Hello everyone!

I'm a long time Bimmer guy, who has recently defected over to the Mercedes-Benz side of things for a bit! I'm very active on M5Board and 5-Series.net with many DIY's and YouTube videos documenting my repairs and services. I'm a hobbyist / borderline Bimmer Tech! I'm hoping I'll be able to contribute to this forum as well, as I explore my new to me 2001 ML430.

I purchased the car two days ago from the 3rd owner. She's in fair condition outside and good condition in, but with many little issues that I suppose added up to the previous owner deciding to sell. All in all, I took her home for $3800 with just 100K miles on the clock. This is supposed to be my budget build daily driver for bad weather and knocking about. So, I'm trying to keep all the MX on a shoestring!

The car has the 3rd row seating option, Navigation, front and rear push guards and side running rails. It even had LCD's in the headrests (lol...). Other than that, it also came with:

A passenger seat that didn't move/work (fixed $free$ - found a cable unplugged under the seat!)

A driver side door pocket that had separated and fallen into the door (fixed $free$ - a little Gorilla Glue went a long way!

A passenger side wing mirror missing it's plastic cover (fixed $free$ - car came with yet-to-be installed LIGHTED replacements, lol. Now I'm signaling in style! )

A passenger side broken cupholder (also fixed free, more gorilla glue lol)

Wet front passenger and driver floorboards (fixed free - driver side and passenger side sunroof drains were gunky, cleared them with my dish soap / weed whacker filament / compressed air combination attack!)

And that's after just my first day of having her!

My keyfob is still not working, even after the relearn procedures... kinda pissed. Probably not the AAM, since my high beams and dash all work. So yeah.. gonna look into that in the future.

Now, I'm on to mechanical issues.

Engine has a bunch of oil caked on it, high up, just behind the fan. Something leaking up top. Any guesses? I'm going to powerwash so I can hopefully track down the origin easier.

Also, the car feels loose at high speeds (65+). There is yaw coming from the steering, and it takes two hands on the wheel to feel comfortable. Almost feels like the car is toed way out, where it's unstable in turns. Feels like standing on a beach ball. I'm guessing a loose control arm or the like, even though I have no noises present.

Anyways, pleasure to join you guys! Will be seeing you all on the forums!

 

Congrats and welcome!! Sounds like your skills will come very much in hand with this project 430.

Pics when you get a chance!

 

Will do! Its been rainy / snowy here since I've got her . When the good weather rolls around, I'll have a few.




Threw the serpentine belt yesterday on the highway! Steering went dead in the middle of an on-ramp, thought I was going to pull a Senna! Man this thing has heavy power steering, I was prepared to take the truck off and stop straight ahead, but once the BATT light came on, I knew I had kicked a belt and muscled the steering wheel through the turn. Kinda messed up that the steering actually felt better at speed than when I had power steering, I think my rack is giving up the ghost.


Anyways, new belt, new Tensioner. I think all the gunk on there from the previous owner had soaked the old belt, and I was actually going to pick one up on the way home anyway, when it kicked! Motor is cleaned and washed down, so hopefully I can trace the leak.


Some have suggested it may be a leaking oil cooler or expansion bolt, any of this sound familiar?


Thanks all!