balthus

On Friday morning after car sitting in garage for a day and a half, my husband noticed rear passenger side low in rear. He drove it up to our local indy MB repair shop & owner was pretty sure it needed a strut however he told him to leave while he put it on diagnostic machine for an hour or so.

When we came back to pick it up it had re-pressurized and he cleared all these weird faults that had shown up in the diagnostic which had possibly been caused by prior issues when car had been at dealer. Car just went out if warranty about a year ago & service D & recent repairs were done at dealer.

Also owner told us it is very unusual for a strut to go bad in W211 with only 51,000 miles. He told us to drive it & watch it & see what happens.

It was fine rest of day Friday & Saturday morning. But again car sat in garage until this morning. When My husband went to leave for work, t was low again but as soon as he started driving & got to work, it was OK.

Called the owner back & he said we'd need to drop the car off fir a few days for him to leave it on the diagnostic machine.

He said car is OK to drive until we can leave it for a few days.

He said replacing the strut is major job. About $700 for the part & will be a lot of labor.

Is this just something that can go bad?

Is there something else that may be wrong?

Any thoughts about this?

Thanks.

shoebox

see bhmav8r post

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...ir-struts.html

It could be a combination of the strut and the bellow (air bag). My wife's wagon had a similar problem. The strut could be on it's last legs and not supporting the bellow as much as it should. Usual suspect is the crimp connecting the air hose to the bellow. I replaced the bellow on one side @ 65k miles knowing I would need new shocks/strut eventually. 7k miles later the other bellow blew. Yes, dealer price is around $700 for the bellow and $250 to $400 for the shock plus labor. It's really not that hard if you have a lift.

fyi: I went through two on the left and one on the right bellows because they were defective. You'll know if they are bad with 48 hours.

NorseWagon

Replaced both front Airmatic struts at the dealer some 4 or 5 months ago.
The bill came to over $4,000.00.

It started sagging when parked and it got gradually worse over 6 months, finally 8 hours in the garage would leave it all the way down.

Extended warranty is a good thing on these cars.

SZMB

Sounds like your car has the airmatic suspension. The airbag in the rear could be leaking. Yes, it's an expensive part.

gabbypig

IF your car has the standard wagon suspension, the rear is controlled by an air system that is similar yet much simpler than the full airmatic system. This makes replacing components much less expensive than the full airmatic system.

Good luck.

RDSBENZ

I have the same problem (rear passenger side). I took mine to dealer and they said the bag is leaking air. They replaced it under warranty ($1900). I took it back again to the dealer today because it didn't fix the problem. It might be the Struts. I'm so glad I have warranty and a new car as a loaner.
I'll post what they did as soon as I get my car back.

balthus

Which one do you have? I have been agonizing over policies. I have found very few that are exclusionary because I am few K over 50K miles & some very specifically say no struts.

balthus

thanks

NorseWagon

I got a warranty called EasyCare/TotalCare.
It had some exclusions about airstruts as well, but at the end of the day they picked up the tab.
My deductible is $250.00 and 3 years 36000 miles was right around $3K, perhaps a little over for sales tax and such.

SZMB

I would call the MB dealer and ask to speak to the service manager to see if he can give you a good-will repair since the car is barely over 51 kmi. If bought the car new from there, it's very likely he'll give you a good-will repair or a big discount. The dealer's shop should be able to find the leak fairly quickly.