ntwillie1

Hey guys. I got my cls 550 lowered using star lowering. At times my car seems lopsided by about an inch. The whole passenger side. I’m wondering if anyone has noticed if their car seems to be lower on one side than the other depending on where they have parked. My driveway is a little bit uneven and I’m thinking maybe the car is adjusting the different corners to try to level itself. I tried it on my GLE and it seemed to be off by the same half inch. I used a measuring tape and measured from ground to center of wheel well. Weird thing is I turned the car around and same issue on same side. About ten min later I visually checked it again and now the problem seemed to have reversed itself.

I went out to lunch the other day w a coworker and I didn’nt notice the parking lot being uneven but my coworker mentioned my car looked lower on one side. A few days later was at the pharmacy and as we walked back to my car wifey mentioned the same thing. Again parking lot didn’t seem uneven. Right now it’s in my garage which I always thought was even and same issue. It’s almost always the passenger side.

I plan on on taking a level to a new lot near my house to ensure it’s even and then test ride height again (left rear vs right rear) but til then was looking for opinions or feedback. We have snow coming so I won’t be taking it out for a few days to test it. This is bugging the s*** out of me.

Tbbt CLS

After you have your facts, a call to MB House is in order! Marv

Roop94

I heard kind of normal for a car to drop based on uneven ground, but I've never heard what you are experiencing. I'm using the cheapest lowering module on the market and I've never experienced that. Though in the beginning, one side was about an inch lower than the other side, but that kind of resolved after driving around the block and on flat ground. But yours is quite unique issue.

ntwillie1

So I took the car out today to meet a client for lunch. While in the lot i took my measuring tape and parked in the flattest spot I could find. Passenger side was consistently about .5” lower than driver side. I then parked in the same exact spot but this time facing in the opposite direction. No change - still lower on same exact side. I then went to a spot where I new it was uneven and parked in different angles and directions and passenger side was always lower.

Pretty frustrated at this point. I have been trying to communicate w MBHouse but the response times are inconsistent. I texted them 2 weeks back about the star tool and it took a few days for them to get back to me. They said they were on vacation so I didn’t bother them further. I texted them on Sat and they responded a little later in the day and asked me to send pics. I sent pics on Sunday. I’m aware they are closed on Sat and Sunday so I didn’t follow up on Sunday. I texted Monday no response. I texted today, no response.

At this point I am wishing I had passed on this mod. Everything else they did was great but this airmatic lowering via star, not a cheap mod, was a mistake for my car. I’m hoping at some point they will improve their communication w me as as I left them a very good review, payed close to $2k Canadian in mods,drove all the way to them from NJ (1200 miles round trip) and thus I expected better follow up support.

I have been willing to buy a star tool (Chinese) and the software from them and pay them (they want $50) to reprogram my car but this communication has me concerned. And I shouldn’t have to pay them to fix this but for the sake of getting it over with I’m just agreeing to do it.

i don’t care about the money, just want my car to look and operate properly. If I can’t get MB House to cooperate I will have to get the dealership to reset my airmatic suspension to factory specs.

Tbbt CLS

Unfortunately, you were the 'test monkey' with MB House. I'm really disappointed to hear about their lack of response. I think MANY here were waiting to hear of your success and follow along. I know I was seriously figuring out how to secretly find the $$ out of my wifey's view to do all of this. I hope they are on Facebook and realize the amount of business they are losing. Many of us aren't within driving distance and this would have been so sweet. I hope they step up and take care of you ASAP! Sorry, but this is a B***h! Marv

ntwillie1

Yes, I am disappointed to say the least. They have odd working hours so I texted them again last night and again no response. I don’t have a Facebook account so I haven’t mentioned their response times or my recent experience on social media. I did leave them a nice google review so maybe I will have to edit that. I’m hoping maybe they just lost there phone and haven’t seen my messages or that by some weird circumstance that they aren’t purposely ignoring me. They seemed stand up guys in person. I’m still hopeful they will do the right thing and help resolve.

ntwillie1

Well. I have an update. I heard back from mb tuning this evening. They explained that they had switched phone carriers and ran into some issues and that is why they had not been communicating w me. Hopefully that is true and that problem won’t happen again. They also told me that all cars w an airmatic suspension will have this issue where one side is lower than the other. However, at factory ride heights people don’t notice it. It becomes a lot more noticeable when lowered. I guess this would explain why our AMG43 suv was a little lower on one side but only by a hair. I remeasured the AMG and it was only off by 1/8”. Mb house doesn’t seem to think my situation is out of the norm. That being the case’ I wish they would have mentioned it prior to me agreeing to lower the car via airmatic. Maybe I should have done more research.

Next, they are willing to adjust my suspension settings but I will need to get the star tool. I’m on the fence about that to be honest.

Last night I found a guy online that does mobile repairs and tuning work on Mb. I texted him and he did respond this morning. Researched him a bit and found mixed reviews so I am hesitant to entertain further.

Today during lunch I reached out to my independent mechanic who does things for me that are not under warranty like brake jobs and such. I 100 percent trust him. He is super old school and does things by the book. He was hesitant to even attempt it as he doesn’t believe in messing around w modding. So I abandoned that avenue.

Earlier in the day I reached out out to my service advisor (super stand up guy) and explained my situation and he stated that they can have a look and try to adjust for me so I have an even ride height. However, once they put it on their diagnostics tool at the dealership, which is automatically and mandatory on the Mercedes network, that I run the risk of Mercedes discovering that I have tampered with my suspension settings and that it would automatically default them back to factory specs. Truth be told, I wouldn’t feel so bad if I reverted back to factory specs and then started all over again w my suspension doing ELM, Amazon lowering module, or some alternate path.

at this point I am considering 2 options:
1. Leave the car alone for a few weeks/months and see if I get used to it and maybe it won’t bother me as much.
2. Pay dealership to attempt a fix and risk going back to factory setup if it doesn’t work out. Which I can live with.


Let let me state this - I am in no way shape or form saying anything bad about MB House or anyone else. Stuff happens and unfortunately for me it happened to .... well me - LoL. Oh well, that’s part of modding cars and messing around w stuff. I will keep this thread updated w my final outcome. I’m leaning towards going the dealership route but will see. I have an apt scheduled for next Thursday to have them attempt to fix.

As as for everything else about my car - damn I love it. Looks amazing w black roof and front lip, now has car play which rocks, has a bunch of other mods that mb house did that I am happy with, and drives like a beast thanks to my Eurocharged Tune.

Tbbt CLS

Thank you for taking the time to give us an update! Marv

ntwillie1

Ok. So I just got my car back from the dealer. I had to go back to stock suspension heights. They tried adjusting the work that mb house had done but the car kept resetting back to factory settings for some reason. It wouldn’t keep the adjusted heights. I told them it was ok to just reset back to oem. I feel better this way because it's not lopsided. I did like the lowered look but not as much as MB house had lowered it. I felt like i would wear out my suspension sooner and also if I put it in sport it was nearly rubbing/tucked. I didn’t want to have to roll my fenders either. But most importantly, I couldn’t stand being lower on one side than the other.

I’ll try a different suspension lowering method in the summer. For now its winter and i’m happy being back to stock. Unfortunately the fix cost me some money that it shouldn’t have.

Mssidah

Guess what? I have the issue with lowering device from Amazon on the passenger side as well. I emailed the guy who sell them about a week ago and never heard back from him.

Not sure where to go from here

Arrie

I'm not a fan of lowering cars but that is just me.

What is the "Star" lowering? Is that the MB Star tool? If it is it should work, right? But in your later post you say even MB dealer could not make lowering to work???

Anyway, if some third party programmer makes a software for re-setting the level points in the AirMatic system I hope/assume they realize that the level sensor signal goes up on one side but down on the other side when car level is changed. If they simply increase or degrease the output voltage set point for all sensors equally it will make one side of the car go up while the other side goes down and the result would be what you explain.

Wonder if they can set the target set points individually for each sensor. This way they could go up in voltage on one side and down the same amount on the other.

I drive a 2010 E550 and noticed this behavior when looking at the live data with my iCarsoft tool.

Arrie

Today under my car for the engine coolant change I looked at the level sensors for the AirMatic control. In front the bottom end of the sensor arm is connected to the lower wheel hub control arm with a spring clip. It looks like this spring clip could be easily moved along the arm meaning if it was moved slightly down on the control arm it would change the signal and cause the car to lower down.

I did not look at the rear sensors as I was working in the front but I would not be surprised if it was made the same way.

If I was to lower my car I would be looking into this before going to the electronics.

ntwillie1

I just went back to stock setup. I didn’t want to continue to muck around w what mb house did w my suspension. My dealer put me back to stock and it is what it is. I will figure out another method of lowering my car in the summer time. Thanks for the suggestions.