Unobtainium mined from the moons of Pandora to be exact.

 

Time for an Indy shop or DIY.

 

will likely try DIY... anyone done this?

 

For those who may think this is BS... Here is the text I received...
"Good morning, the technician found in fact that the engine mounts on your vehicle are collapsed, causing the jolting when braking your wife described to me. The replacement of the engine mounts will run you $3,884.19. Please let me know how to proceed."

So at this time I don't even know if the mounts are truly collapsed... my wife is out of town and had a CEL and took the GLE to a dealer...

Their average shop rate is $295 per hour... unbelievable

 

That's such a vague, curt and odd way to reply to a concern. Without a doubt get a second opinion.

 

Doesn't seem *too* hard. Time consuming probably. Engine lifting bracket needs to be thought through. The MB engine support tool allows proper balancing. A rented engine hoist would need a threaded adjustable spreader bar, which is relatively common.

The majority of the work is getting other parts out of the way to get to the engine mounts.

If I was doing this I would start at 5pm on a Friday with the goal of having it buttoned up by 7pm Sunday.

 

You can check on the mounts from inside the vehicle with the hood up and the vehicle running. Hold down brake at the same time hit the gas while it's in D and do the same in R. If the motor lift up it's bad mounts.

I usually buy OEM motor/trans mount online and install it myself or take it to an indy shop (friend shop) with the parts depends on how I'm feeling that day. It be allot cheaper then the dealer to take the parts to an indy shop.

I have replace my motor and trans mount on my old M113 (5.0L V8) around 100k miles. My GLE400 I have under 78k miles and my original mounts are still good.

 

I had my E class for another recall this month and they always make "courtesy safety inspection"
This time they found my brake pads at 8 mm. When I notified the SA that those are the same pads that a year ago were noted at 3mm, he had no comments.
So always verify what stealers say.
Coming to DIY, the job is not for just anybody. Over the years I did MM on at least 5 different MB and the jobs scope can be on quite different levels.
Just weeks ago I did MM on my E250 BT. When the driver side was child's play, the passenger side required DPF removal.
I had "some practice" with DPF , but even with lift that was 1/2 a day job.

 

Well, I tested my motor mounts via the put in drive and rev to 2,000 with brake on and no extreme movement in the engine, so now I am really PO'd at the dealer.

I am thinking of sending a note to MBUSA...

Stealership for sure

 

Engine mounts start to fail in a subtle way. Normally more vibration is felt at idle, but no major engine movement or clunking is experienced. The subtle failure is the hydraulic passages cracking or tearing, but the weight-carrying aspect of the mount remains intact. Technically "failed" but not catastrophically. Dealers will take any opportunity to charge for service work given the slightest reason, for example a subtly failed engine mount.

 

Are you 'pissed' at them for trying to make money off you? Well, now you know not to trust them I hope. Lesson learned, don't beat yourself up about it.

 

my wife was at our family house in South Florida and they tried to take advantage of a simple situation. I'm pissed because I would have expected them to be leaning more honest than sleazy.

 

I feel as if the SA's at 98% of dealers are, not necessarily sleaze as you say, but willing to compromise their social/moral contracts to make their own bills and 'look good' in the company's eyes. And always figure MB customers 'have the money'.

 

This has to be coincidence. Just returned from the Indy.

Sister just picked up the 2012 ML350 (M276 engine), and our Indy told us (I took her to pick up the car) to start thinking about engine mounts (tires were 1st priority) for the next oil change or two max. (we do 5K miles intervals).

Estimate for 2 engine mounts plus tranny mount ~ $1200+ (including all the typical fees). Therefore, anything above $2K is robbery.

===

Thank you @chassis for posting the procedure documentation. I was ready to look for it. It saved me already some time. Need to think it through for either the 2015 ML (when the time comes), or if I volunteer to do the 2012 ML

 

I know this is an older thread, but wanted to share my experience with swapping out the two engine mounts and the transmission mount on a 2016 GLE with rear wheel drive and V6 engine at ~110K miles. I had been experiencing increasing vibrations over the past 6+ months, and the MB service manager diagnosed it as failing engine mounts without even looking at it (just with the engine idling) - so it's clearly a common and easily recognized issue at this age/mileage with these cars. Anyway, they quoted $2,600 for the job so I figured it was worth attempting this myself as the 3 parts were a little over $200 total (Febi Bilstein through FCP Euro). I'm glad I did, and the vibrations are gone (as in you cannot feel the engine idling at all from the driver's seat). No special tools needed other than metric and e-torx (E10 and E12 specifically) sockets and some extensions. Took about 4 hours, nice and slow.

Engine mounts:
There are 3 bolts per mount, one at the top and two at the bottom. By removing the air filter intake on the passenger side and the ECM on the driver side you will (should) have enough access from the top of the engine bay to unbolt the top bolts (I did this before jacking up the car). But first you have to remove the metal shields that sit right above each mount. They are held in place by 3 E10 bolts that can all be accessed from the top, just use the right extensions (I didn't have to use a wobble/joint, but it may help). After unbolting it takes a fair amount of wiggling to get the shields out, but it's doable (driver's side is a pain, and you could remove the EMC bracket to make more room, I didn't).

Once the shields are out of the way, the top engine mount bolts (16mm?) are accessible from the top and come out fairly easily. Once those are out you need to go under the car (put on jack stands, remove belly pan) and remove the two E12 torx bolts per mount - all are easily accessible with the right extensions and angle. I then carefully jacked up the engine by supporting the oil pan with a ~12 inch long 2x6 board (flat against the oil pan), making sure the board was about the length of the pan but not obstructing anything around it. Start slowly and see how far you need to go in order to unseat the mounts - you sort of have to lift them up and sideways (this makes sense once you see what the new ones look like with the subframe seating tabs on either end). The driver's side mount comes out through the bottom relatively easily (you may have to jack the engine up a little more to make room - I went far enough so that the top of the engine barely touched the underside of the cowl, making sure no AC or coolant lines were overstretched). The passenger side mount is a bit more painful - from my assessment there wasn't enough room to get it out through the bottom, it had to come up and out through the cavity next to the engine (where the air filter intake usually sits). I think other instructions have suggested to remove the alternator to make room, which will definitely make it easier, but I managed to finagle it out with the alternator in place - it took a bit of twisting and turning, kind of like that PITA metal shield on the driver's side.

Now that both old mounts are out it's time to put in the new ones, just in reverse. Passenger side goes in from the top; driver's side from the bottom. Because the new mounts are not compressed/collapsed like the old ones likely are, expect to spend some time coaxing them into position. I was able to do it without removing any additional parts as long as the engine was jacked up enough. Note the difference between the left and right mount, they are mirrored in design. There is a small tab at the top of the mount that aligns with the slot in the engine bracket, so the mounts only go in one way. The two tabs at the bottom of each mount slot them into place on the subframe. Thread the bolts in without tightening, both top and bottom - this will help align things as you start slowly lowering the engine, little by little. Unless you were able to jack up the engine perfectly straight, you may find it doesn't lower into place perfectly and you may have a hard time aligning the top bolts. For me, the engine was slightly tilted towards the passenger side so that mount aligned fine with the top bolt, the driver's side was a bit of out whack until the engine was almost all the way down - it clicked into place for me, YMMV. Check that the small tabs on the top of the mounts are aligned to the slot in the engine bracket, and you should be good to go and the top bolts should go in. Tighten all the bolts, I'm sure somebody can look up the proper torque specs but they were not very hard to get off so I just snugged them up by feel (don't judge). Re-install the metal shields, which are a little tricky to get back into position, and the bolts take a minute to align to the holes, but just be patient with it. Re-install the ECM and the air intake, and you're done with the engine mounts.

Transmission mount:
A walk in the park compared to the engine mounts. With the car still on stands, locate the transmission mount to the rear of the transmission oil pan. You may not have to remove the rear/transmission belly pan, as I think you can access everything you need without taking it off (I did anyway before I realized). I have seen some instructions where the mount is swapped out without removing the cross member, but given how relatively easy it is to do (about 10-12 16mm bolts) and how it gives you much better access to the 4 E12 bolts that's holding the mount in place, I chose to remove the cross member.

Before any of that, start by supporting the transmission with a jack. I chose the point directly on the rear side of the transmission mount. No need to put any pressure on the transmission, just raise the jack enough to hold the transmission where it is so that when you remove the cross member it stays put. Remove all the cross member bolts and the two nuts securing the mount to the cross member (they should all be 16mm). Put the cross member out of the way. Then undo the four E12 bolts holding the mount to the transmission, and install the new one with the same four bolts (remember the angled tabs go towards the front of the car). Re-install the cross member and the two nuts to the mount, and you're done.

All in all, a lot less intimidating than I thought it would be and a huge improvement. The old engine mounts were completely shot (the rubber piece was rattling around inside both of them), while the transmission mount still seemed ok (but worth doing preventatively given low cost and ease of replacement).

 

vsa,
Great Post!!!!