Here is one you will either enjoy or hate.

I have an '07 ML350. 65,000 miles- very low and gentle miles and in-town driven... it is my wife's car.

Rear shocks leaking and ride getting rougher. Decided to replace the shocks. Took it to my professional European specialty shop. The are honorable and have a lot of work for me previously. They wanted to put on Bilsteins. Installed them 3 days ago. Drove home... felt really good. Parked in garage. Came out yesterday morning to get the paper and saw a spreading pool of shock fluid under both the left and the right shocks. Bummer.

Called the shop and took her in... pool of fluid staining the concrete in front of the front door. No one happy.

Took it back today... for exchange and work under warranty. They got 2 new Bisteins in and the mechanic/tech refused to install them. The top of both shocks have a large diameter silver colored "washer". The Shop manager picked up one to show me. The washer was loose and side down the shaft and into his hand. The other one was a little tighter- you had to touch it to make it slide down. No friggin way did I want them.

They hurried and got a set from the M-B dealer and installed them at no charge. I came home just now and called Bilstein West Coast... talked to the guy in sales since the technical guy was "not in today". He had no idea at all whether parts were supposed to fall off or not. Not much interested in the issue either. I began to tell him what had happened and he basically said he was in sales and didn't have any technical information at all and could not help me with my problem. I told him I understood but thought Bilstein might want to know... he said they were not technically open since it was 4:30pm and he could do nothing for me... I explained I just wanted to know if the top is supposed to fall off... he... hung up.

So, if you want Bilsteins... good luck.

The OEM shock feel good, like the car is supposed to. I just hope they last longer then 65k miles.

Special kudos to Alex Autohaus in Salt Lake City, UT.

p.s. anyone who would like photos of the leaking shock that was less then 24 hours old... send me a PM. Or post here.

p.p.s. If anyone at Bilstein is interested... please try to call me.... or post here.

I will extend every courtesy that was extended to me.

 

Update... A very nice fellow call from the Mothership fairly early this morning. The first thing he said was to apologize for all the trouble this incident has caused. He went on to ask questions, we traded emails with information, I sent photos, etc. He just called back to say he even went to the original engineering drawings of the shock and could confirm that the top thing I called a "washer" is supposed to be crimped onto the top and mine are clearly not right. He was on the path of offering to fix everything until I stopped him and let him know I had no "beef" any longer and that had already been made whole. They handled this well. Good job. Every now and then something slips through at the factory... they are looking into it.

I'm happy.

Case closed.