appatula

Wow, this really baffles me. I went to a specialty foreign auto mechanic to give me an estimate for R&R of the rear subframe bushings, just labor. When i got the car back from the lift, i pulled into the street and this horrible noise emanated from the car every time i slowed down. I brought it back immediately and they couldent figure out what was wrong. First it was the muffler rubbing on the drive shaft, then it was a bearing on the transmission, then it was the driveshafts......and all I did was say "no its not". He ended up telling me to drive it like that back home and when I get the parts in to bring it back and then they will fix it. That pissed me off...ALOT. So I left with this ridiculous scraping sound that sounded like all of the metal rotor guards were bent in and scraping like hell!
Then I just flipped, I pulled into a parking lot got my jack out and cranked her up , put the chocks down and put her in neutral. I climbed under as the crowd from walmart stood as if being entertained by the frustrated Mercedes owner. I rolled the free rear wheel and sure enough the cat heat shield was pushed up and was rubbing on the drive shaft. I am really reluctant to pay this guy the estimate of 300-500 for R&R labor on the subframe mounts. However I played it off smooth, when I finished bending the cat heat shield, I couldent let the crowd in the parking lot know that my Mercedes was in distress..(over my dead body) so I tried to act like I was an insane enthusiast and started cleaning my wheels and using tire shine. It was a detailing session coverup!

What would you do though?

ZorroAMG

I would start screaming and riding shopping carts til the crowd dispersed.

Nice work!

appatula

Believe it or not, that didn't work.

Saijin_Naib

Strip naked and streak screaming wildly.

ZorroAMG

ORRRR, strip naked and be all normal about it...ask people for the time, say aww do you have change for the meter, left my wallet in your other pants, hit on the chick in the hot little VW, u know, the usual....

appatula

I stopped after the cops started looking at me, it got me nervous. Plus I'm not gay so I did'nt want it to go there.....

appatula

BTW we are totally and incredibly missing the main point here......

ZorroAMG

HAHA, sorry, the beauty of the internet and tangents...

That shop you went to sounds lame, lazy and shady. Don't go there for anything else...

appatula

Mmmmm I agree. I'm under a time constraint though and there aren't any other specialty import shops around. I'm going to be driving home from Penn State U. for thanksgiving break and the thing is all over the road so I need to get it fixed. Would you trust a normal indy garage? I'm not sure what to do.

battlecat714

When does your break start? You still might have time to check a few more places out (there's gotta be one indy shop with some knowledge about MB cars).

appatula

16th to the 27th

AMG_Fred

Penn state? Nice job getting into that school. I will be transferring to UCLA next year or maybe USC. We'll see when the time comes around.

To stay on topic...

Shady mechanic. Tell them what you found out to be the problem and be assertive in telling them that you aren't happy. Don't be willing to pay but at least its all over and you have your car back. Just don't go back there. Sometimes the extra 10 minute drive to another indy mechanic is worth it.

appatula

Thanks LnkPrkSoldier! I'm majoring in Electrical Engineering. Good luck transferring it can be stressful, UCLA has a very respectable national ranking and is in general a very prestigious school. Now back on topic, at this point I figure its best to appreciate that I have somewhat of a natural mechanical talent and was not one of the people who are so often reeled into bogus repairs. The guy was shady and on top of it was willing to let me drive home with it like that undiagnosed, not a mechanic I would trust with my safety or respect for that matter. I'll browse the local phone books here in the morning after class and see if I can pull any other shops up online. I honestly would prefer to do it myself as EVERY single time I have paid for another humans labor, something is broken or wrong and ironically remains hidden until I find it. Who knows, I might decide to suffer the 11 hour drive and spend my thanksgiving vacation wrenching in the luxury of my garage floor, a floor that I know oh so well........

battlecat714

Yeah, some mechanics are just bad (pricing, work quality), you just have to find the right one...with the right amount of luck. Do what I did and just start DIYing a lot more (if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself). There are some DIY articles in this and other forums like MercedesShopForums.com for instance; you can probably find what you're looking for there, or find information relating to issue you are having. Good luck.

shadowgriffen

First off, F that! Was your car making the noise pre inspection??

EDIT: Are you male or female? i'm confused?????

ZorroAMG

OMGZORZ!! Appatula is a chick!!! Sweet, that makes 2 female W124 owners!

Chappy

Get someone to give you a referral to a decent independent MB specialist. If you have trouble here, go to MBCA.org and look up the President of the section closest to where you'll have the work done. Call that person and ask where to take your car.

Good luck!

shadowgriffen

.....? This is what threw me off, although I still think your a chick!

appatula

No.

haha and no again, I'm not a female...my avatar is my girlfreind Delaney and believe me, the back seats of my W124 are generously "worn in"


BTW The car WAS NOT making any type of noise pre-inspection whatsoever.

shadowgriffen

she's CUTE!

That's BS man, but you know what I do? If I can't get anything donw on my own, I MARK all the stuff I hypothesize can be wrong with my car, therefore if anything is touched that shouldn;t have been I can pulll the

"look ****er, you see this big fokin yellow highlighter streak here? Ya, that's why I put it there...!"

appatula

Thanks shadow! Yeah she's definitely a keeper in all aspects . Your highlighter solution is brilliant. I'm going to pick up one of those silver metal markers at Walmart today. This type of thing makes me wonder how many mechanically inclined people actually do get screwed over. There are no ethics in the world today, its brutal. I'm going to tough out the 500 miles back to Connecticut and do it myself, like I usually do.

shadowgriffen

No worries man, I know what it's like trust me.

Best of luck my friend!

ZorroAMG

Haha sorry for the mistaken sexuality, dood.

Shadow, your sig is ugly.

Chappy

P'shop the wheels white too is you're going for the 80s Miami Vice look.

Are the windows tinted purple?

ZorroAMG

HAHA white wheels!! I shoulda done that!

EDIT: Did that - HAHAAHA



As for the windows, I "rolled up" the passenger window and darkened the tint but didn't change the hue....