Hi all,

I've had a clunk fron my front end for almost a year. It happens when I hit bumps in the road and sometimes it's almost nonstop bumping/tapping. On the freeway, the steering is extremely light for the first cm or two of turning in each direction, and it doesn't really seem to turn to the wheels.

My C32 has had a small but noticeable amount of steering play for quite a while, to the point where the car can be off and the steering wheel can be turned left and right (as much as it will let you with thr car off) and the wheels do almost nothing at all.

I looked at the tie rods under the car while someone else moved the steering wheel and the tie rods were barely moving. I could hear some knocking/tapping. Then I pulled on the tie rods and I can hear a knocking/tapping sound and the steering wheel doesn't move. The ball joints all look ok to me.

I'm not sure if this is coming from the inner tie rod or the steering rack, what fo you guys think?

Do you guys think inner tie rods or a steering rack could create the sound I've been experiencing over bumps? I hear it a lot more when I haven't had an alignment for a while, which leads me to believe that when I go over bumps, the wheels want to go in a slightly different direction and pulls the tie rods, which is creating that noise I am hearing.

Thanks!

 

how do your sway bar end links look?

 

just replaced less than a month ago with brand new oem ones! old ones were slightly torn.

 

did you replace the bushings on the bar itself? Those bang on the subframe and make a hella racket.

 

If you're shaking the wheel and tie rods are making noise, then the inner tie rods are bad. Also, if you have a lot of play in your steering, that's another symptom of bad tie rods. If you're going to replace the inner you should also just do the outer at the same time since that one will likely go at some point soon too and you'll end up doing an alignment twice.

Like C3Deuce said, the sway bar bushings can make noise too. Try lubing those and driving and see if it goes away. If not, it's your tie rods.

Tie rods aren't too bad to replace. You can loan an inner tie rod tool from Advance or Autozone (I actually just used channel locks on the flat part of the inner but whatever works). You should use a ball joint puller but a hammer will work to get the outer ball joint out too.

 

Also, this is important: make sure you use a new lock nut for the outer tie rod ball joint! The new tie rods usually will come with new nuts, but if not you gotta get one. Same goes for any of those suspension components, sway links, control arms, etc.

 

Sway bar bushings are ok too, no play that I can see or feel. Tie rod ball joints look pretty good-except are they supposed to fully, easily rotate? They don't actually move back and forth or up and down but they rotate easily. All ball joints look pretty good, on ramps and jacked up.

Noises like these are notoriously hard to diagnose, and it's really just a guessing game a lot of the time. I don't really want to start throwing a bunch of parts at it because I need this issue resolved within two weeks or so, so I made an appointment for Thursday at the local MB dealership. I've heard a lot of stories about owners who have had annoying issues that a number of mechanics could not diagnose, and then an MB tech diagnosed and fixed quickly. So I hope the same goes for me. I hope that their experience with the same cars every day will allow them to quickly focus in on common issues.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. And if you have any more, please keep them coming. There's definitely no guarantee that they'll find the issue in the one hour I'm allowing them.

 

Hey, one other thing you should check is that the sway bar link nuts are tightened down all the way. I had a clunk recently and it turned out that my right side end link nut where it connects to the sway bar wasn't fully tightened and was shifting. Must have just been an oversight when I installed the sway bar and didn't torque it down properly (it's a 100 Nm torque spec so it should be tightened down pretty hard). Tightened the nut down and the clunk went away.

The way my friend and I found out, we jacked up the car and I turned the steering wheel and he inspected the area. Then we tried putting the jack underneath the wheel carrier and slowly jacking up and letting down and we would hear the noise at a certain point while doing that. When it made the noise he said he saw the sway bar link connection shift. Just giving you some ideas for other things to try to diagnose...

 

hey c230 mulac, thanks for the tip. actually i went to the dealership before seeing your comment and sure enough they said the sway bar link nuts were not torqued to spec, so they torqued it as well as one of the thrust arm bolts. although i just looked on the WIS and it says it's only a 60 Nm torque spec, so I'm curious as to where you get the 100 Nm figure? the sound was completely gone and i could not have been happier. i watched for over an hour as 3 or 4 guys tried to figure out where the sound was coming from so i knew it wasn't something obvious.

the whole 20 minute drive home, i had no sounds. but earlier tonight, as soon as i started driving, the clunk was back. i have no idea what this could be but it is absolutely destroying my driving experience. im just so baffled at this point because i can't believe that 3 or 4 mercedes techs taking my car on and off different racks and looking at different things and using acoustic chassis noise machines can't figure out the real cause of the noise.

the noise has always been intermittent so it's hard to tell whether they really fixed it, even temporarily. the only thing that i can think of is that the holes in the H&R sway are slightly too big and that's causing the link to move around in that hole. The front sway, as you probably know, comes with either 10mm or 12mm holes, depending on if it's AMG/Sport or standard. Well the one I got had 10mm holes so I used a dremel to expand the size of the hole, and maybe I expanded it too much.... if it is too much, it must be by a very, very small margin to the extent that i could probably wrap a small piece of electrical tape around the inside of the hole in the sway bar to remedy the situation.

it's extremely hard to get to the bottom of the sway bar links though. when i replaced them, i figured out that the only way to really get them off is to put the car on jackstands, take off both wheels, remove the top of the end links from the struts, remove the sway bar brackets that actually hold the sway bar in, and then the whole bar would come off with the end links still attached to the sway bar. that's the only way i could get to the nuts that connect the bar to the links. might have to do that though...

again, any other suggestions are welcome. i was so happy that the mb techs "figured" out the issue and fixed it on the spot but i really don't know if they did or if it was just a coincidence.

 

The tolerance of car parts is so precise that the slightest difference could be the problem. I can't say for sure without hearing it myself. However, considering that them torquing them down did make it mostly go away means that is definitely where the source of your noise is so you've pinpointed where it's coming from.

You can get to those nuts without taking everything off, that's how I had to torque mine down. Didn't disconnect anything other than taking the wheel off.

How did you end up getting the 10mm instead of 12mm sway bar? I would have returned it and swapped out for the bigger one...my personal opinion would be to replace it with the correct bar with the holes drilled from the factory.

 

the sway bar came on the car from the previous owner and was set to the soft setting, so when i wanted to change it to the stiff setting, i had to open up the holes a little. but i don't think that that's the issue because now that i think about it, for one of the holes i did use a 12mm drill bit to open the hole. but both sides are making noise.

and i'm not sure if it's because i have h&r springs, but i there isn't enough space to stick a torque wrench (even my smaller one) onto the sway bar link nut.

 

ez, any updates? I have a similar clunk, and after replacing the inner and outer tie rod ends it's still there. Seems like I need a new steering rack...

 

Now you can repair you steering rack: http://www.ebay.de/itm/FEBI-26239-ME...item2ecc0a8dc4

I have done that job my steering rack

 

Hey VVF, I fixed the clunk - ended up being my sway bar bushings.

I still haven't figured out the steering play though, been spending my money on headers and engine mounts... I'm planning on looking into it in a few months after I install all the other parts that are sitting in my garage.

Let me know if you figure your issue out!

 

Ok, just an update on my left-side clunk - it was one of the control arms. I had all 4 replaced since they were 157k miles old (the bushings were 40k miles old).
Wow, what a difference!
The clunk is gone, so is the steering wheel vibration at 72-74mph (which is probably due to a slight wheel dis-balance, but was amplified by the dead suspension).
Overall the front end is noticeably firmer and sturdier, and it wasn't too bad before.

 

I just skimmed through the posts, but no some seems to have mentioned the 4x steering rack bushings which need to be replaced at some point.

Maybe the C32 has a different rack than the C55, so I may be 100% off with this.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...ch/2033330514/

You need to purchase 4 of them.
I recently did this for my 2005 C55.
Replaced the 4 steering rack bushings,
Replaced the inner tie rods.
Replaced the outer tie rods.
(Used all new hardware and WIS torque specs)
Got car aligned shortly after.

Very nice refresh job, my car has less play in the steering from dead center and a slight shake I had from medium/light braking from 50MPH down stopped.

 

Old thread but I figured it better to post here for others who might search.

Spot on. Just replaced my steering rack bushings as I had a slight clunk when making short, quick sawing motions at the wheel.

Instructions can be found on this thread: https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...#&gid=1&pid=13

On my C55 I had to swing the front swaybar down to get the driver side top bushing in place. Otherwise, the thread explains the job well.

My car only has about 54k miles on it though it is about 18 years old now, but my original bushings looked exactly like the old bushings in the thread compared to new.

Steering is tighter, more assured, and the car feels less nervous/crashy over ruts/bumps from all the extra unintended toe motion caused by the worn rack bushings. Imparts a premium feel back into the car.

 

One of my C32 has an issue like what is being described in this thread, The Steering rack bushing can cause this issue as well, I've just had the shocks and a set of H&R springs installed on my one C32 I have had 12 yrs now and noticed the same issue. After a few times back and fourth to the garage they found there was some play in the steering rack. I was going to have them address it but also found the rear end was all over the place and they did not see this which has turned me off taking it back to them. I have since purchased a rear suspension refresh kit from FCP and front steering rack bushings and have a alignment shop who is going to do all the work and check and make sure there is no other issues. My project C32 also needs the suspension refresher kit installing along with a few other items like the headliner, front seats leather paired and other interior repairs. These vehicles are now 20 years old and they will need a lot of suspension work doing which is par for the course.