OK, so lately my car has rattled like crazy at idle. My belt tensioner had busted the bushing on it's shock absorber and that was rattling, so I thought that was the problem. After all of my recent repairs (belt tensioner and shock included), it rattled less, but was still horrible. It sounded like I was running with no oil in my car or something.

So I decide to replace the motor mounts. Man were they shot! this pic shows one of the old ones on the left and one of the new ones on the right. The old one had collapsed about 3/4" (2cm, eh). No wonder it was rattling. I got the new ones on ebay for $65+$10 for shipping. It took about 3 hours to do the job.



The rattling is now gone. I almost need to roll down the window in order to hear the engine. If you have 100,000+ miles on your car and haven't done this, I suggest you do - your W124 will drive like new again!

 

matt, before you chabged the mounts, when revved hard at idle, did the engine feel like it was going to drop out of the car? I heard it's the easiest way of checking the engine mounts.... My car shakes on idle (but only when it's warm) but when I reev the engine even to the red line, the car doesn't shake at all..so I guess it's not the mounts in my case..or am I wrong?

 

Nope, mine only shook at idle and in drive. I was shifting into neutral at stop lights so that it would be less embarassing. It still rattled in neutral, but WAY less.

 

bummer...it's a good thing you took care of that.

I can't feel my motor...the only reason I know it's running is when I pull up to local fast food order windows, the lifters make a beuatiful tapping sound

LOL does anyone else have the lifter melody going on??

 

Did you install the motor mounts yourself Matt?

 

I use to have one once in awhile when I had the 300E. I always seemed to be low on oil when the valve lifters would tick. I added Oil and it went away.

 

Yes, I did it myself. It was a pain, but pretty straight forward. Most of the time spent was trying to get the bolts undone.

 

it's not loud like truck loud, but I can still hear them regardless.

IT's not as bad as my ford probe's though, so it doesn't really bother me.

 

Yikes, How did you manage to do it yourself? did you borrow an engine life or something? I imagine it would be a b*tch to do it in my car, but upon inspection recently, the motor mounts seem to be fine and also I'm not having any rough idling either.

 

Does the ticking increase as you rev the engine or start driving?

 

negative sir, it all but goes away.

I hypothesis low oil level as well. I NEVER hear them when I get oil changes, its towards the 3K mile mark, or the 2nd month that they start ticking.

 

It's been a year and I still haven't changed the oil on my car. LOL

Then again... I just got the car and the owner didnt drive it until I bought it from Feb-August. I think it's time for a change now... At least I know I'm not leaking oil since its always at the right level.

 

wow...you must not drive often/long.

 

lol man I drive a lot and beat on my **** a lot.

 

I made an "engine adapter" for my jack (a 12" chunk of 4"x4" wood). I just did one mount at a time. There is a big crossmember that prevents the engine from falling out, unlike my previous cars with their transverse mounted engines that actually hang from the mounts, rather than sit on them.

 

Oil changes can be done every 5k miles or so, but you need to top off around 3k.

 

I hear that...I just get tired of topping off...god I dont know what it's like to own a car and not have to top off the oil...

but oh well, we all have a price to pay I guess...

 

Henry, I think we should promise ourselves to change our oil within two weeks. lol

 

LOL Micrsoft

oh oh oh lets pinky swear toooooooooooo!

 

I'm reporting you both to homeland security.

 

Good, i hope you do! I'll be looking forward to hearing from them soon.

 

I just got off the phone with them. They said they'll be looking for two ghey thread hijackers. And that's ghey hijackers, not ghey thread.

 

I just called and told them you were the organizer and behind all of the ghey actions that have been going around recently.

 

Did they keep you on the phone long enough to trace the call? I told them to look for you in West Hollywood.

 

Nope, Never!

I told them you can be found in Houston doing ghey massages during the weekday and that on the weekends you're in San Francisco. I gave them a couple leads...