Hello all!

I have a 2014 E350 4Matic with 153,000 miles. Car runs really good except for this vibration that occurs while driving.

Here's what I'm experiencing:
1.) Occurs at all speeds, gets worse the faster I go, 55mph+ is where it really starts to suck.
2.)I feel it in driver's/passenger seat, steering wheel, center console, A/C controls area, driver's side door.
3.)When I make turns, the vibrations will SOMETIMES move with the turn.
4.)When I go uphill, the vibrations SOMETIMES gets worst. Same for downhill.
5.)There's a rotational thumping at 21mph. I hear it most by the driver's side. I swapped my tires around but I was still getting the thumping by the driver's side.
6.)Speed-related vibration, not RPM. I put the car in neutral while driving at 60mph to see if the vibration would go away. It was still there.


I have done the following:
1.)Motor/transmission mounts
2.)Front control arms(both upper and lower)
3.)Front/rear sway bar links
4.)Front inner/outer tie rods
5.)Front CV axles(OEM replacement, I had both sides replaced twice since there some play from the first installation. No change in vibrations from both replacements)
6.)Coilovers(OEM shocks/struts before; Def not this. Vibrations were happening before)
7.)Flex Discs/Center Support Bearing
8.)Driveshaft(front and rear)
9.)New Wheels/Tires(19s, same tire sizes both front and rear; balanced; Vibrations were happening before/after this.)
10.)Transmission Fluid Change(done recently)
11.)Intermediate Shaft Bearing
12.)Front Wheel Bearings
EDIT: 13.)Brake pads and rotors(done this past summer. Vibrations before/after)

WHAT. IS. THE. ISSUE????? I'm sorry but it's driving me nuts. I really love this car and would hate to get rid of it because of some stupid vibration. I took it to multiple shops(ones that specialize in german cars) but they have not be able to pinpoint the exact issue.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

What is the condition of your brake discs / pads and connecting metal areas? Any rust, play, or signs of disc warping?

your front wheel bearings, did they come as one assembly? If not, they likely need to be reset by the proper position of the locking nut as the anything above 0.01 or 0.02 or less than 0.01 will have a huge negative impact on driving comfort at higher speeds.

 

Forgot to mention that. I did my brakes this past summer. Powerstop Rotors and pads. Vibrations were happening before/after. There's no play in the suspension or rust. I jacked up the car and shook the wheel at the 3-9 position and 12-6 positions. No movement. No signs of disc warping.

As for the wheel bearings, I had a mechanic install a kit from FCP Euro: SKU:KIT-2124MFWBH2. You can copy and paste that in Google to see the kit if you'd like.

 

Would you describe your vibration as very light? If you were sitting in the passenger seat, would the vibration be noticeable?

 

The vibrations are pretty bad. Not light at all.

It’s 100% noticeable in the passenger seat.

 

Are the new wheels factory? Or at least hub-centric?

An aftermarket wheel with a larger hub than factory can have a vibration which is very difficult to track down.

The hub is for centering the wheel, the studs are for securing the wheel to the hub.

 

Aftermarket wheels that came with centering rings.

I wanna note that the same vibrations were there even before I got the new wheels.

 

Item 5 if not genuine MB, get genuine

Item 8, are you talking of propeller shaft for front DIFF and rear DIFF asI shown below ? If so go MB genuine.

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There is another expensive "disease" of 4-matic propeller shaft, the part inside the tranny.




Some back story on how the vibration started would be helpful.
Any "accident" or high speed jumping over pot holes or something of that nature ?



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Also have you roadforce balanced/inspect all 4 tires ?
Hunter balancer can do it.
.

 

Items 5 and 8 are genuine Mercedes. And yes, those are the two parts I was talking about!

Of course. So the car was involved in an accident where the front right side was hit(Other driver tried to enter the highway via the exit. They were on the phone). When I got the car back, that’s when I began feeling slight vibrations. As time passed on, it has gotten worse.

If I can find a picture, I’ll post it here.

I considered something with the transmission or driveshaft related. When the guy towed the car, he couldn’t get it in neutral so he just towed it as is. I’m worried this affected the transmission such as that prop shaft you mentioned.


Is there a way I can go about testing this?

 

What is the frequency of the vibration? Getting worse the faster you go says it's down stream of the transmission. That's transfer case to tires. You've ruled out a lot. What haven't you ruled out along that pathway (I'm running out the door now, or I'd go back and walk the path)?

 

It's constant, especially at highway speeds. Later tonight, I will get various recordings of the sound when the roads are clear.

One thing I noticed is that when the front part of the driveshaft was installed(example image below), the vibrations weren't as intense for the first few hours of driving. Afterwards, the harshness came back. Same thing occurred with the CV axles.

So I'm thinking it could be the transmission or differential.

 

Or your front subframe is mis-aligned from the accident

 

I would be tempted to find a shop to document damage to the transmission, and put in a claim to the towing company.

 

Lots of work has been done and what I present here may be a far fetch but still could be an issue.

The propeller shaft only has one U-Joint, which itself is kind of weird design as joint makes vibrations with angle in the joint with more vibration with bigger angles. Usually there are two joints and when the knuckles are correctly aligned, the joints cancel out each other for the vibration.

Now, the flex disks work kind of like U-joints so the proper alignment may also be needed with them?

I tried to mark in the below picture what I mean. In the blue part there is a spline between the shaft halves and you can separate them. I did this when I replaced the center bearing in my car. Before separating the shaft parts, I carefully marked them so they go back exactly the same way as you could turn the parts and create misalignment when putting the shaft back together. I think the knuckle on the U-joint must align with one of the four arms that bolt to the flex disk. If it is between two arms it could cause vibrations?

Not sure if this has any bearing to this problem but as about everything else has been looked at, at least I would make sure of this alignment.

 

What I mean is to ask whether the vibration is at wheel speed, driveshaft speed, or something else. Driving down a road at about 30mph, imagine you have a rock stuck in your tire. It's a tick tick tick tick sound at a decent clip, but still very discrete. That's wheel speed, and indicates something downstream of the differentials (the pinion/ring gear interface more specifically). If it's faster than that at that same speed, sort of the speed of an idling lawnmower, that would be driveshaft speed. And that indicates something between a pinion and the transmission output. If it's faster than that, and follows engine speed (which it doesn't sound like it does), you'd be looking upstream of the transmission output shaft.

 

Insurance did not send your car to be repaired at MB official facility ?
They would have proper chassis machine repair with proper measurement.

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You asked ( in green ):
I considered something with the transmission or driveshaft related. When the guy towed the car, he couldn’t get it in neutral so he just towed it as is. I’m worried this affected the transmission such as that prop shaft you mentioned.

Is there a way I can go about testing this?


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If you really want to see vibration, it is quite easy.

Get a workshop to lift up your car, all 4 wheel removed.
Jack all suspension to near ride height...since urs is a 4-matic. If RWD, only need to jack up rear suspension to ride height.
Set car to dynomode and run engine + tranny to your usual heavy vibrating speed.
This way you should be able to see which one vibrate the worst.

Example of me testing for vibration. I do up to 100+ MPH without wheels.
My vibration only happens at 100MPH or faster and not severe.



It ended up being 1 of my rear tire had a bad roadforce value.



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Make sure the lif up point for all 4 suspensions are at the wheel kuckle and not spring/suspension arms.

Good luck.

 

This is great software, easy to use. If you look at the website, it will tell you that it cannot determine the SOURCE of the vibration, only the type(s) of vibrations. Also, there are many vibrations in a vehicle, but only SOME of them bother the occupant. I have this software on my iPhone, and it is very easy to use and understand, unlike the underlying technical data.

Vibrate Sotfware - What is tha vibration in my Car?

 

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So this App price went down 400% now...awesome. Used to be US$400 or so in 2016.


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It's at wheel speed. The faster the tires spin, the worse the vibration gets. It's not faster than the tire rotations. I wouldn't be suprised if it's something with the diff

 

Thank you for this. I'm going to have my mechanic friend check it out when I get time. I'll post findings here.

I am also going to post the sound here tonight. I haven't had the chance these past couple of days.

 

Is this app accurate? I find it hard to believe

 

I was wondering the same. I had a '89 190E 2.6 5 spd that had a vibration around 40 MPH. I replaced everything same as you. One day I was talking to an indy and he told me that he had replaced a number of differentials to cure a vibration problem. I sold the car before I did that.

 

That was my first Mercedes, "91 190E 2.6, I loved that car, we drove it from new and then my youngest drove it through High School, but that only amounted to 56k miles

 

Yep I loved that car also. I bought it with 90+K and sold it with 167K. It was a classic great Mercedes.