McGuireV10

The other day I brought the car in for:

-- pulling right
-- sunroof auto-close not working
-- very frequent "BRAKE SYSTEM WILL KILL YOU" warnings
-- rear AC blowing extremely hot air
-- noisy (squeaky) suspension; seems odd on an air-suspension car

Having read about all of these issues, I wasn't too concerned about getting them fixed, except the last one.

For the pulling-right problem, I ate a whopping $300 charge for an alignment which supposedly took 4.5 hours. I almost instantly noticed the car still pulls right, although the effect has been significantly lessened. They said they installed two new camber bolts. I suspect it's more likely due to the two new rear tires I bought and had them install at the same time. (Rears were down to the bars at 17K.)

The sunroof auto-close was fixed with just that reset thing (re-synch, or whatever it's called). The brake warning was due to a bad relay inside the dash, so hey: actual problem fixed. Sounds like progress. They eventually tracked down the AC problem to a stuck valve somewhere within the guts of the duct work. Sounds like another problem fixed. They couldn't reproduce the suspension squeak, so I guess I'll have to show it to them.

Overall not too bad, right?

On the way home from the dealership, perhaps 20 miles down the road, suddenly the dashboard lights up with an SRS malfunction warning, followed by a TeleAid malfuction. This was pretty annoying, but given that TeleAid has never been used or even activated, I wasn't worried about that, and I simply suspected the SRS malfuction might be a bogus warning. I mean, what are the chances, right? At a particularly long red light at an empty intersection I turned off and restarted the car and the warnings persisted.

A few minutes later, I was approaching a sweeping turn on an interchange so I pressed the suspension button to stiffen it up a bit and -- nothing. The two red indicators do not work, and as far as I can tell the suspension remained at the softest setting.

So right now the score remains at: three problems fixed, one problem improved, one problem unaddressed, and three new problems discovered. In my book, not an especially good record for two days in the shop and several hundred dollars out of pocket.

Unbelieveable.

lig

Sorry to hear about it.

Can't say I'm surprised though.

xraymd

Document everything before you forget. It might come in handy later.

lig

I didn't read very carefully the first time - they are charging you $300 for an alignment?!? That doesn't seem right to me - given that many other folks have had the exact same problem with their W211s.

McGuireV10

I agree. Tomorrow's return trip will include a visit with the manager, not the advisor.

lig

Good Luck - hopefully the manager will see the wisdom in taking care of the problem.

McGuireV10

The suspension adjustment button "fixed itself" this morning, and the TeleAid malfunction also disappeared, so now I'm down to just an SRS failure. Anybody want to place bets on whether it'll magically vanish when the tech starts the car at the dealership?

SPIKES

I fitted a laser detector to my car this weekend and had to lift the fuse box in the engine compartment to feed some wires through. i disconnected the battery as i was unplugging connectors. put it all back and reconnected the battery. started the car and after driving came up with "esp visit worshop" fault. after a couple of starts it went away.

could this be your problem with a loose connection which "resets" itself?

b.t.w where in fl are you?

McGuireV10

I ended up having to delay my appointment, so I'll have the chance to see if a few more restarts "fix" the remaining problem.

I'm up in Jax, which means my only service option is Brumos -- they've basically got a monopoly on the Benz world up here.

ima55r2

I had to pay something like $250 for the camber kit on my clk. It allows for more of an adjustment when things are out of whack. It seemed like it should have been standard on the car since a lot of the forum clks had to have it done. I hope the e isn't going done the same route.

SAguirre

I bought my first MB at Brumos. I was up in Jax because of a Florida Georgia game and ended up buying a new Benz. I lived in Tampa at the time and I had Precision Motors service my car there.

I am quite sorry about the multitude of problems. I hope that they can all be fixed without having new ones pop up!

Steve

SPIKES

i have used autohaus locally and thay have been good so far.
keep us posted on your progress...

Double Eagle

On my 2003. I complained about the pulling shortly after delivery and they installed the camber kit for free and fixed the problem. I believe their policy with these first 2003 models was to put in the camber kit for free during the first year or less than 10,000 miles of use. Perhaps they discontinued that policy for later models. Since they've had so many problems, they certainly should provide the camber kits on all cars at delivery in my opinion rather than "Surprising" you with a large bill (over $200) for something as routine as an alignment.

McGuireV10

For anyone who was interested in the progress -- or I guess for anybody who searches on these items later -- everything was fixed on the second visit.

They claimed the SRS failure really was a broken switch so they replaced the entire airbag system in the dash (seems excessive to me, but I'm gathering MB has the "swap everything out" approach to "repairs").

The remaining very slight pull to the right was fixed by merely swapping the two front tires. Based on what I've read here before and what was done to fix the problem, I'm convinced that when the car is properly aligned, any remaining pull is probably due to these crappy Continentals.

In any case, the car has been trouble-free for 2000 miles (I drive a lot) and I'm now quite pleased -- with my fingers crossed...

xraymd

Glad to hear your troubles have been resolved. I knew those Contis had something to do with it.