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Rear suspension warning

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Old 10-15-2015, 07:29 PM
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2006 CLK350
Rear suspension warning

A few weeks ago I was sitting in traffic and heard a loud pop/ I thought someone has thrown something at my car so I pulled over and checked it out. Nothing wrong there.

From then on I noticed a looseness/wandering in the rear, mainly on the freeway at speed.

I drove it very gingerly and took it to an alignment/frame shop as soon as I could. He looked at it, adjusted it a little and declared all was good. It still wandered. I finally stopped by my regular mechanic because I knew something was off. It took him about 2 minutes to discover that one of the captured nuts that holds the rear subframe up had torn off. Unfortunately he does not do welding so he couldn't do the repair. Long story short, I finally found a frame shop that had all the right skills and $800 plus a couple days later it was back to normal. This was a first for me. Anyone else ever experience this? The car has never been in an accident.
Old 10-16-2015, 08:10 AM
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Wow, that is scary. Was corrosion the problem? Has the car always been in California?
Old 10-16-2015, 11:07 AM
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Could you please elaborate on the wandering? I was on the freeway yesterday and saw a piece of tire in my lane (couldn't avoid it, cars all around me) and had to run it over. I pulled over and the only damage was the pan that covers the transmission pan area came undone, gotta get a new one. But, after driving, my car might have had that wandering? I just want to see how you describe it and see how it compares to mine.

Unrelated to that incident, my rear window regulator went out that day too. Not a good day...
Old 10-16-2015, 11:37 AM
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Originally Posted by mrbobby
Wow, that is scary. Was corrosion the problem? Has the car always been in California?
No corrosion at all, California car all its life. They said it was just luck. My mechanic said he had only seen this once before.
Old 10-16-2015, 11:44 AM
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Originally Posted by kb24forlife24
Could you please elaborate on the wandering? I was on the freeway yesterday and saw a piece of tire in my lane (couldn't avoid it, cars all around me) and had to run it over. I pulled over and the only damage was the pan that covers the transmission pan area came undone, gotta get a new one. But, after driving, my car might have had that wandering? I just want to see how you describe it and see how it compares to mine.

Unrelated to that incident, my rear window regulator went out that day too. Not a good day...
Mainly when driving at freeway speed it would feel like the rear of the car wanted to go its own way. Most freeways here have rain channels cut in them that tend to grab the tires and that would send the rear end in slightly different directions. Slight but very noticeable.
Old 10-18-2015, 08:41 PM
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Originally Posted by Patton001
A few weeks ago I was sitting in traffic and heard a loud pop/ I thought someone has thrown something at my car so I pulled over and checked it out. Nothing wrong there.

From then on I noticed a looseness/wandering in the rear, mainly on the freeway at speed.

I drove it very gingerly and took it to an alignment/frame shop as soon as I could. He looked at it, adjusted it a little and declared all was good. It still wandered. I finally stopped by my regular mechanic because I knew something was off. It took him about 2 minutes to discover that one of the captured nuts that holds the rear subframe up had torn off. Unfortunately he does not do welding so he couldn't do the repair. Long story short, I finally found a frame shop that had all the right skills and $800 plus a couple days later it was back to normal. This was a first for me. Anyone else ever experience this? The car has never been in an accident.
I have been around MB's my entire life and never herd of that type of issue. That is a new one. Closest issue to that I can think of is a the W210's Spring Perch Failure. Glad you got it all taken care of.

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