dpompian

I was driving along minding my own business and hit one of those depressions in the road that let water across the intersection. The car bottomed out so badly I think it came off the ground when it rebounded and I limped home with the car complaining the whole way. The engine on the drivers side is sagging and my first thought was the motor mount BUT the engine is sagging enough so the transmission selector will no longer go into park and there is a new exhaust sound. Can a motor mount fail so spectacularly that it will make these symptoms or is it more likely that the motor mount mounting point broke or some other catastrophic occurrence. I didn't find a sticky or thread that addresses the replacement of this drivers side mount so I'm wondering if I just missed it. Help me Obiwan you're my only hope.

David
2000 E430

190Efan

It's hard to say because it would depend on which part of the chassis actually hit the ground when you bottomed out. I think the best thing to do at this point is to put your car up on a lift and have a good look at the undercarriage to see where the damage actually is.

dpompian

Good point. It hit on the left front subframe and I did a test to determine if it was a motor mount (or broken mounting point) by putting it in Drive and pressed the gas. The left side of the motor rose a good 6-8"! The problem with this diagnosis is that since it's a V8 you can't seem to see anything from the top or even where the motor mount attaches! The fact that it's a 4Matic compounds the difficulty and I hate to admit it but I may be in over my head. I'm afraid I'll have to pull the motor out and => Nope.

loden338

Dont have to pull the engine to replace, but its a PIA job. I would try a good indy menchanic and replace both.

Plutoe

not to worry you are correct and way over you head-----the car needs a professional look on a lift and then wada you going to do have one of the corner boys fix the damage
PS all the instructions are spelled out in MBWIS subscribe or go to ebay for a copy