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tl;dr
Because the first (and only) time I let them touch it, they made a fine mess of things.
Long version
A month or so ago I took my 2013 S212 to my trusty local shop for state inspection. The car passed with the exception of the rear subframe, which had rust-through perforations. Seemed odd to me on a car with only 50K miles, but apparently the subframes are a known weak point rust-wise. To the point that Mercedes-Benz USA is replacing them at their cost. So I get a new rear subframe for free, yay! They told me they would be replacing some steering rack bolts as well, a recall about which I had heard nothing whatsoever. I've also been hemming and hawing about taking advantage of the "fading wood trim" settlement, and since the car was going to a dealer I arranged to have them do that as well. So, 3 jobs:
R&R rear subframe
R&R faded interior wood trim
Replace steering rack bolts
I took the car in, got it back, and all seemed well enough. I did put the car up on my home lift to see what had been done, and as I did so I noticed drips of some kind of gooey liquid under the front of the car on my garage floor. I discovered what looked like a steering fluid leak at the site of the rack bolt work. It turned out to be just a very VERY generous application of the goop they use to prevent the new bolts from doing the same thing the old bolts did. So it was messy, but otherwise harmless.
A little more than two weeks later one of the rear air springs started to leak, badly. The rear of the car would drop all the way down within 1/2 hour. Rear end sag had never been a problem on the car before. Hmm. But then, the car is 11 years old, and it is a rubber part, so possibly it was on its way out. It only took a bit of sleuthing to determine that the passenger side (P/S) spring was the one leaking. I decided to do the job of replacing them both myself.
I put the car on the lift and began to remove the rear wheels. The lugs were VERY tight. My 1/2" electric impact gun -- which has successfully removed 300 ft/lb axle nuts in the past -- would not budge them. It took a breaker bar + a 4-foot piece of pipe to get them loose. All of the lugs on both rear wheels were this way. I'm sure glad I didn't have to replace a wheel on the side of the road!
When I finally got the wheels off and the car in the air I found the passenger side rear spring in the state shown below. As I've come to learn, this is not how they're supposed to look, even with the suspension in full droop.
With the usual herculean amount of effort I managed to extract the springs from the suspension arm, and I decided to look further into the failure of the P/S spring. It was leaking at the seam where it folds back on itself. The damage appeared to be from chafing or friction, rather than age and pinholes.
The top of the spring also had marks on it, shown below.
I got the new springs yesterday and opened one of them up to have a gander. They're Arnott units and come with instructions, which include pictures of what things look like when the springs are not correctly installed and therefore fail prematurely. Guess what -- those pictures look exactly like my P/S rear spring!
While I was waiting for parts to arrive I decided to consult the owner's manual to get the correct wheel torque. I opened the glove box, checked the book (96 ft/lbs), put it back, and closed the glove box -- only it would not close. There were two shiny metal clip-like things hanging down, preventing the door from closing. After a great deal of sleuthing I determined that they were the clips holding the wood trim in place at that location, and that they were bent so badly they could not work properly. Exactly the kind of bend that would occur if someone tried to pull the trim off the dash without first sliding the clips down, as they are designed to do. I eventually figured it out, straightened them, got them to work as designed, and reinstalled them.
So here we are. Three jobs to do, three jobs done to some greater or lesser degree of slipshod-ness:
R&R rear subframe: improperly installed air spring resulting in premature failure
R&R faded interior wood trim: improperly removed trim which damaged fixing clips -- chucked it back together anyway
Replace steering rack bolts: overly liberal application of 'fluid film' goop resulting in drips under car
And a bonus f--kup:
lug bolts tightened using Godzilla's air gun
So, yeah. The car will never, ever, go to a dealer again. I don't care what kind of recall they cook up, I'll just fix it myself. Never. Again.
This is a conundrum.
I am very mechanically inclined, so I can do a lot of light to medium duty maintenance, but I am not set up for any tear down or heavy duty maintenance. I don’t have the technical knowledge on Mercedes products, and I don’t have the expertise it takes to work on them, especially the new ones.
I don’t really have anything close to a shop to do it in either. My dream house would have a 3 bay, 3 lift fully equipped shop.
But let’s get real. Most hopes of that have faded.
Bro you are paying over 100 dollars a shop hour at the stealership. What value do you get for that?
What is your recourse? You can take it back, but they are the ones who botched it in the first place. What better can you expect on a 2nd try?
You almost have to be a very experienced, very knowledgeable Mercedes mechanic, with a fully equipped shop to do it yourself.
Yesterday, 05:15 PM
