Steve Bland

Hi Everyone,

I have 12k on my 07 E550 sport, mostly in town driving. On highway runs where the pavement is good, I noticed the car was veering pretty hard to the right. I wanted to post the parts and procedures that the dealer used to fix this veer.

The dealer (Leith MB of Raleigh) duplicated the veer and added a caster bolt in the left side C-P 0.50 ($24) and a pin 11 000-330-00-18 ($21.15) and did a 4 wheel alignment. There was .4 cross caster before and after was -.4. Even says next "car now goes straight".

Anyway, I wanted to post this for others who might have done alignments for this sympton and not have cured it. Not sure if we have a data base for this stuff.

One last thing, why would MB not cover the bolt and pin? I have no problem with paying for an alignment due to the car being out of spec, but was not sure why I had to pay for parts to make the car go straight.

-Steve
07 E550 Sprot with car goes straight mod

E500wanabe

Interesting! I noticed our E350 pulling noticeably to the right on the highway also. Any idea if these parts will work on an E350?



Chris

konigstiger

I would suggest talking to the Service Manager. Alignment inclusive of any repair/modification to correct this matter is covered for 12 months/12,000 miles. If the invoice reads at or under 12,000 you are covered at no out of pocket cost. Request a refund for what you paid. If mileage is slightly over, request they offer a discount voucher in the amount paid for future service as a goodwill gesture.

konigstiger

Yes. Camber/caster kits have been used on all w211 models since inception to correct pulling in either direction.

csumt76

Yep, and it should be covered 12/12.

Steve, chances are the alignment was perfect, just needed a correction to make it "drive" straight down our roads. The caster adjustment is the best way to do it. You are using an alignment angle, but it is does not effect tire wear.

jimm

I’ve complained about almost every car I've owned pulling to the right.
Including my current C6. And - over the years - I've had DOZENS of
alignments! Maybe hundreds.

I’ll never forget, years ago, one BIG argument with a MB dealer where he
wanted to prove to me that the car was aligned right by taking it behind the
shop .. where the pavement was level .. proving that it would go straight.

I said: “NO! I seldom drive behind your shop! Let’s take it out IN FRONT of
your shop .. where the HIGHWAY is! That’s where I drive!”

I told him that if he didn’t fix it - after several tries - I was going to drive it
into the ocean to make a reef out of it! And invite reporters to take pictures.
(As crazy as it sounds, I really was the kind of guy who would do that!) It
was a 560 less than a year old! I thought it would make a great headline
and send a hell of a message to that dealer!) But .. he won. I gave up.

I’ve heard all the excuses for this right pull. The main one - and maybe a
Legitimate one - is that manufacturers design them so that, if the wheel is
left alone, it will drift right instead of into oncoming traffic.

At 76, I have conceded and concluded that .. “every new car built is going
to pull to the right some.” I’ll always hate it. But, having to accept it, the
question simply becomes - how pull much is tolorable.

jimm

==========

On Order: 08 E350 Sport, P2, Black/black,
Parktronic, Voice, Bluetooth, Burl Walnut,
Split rear seat, Rear mud flaps

konigstiger

Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal?

seahonu

But has it been said that the roads are built with a slight crown, to the right, to allow proper water drainage. And thus pulls our/all cars slightly to the right. In addition, I read in another forum about USA vs. German roads that have differing specs on that specific crown where our MBs are spec'ed to German road, whatever that maybe. In anycase, the comment was that MBs would drift to the right more so on USA roads, due to being tuned to German specs.

I've noticed this right hand pull on BMWs, and adjusted the caster/camber to negate that.

AndrewAZ

I was talking with my SA sometime ago about why some things are cambered the way they are. He told me Mercedes will go to the right regardless if the road is flat or not the reason being is safety issue. I dont know if this is a fact or not but I was told that this was done incase you are driving on a road and you nodded off to sleep and the car is designed to go to the right so you do not hit oncoming traffic and that when going to the right of the road before you exit the last lane on a highway it has rough pavement designed to make tire noise (which is true) and has a good chance of waking you up.

jimm

‘Ol Lefty seems to have slipped my mind. Who was he?

jimm

konigstiger

Frank Rosenthal was portrayed by De Niro in the film Casino and is currently living in Florida.

jimm

Oh. So that’s who my crazy neighbor is.

jimm