If there is something positive in this, at least knowing what to buy for Christmas is easy now.

I tend to agree that front control arms needs to be replaced along tie rod ends - hard to measure/check those due to their original shape. I did replace bushings on those arms couple years ago, so I am somewhat familiar what is involved in getting them out. For the cost, the down side is that according to MB they need to be replaced in pairs...both sides that is.

Also as I am on it, I probably will change shocks as well. They are original and need to be replaced soon anyway and can be bent too as suggested.

Will know more once I have time to investigate damage further.

 

Post up pictures when you get to inspecting it. ESP was probably switched off and thus didn't try to counteract a skid. Maybe this can be a learning opportunity once the car is all fixed - take him somewhere and show him the ropes! I did it with my 05 a few years ago.

 

I think he has been watching F&F Tokyo Drift a few too many times on his ipad, probably while driving.

I'd say you're looking at at least 3-4k in repairs. New rims/tires all around, for one, will not be cheap. You might get lucky and have the good side's rims not be bent, so maybe you save half of your money, but you'd probably have to do all four tires no matter what (and get the good side rims balanced, just to make sure).

I'd also hold some money in reserve too, as modules and electrical systems will probably probably start to fail, due to collateral damage.

I'd suggest a cheap bike for your son for Xmas, possibly in a Hello Kitty motif.

 

the underbody of the benz is surprisingly strong so don't get too worried before you have it checked out. obviously the wheels and tires need repair, or replacement, but it looks to me like you can bring the rims to a shop and they can be repaired and painted for much less than the cost for new ones.

as for the alignment, he may have busted a tie rod in the front (which are not very expensive to buy or install) and clearly threw the alignment off. If you dont have ESP errors thats a good thing! with the miles on your car, the control arm or thrust arm bushings up front may have cracked or failed, so it might be a good time to replace both sets L&R.

now with the rear, i doubt he bent the subframe. he may have notched the rear knuckle which would cause the bad camber angle. The control arm back there is probably destroyed too as the metal arm tends to buckle before any damage can be done to the rest of the suspension components. If that happened, a new strut might be in order but it could be fine. the tie rods and rear thrust alignment are way off but an alignment check would be helpful to determine if there is any chassis damage or ride height issues.

 

All I hear is Red Forman...... Dumbass.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

 

yes, I can't think of anything constructive to say either............

why you'd let the kid drive is what I'm wondering......

 

Get the car on the lift with wheels off. Most likely you will need to replace front upper and lower arm and steering tie-rod on the side of the impact. May or may not need the rear upper arms and lower depends on how it aligns during alighment replacement parts are fairly cheap and can be DIY.

Parts can be found on rmeuropean

 

Just a quick update.

I took the rear wheel off to see little better and it is rather obvious that the tie rod (I think that's how it is called in the epc too) is badly bent (sorry about the line in front of the arm)


And looking to other direction


I took the plastic cover off from the control arm (which holds spring & shock) and didn't see any obvious damage in it. However given its original shape, it will be hard for me to say whether it has bent further near brackets - will be swapped out just to be sure... (I think it will be one of the cheapest items in this project anyway).

Bigger concern is wheel bearing...sounded like someone had thrown sand in it. Source of sound was not brake pads resting on rotor.

I will have time on Friday to open things more, so stay tuned....


K

 

Thanks for comments,

Yes, I am planning to replace all four arms (left and right) plus tie rod ends at front - just to be sure (no way I can say whether they are deformed as they are "curvy" to start with).

K

 

I sense somebodys rideing the bus from now on.....

 

because the kid is 16 and old enough to drive? A 2001 C320 isn't exactly an exotic sports car you have to be afraid of anyone touching. It's an 11 year old, $5000 car with less horsepower than a lot of new family sedans.

 

We all did dumb things at that age so I will refrain from comment. At least nobody got hurt.

I think this will be a fairly easy bolt off bolt on repair of damaged bits & then alignment - remember to fit fluted bolts to camber & castor bushes to facilitate. These cars are strong. Please check the rack mounting bolts for movement/displacement/shear as well as the rack tie rods for distortion.

 

Thanks everybody for your comments

I've been telling to my kids that "since I've done stupid things in my life, they don't have to repeat them"....but I guess they are not listening to me (anymore)


K

 

Unfortunately, stupid things have to generally be experienced first hand for there to be any lesson learned.

Hell, I didn't know tequila and driving didn't mix until Mr. Saab met Mr. Wall in grad school. Oops.

Obviously, the important thing is that he learns from this. And learns to control his drifts a little better, too.

 

And what was the lesson learned from this?

That with the right determination, you can give the W203 four-wheel steering.

 

Now that's funny.

Also check out KO Performance. I get a lot of my parts there. They have Lemforder(sp) parts.

 

Hi all,

I just wanted to provide a quick update on the "project" and I want to thank you all for comments and suggestions.

I did swap out quite few parts over holidays and car is driving pretty good now. The obvious damage was on left rear tie-rod, left front lower thrust arm and right inner tie rod. Additionally I did replace outer tie-rods and upper thrust arms on both sides. And did swap out all 4 shocks too (since everything was apart anyway).

As it has not been pulling to either side and handles very well I was not in rush to get it to alignment.

However, finally I took it for alignment and they told that my sub frame is bent (I was suspecting this at the beginning, but as I was not sure proceeded with my more obvious repairs first).

They told me that left rear wheel Camber is 2.6 (deg), whereas it should be within -1.4 to -0.4 (deg). Toe is off only by .1 degree (they did not try to adjust it) and ride height is within spec. Right side is within parameters.

Not saying that I will not get that fixed, however I am curious to know as in relative terms, how "bad" of misalignment we are talking about here (3 degrees)?

Whether this is something that requires an immediate fix, e.g. no driving (the car is not driven on highways anyway)?

I understand that there will be uneven tire-wear, but I need new ones soon anyway....

K