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This is more for myself to try to keep a running tally of things that I do along the way, but feel free to add comments and criticism.
I picked up my 2010 GL550 with just over 110k miles on it, and just ticked over 118k yesterday after a 3000+ mile road trip. What better to shake down a new purchase, right? I did have to put new rear tires on before I left - they had hit JUST low enough that it wasn't passing NY State inspection based on the picky nature of most places around. But either way, put two cheap tires on the rear, and pleasantly surprised for it. Went with Lexani LX-Twenty All-Seasons from Amazon. Mainly because they were cheap, and they're only a 320 treadwear rating, but tossing them straight into that many miles, not a peep from them, and no noticeable tread wear yet. Granted, it's only been 4k miles with them on it, But for half the price of new Continentals, they seem to be doing ok in the meantime. If anyone's curious: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B075G5PGNS
As of yet, still nothing else broken! Everything still works as it should (left 3rd row seat needs help going up and down, feels like it's skipping teeth as it moves, so I'll replace that sometime but for now, I rarely do that anyway). Had no issues on the drive, and I used a twin size inflatable air mattress with the rear rows folded down, for the couple times mid-drive that I needed to nap. And pleasantly, the mileage wasn't too bad either. 95%+ highway driving helps.
Nothing on the horizon for me yet, other than still debating the head unit upgrade.
125k miles - had the windshield replaced.This after a new battery on 6/21/19 which seems to have solved most of an intermittent electrical issue - as of yet still no for-sure diagnosis on that, but it hasn't recurred since.
And today, I finally learned the trick to pairing my Android phone (Galaxy S10 5G). I do have the Media Plus in the glovebox, but I couldn't track down how to make it actually stream music or calls. Then I stumbled across a youtube video about it, showing that you have to actually go to the playlist section and so on. Magically, that does work for sound, and even the steering wheel controls and Command unit respond. I have title, artist, album info, and Next/Prev buttons work, both in regular music apps and Pandora. I also discovered that I can connect the phone to the COMMAND bluetooth (not the module) to act for phone calls. Made a test call on the way home, and it paused my music, was able to make the call, and upon ending, the music automatically started back up.
So in one fell swoop, have basically negated the need for convincing myself to get a new head unit.
Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it could be. Little guy(gal?) started to bolt the other direction, and I was already in stopping mode, and then nope, back out in front of me, clipped the passenger side front corner. Busted the bumper cover and flare piece on the corner, cracked a small piece of the bumper bracket, and caused the ballast mounting tabs to sheer off. This had the added fun of suddenly causing a Low Beam out message on my way to work as the ballast vibrated loose and fell into the bumper on my way to work. I was able to fish it out on my break here, so tomorrow I'll see about getting that put back in place and secured somehow, and then source a replacement bumper cover. Not worth the deductible, but annoying for sure.
It's the time of year for deer on the roads. Glad no one was hurt.
I ran over a large doe at 55mph with a Touareg. Blew the driver's airbag and was almost $10k in front end repairs. The county Sheriff offered me the deer carcass, but not having proper field dressing gear or refrigeration due to it being en route to a fishing trip, and it being 80 degrees the next day, I declined.
It's the time of year for deer on the roads. Glad no one was hurt.
I ran over a large doe at 55mph with a Touareg. Blew the driver's airbag and was almost $10k in front end repairs. The county Sheriff offered me the deer carcass, but not having proper field dressing gear or refrigeration due to it being en route to a fishing trip, and it being 80 degrees the next day, I declined.
yeah, I blasted one head-on on the highway last year, completely obliterated the front end of the Dodge Caliber I was driving. First deer I had ever hit in 28 years of driving, where there was actual damage. Guess I was saving up lol. But this one just more made me angry since it was so incidental, the deer was an idiot, and I still have damage to deal with.
Unfortunately, I remounted the ballast and nothing. The bulb is fine, I swapped side to side yesterday, and this morning, epoxied the mounting tabs back to the housing and mounted the ballast back in place. It just seems to hiss every couple seconds, and really does seem more like an air hissing sound than a buzz, but either way, no light yet. I'm hoping maybe I'll have enough time in the morning to try to swap the driver's side over and see if that does it, but man they have these lights in there something fierce lol. Onwards we continue.
Well what a pain that was. I ordered a replacement ballast - got lucky and found one on ebay that was identical to what mine was, right down to the sw versions and whatnot. And.. didn't make a difference. Still just the slight "fzzzzzz" sound every couple seconds. So here's what I discovered:
When I epoxied the old screw standoffs back to the assembly, they fit very snug back in place. However, for whatever reason, they did NOT allow the ballast to fully seat, it was "out" by about 1/6th, maybe 1/8th of an inch. You could just see the hint of orange of the seal peeking around. But since the standoffs were locked right where they came from, there was no further down it could go. That confused me, quite. Well, when I went to take off the headlight again tonight, the epoxy broke away and plunk! goes the old ballast back to the bumper., Ugh, fine, whatever. So I pull the headlight assembly out, and try to fiction-press the new ballast in place. No dice. No matter how hard I press, or wiggle, or anything, it would not fully seat into the socket. I tried holding it down while the car was on, nothing. But still, even full pressure, I couldn't hold it all the way in. Finally, I pulled the old one back out, and shoved it in. It did fully seat, and wouldn't you know, bam, the light came back on. So then the struggle became how to hold it in position, when the standoffs were broken off again, and they wouldn't allow it to fully seat when they were in place anyway. Solution? just use a couple longer screws, and literally screw the ballast into the housing itself, where the standoffs used to mount. Drilled a couple tiny pilot holes, and used about a 1" screw on each mounting hole, to draw the ballast back down tight. While it probably would've drawn the new one fully down, I knew the old one was working fine, and I can return the one I bought (rare these days on ebay transactions). Finally got it back together, and lord it's a miracle! I have fully functioning headlights again.
Except the parking bulb broke in the process. Go figure. But at least I won't get pulled over if that isn't working, not right away anyway. No one ever notices that one on as it is. Now I just need to order the replacement bumper and get it scheduled for paint.
And following the trend of things never staying sorted after I think I've gotten there - red battery light came on today just as I got to work. Go figure. Battery is brand new as of what, 6 months ago now? So I'll have to try to find my meter and see if it's the alternator. In a way, I hope that's all it is. I can change that fine, and it'll be a lot cheaper than dealer investigation into a SAM module somewhere. Guess we'll see how it goes when I leave work tonight - IF I can leave work tonight.
The Lexani's lasted about 15k or so, and still have probably another 5-10k left, but the remainder of the Contis on the front were gone, so I've swapped them out for a set of 18" wheels with blizzaks (and that was a chore due to mis-stamped wheels and such, I had another thread on that elsewhere). It's kind of a trade-off. I think the Conti's or any of the standard replacements would last about twice as long, but at about twice the cost. So it's a matter of mileage, really. For someone that only uses one 10-15k a year, it might be worth it to go with the cheaper tires, and replace them every year and a half. But I usually put closer to 25-30k a year. I'm hoping I can get two seasons out of the Lexani's again, swapping out for winter rubber each winter. The ride was totally fine, no noise, no weird balancing issues or anything, and it's a little easier to drop 7-800 on a set than it is to watch 2k go out of the wallet each time lol
Finished up the alternator replacement this morning after going to pick up the 2nd one from the parts store. 135k mile mark on the original, and this replacement is an identical one to the one that came off it. The first replacement was physically the same but the connections on the back were in different places. Maybe it's a good thing I screwed up and broke it when installing that one? But either way, so far, so good. Started the car up and with the exception of 17 fault codes, I'm getting a full 14 volts again when running.
, which came in happily a week earlier than expected. The place I got it from had put new pads and rotors on, about 40k miles ago or so. I noticed though, I was feeling something rough for some reason, and found that there were some grooves being worn into the driver's side rotor, and to a lesser extent the passenger. Not sure exactly what caused it, but I did notice they seem to line up with the drilled holes in the rotor, so I'm thinking dust/dirt got packed into them and caused extra wear into the pads and such. Either way, now we're back to bright and shiny, and smooth stopping. If they don't last any longer than the others, I might see about giving regular rotors a shot instead of slotted, but we'll see. At least it was relatively easy, other than the upper caliper bracket bolt on the passenger side needing some major persuasion.
163k miles - Transfer case replaced at a local garage. Noticed a couple months ago that if I really got on it off the line, it gave a nasty crunching sound seemingly from the front driver's side area. Didn't happen under normal use, and as I'm working from home these days, it wasn't getting driven much at all so I didn't bother too much until it happened again on much lighter acceleration. Hoped it was a bearing or CV shaft but nope. Unfortunately I didn't find any more information about the chain replacement until after my $2200 bill (1500 for the transfer case with warranty, labor, oil change, and mounting two tires I had previously ordered elsewhere). At least I know that if it ever happens again, I can save a massive portion of that money by rebuilding it myself, assuming I want to deal with the work. Kind of getting over working on cars lately lol. Considering the mileage, and that I've put 50k on it, I can't really complain too much about the cost in the grand scheme of ownership.
I just mounted 4 new Yokohama Geolander XC-V G057 on my new to me 2012 GL550
295/40R21's. I will report how they perform in Minnesota winters.
How are the Yokohama tires handling winter weather? I will need a set either towards the end of the summer or next year. Set on the Geolandars but looking for feedback on their performance in cold and light snow (1-5").
and am very pleased with handling and comfort. Good tread wear rating and the price is right. Have a set on my Chevy truck for the past 20K and they are an excellent tire for the price.
166925 miles on the clock, replaced the air compressor this afternoon. It had started giving the Airmatic / Up Arrow message on the dash a couple weeks ago, though I don't get to drive it much. Since I still have a cracked open corner of the bumper cover on that side, coupled with the air inlet hose having been absolutely destroyed from age and brittleness, I figure it probably introduced some dust or dirt into the pump causing it to finally give up. 167k miles though, not too bad for the original pump. Had a moment of concern that it seemed to raise but not lower when testing, but turns out it didn't like that while the door was open. Soon as I hopped in and closed the door, right back to perfect. Went on a half hour drive, no more message and all seems to work well.
Haven't really had much to report in the last...geez, year and a half? Then again working from home nowadays has cut down on travel needs. 185k now, no additional failures in the last 20k. I do need an alignment though, I can hear some excessive tire noise right-front, so probably whacked a pothole good somewhere. It's actually needed one for basically ever, I just haven't gotten around to it. Will this spring though, the extra noise is annoying. Yeah the cost of tires more often is also annoying but I'd rather buy tires twice as long and not hear the rubber meeting the road lol.
But installed a Tekonsha P3 controller today, in prep of picking up a Travel Trailer tonight after work. I much rather would've had the RF but I bought the camper on Saturday and today was my only window to go pick it up before the next storm rolls in and I couldn't get an RF in time. As it was, I had to splice into my connector wiring under the dash because thanks to Amazon/UPS ineptitude, my plug-n-play adapter cable won't show up until Friday. Figures.
Should be an interesting trip. 32' trailer, 7000 lbs dry with 600 lbs tongue weight, 100 miles from home through the hills. I did tow an equipment trailer and small Kubota last year to trench for some electric, I think total was 6000lbs-ish with that package which went with no hiccups, so I expect this to go as well, though a little more windage to worry about. Oh, and it's sub-20 degrees out right now, so yay? The other trailer had some sort of on-board automatic brake controller (or so the rental place assured me), though I also had no lights either after they assured me that they were working (they gave me the thumbs up when they hooked me up, I should've physically walked back and looked because I had nothing for lights), so I don't even know if the trailer brakes on that worked, but I decided I definitely would add a controller for this one. I only plan on moving this thing once to the house, but still, cheap insurance I guess.
With 7k lbs dry weight, you will likely be over the vehicle's rated towing limit when the TT gets loaded with bedding, kitchen gear, luggage, grill, etc etc. Not the best practice in the world but it seems you have made the decision. Consider others and drive in the right lane at a sensible speed. Sorry to be that guy.
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 S Is Extremely Rare Example Modified by McLaren
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
