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So recently a friend gifted away his 2012 W221 to me, after his son crashed it "relatively bad", although it is not totaled.
Here is a pic of when I picked the car up from police's impound, (yes my friend's son made a run for it on foot after crashing against 3 parked cars and left the S-Class behind - he was drunk).
The reason why I decided to fix this car, is because the front of the car is relatively intact. The wheelhouse obviously needs to be cut and soldered in a new one. But I knew that the chassis, specially the chassis leg wasn't bent, or if it was, it wasn't too bad.
So I took the car home, and replaced the whole suspension (only the Airmatic Strut survived, the rest all was damaged, even the brake caliper and the steering knuckled and all of it had to be replaced). This is how the car is looking like now:
I drove the car to the body work shop (3km away from my home garage) and the car "drives", albeit with obvious symptoms of a slight bent frame (such as the ESP triggering under hard braking conditions). The body shop confirmed, upon performing measurements, that the chassis leg is slightly bent (pushed inwards), around 1.5cm. Which has caused the driver's side wheel to be pushed towards the door around 1.5cm, probably causing those issues I felt while driving specially while braking.
The subframe is intact, though.
The body work shop, has assured me that they will pull the chassis leg up to spec and it will be perfectly and safe because the bend is extremely small. Now, I am sure that they can pull it back to measures and probably get the car to drive as good as it did before. But in case of a second accident, will it be as safe?
This is my main concern, I understand that the bend is minimal, but will it affect the safety of the car?
Looking for your opinions and that of experts on frame pulling. Thanks in advanced!
PS: I see many of you are misunderstanding, the repair won't be a backyard repair where some random fella will be beating on the rail and pulling til it looks okay. It is being done at a reputable and licensed body shop in my country, and they have assured me everything will be done in accordance to Mercedes body repair manuals.
Nevertheless I am still slightly worried about the safety.
For it to be totaled the cost of repairing it would have to exceed the value of the car. That car is worth 22K EUR or so, cost of repairs around 6K EUR. So I can't see how it's totaled....
do Mercedes support straightening a bent chassis leg ? in today's world I doubt it - if they don't its very much totalled
that said plenty of eastern Europeans would consider that better than new - buy a bumper wing and bonnet from ebay and crab down the road at too fast a speed for the next 10 years
you will easily find animals r us - that will pull the leg out till is under 5mm wrong and claim they've been doing it for last 45 years and never had an issue - it helps when you just steal a car for spares and another 3 or 4 to get some extra wheels and tyres as they'll wear quickly
do Mercedes support straightening a bent chassis leg ? in today's world I doubt it - if they don't its very much totalled
that said plenty of eastern Europeans would consider that better than new - buy a bumper wing and bonnet from ebay and crab down the road at too fast a speed for the next 10 years
you will easily find animals r us - that will pull the leg out till is under 5mm wrong and claim they've been doing it for last 45 years and never had an issue - it helps when you just steal a car for spares and another 3 or 4 to get some extra wheels and tyres as they'll wear quickly
According to the documents found in Mercedes WIS / ASRA. Yes, they support straightening a bent frame.
Obviously, my car is not being repaired at a Mercedes dealer, rather it is being repaired at a licensed body work, hence my question of whether it will be safe.
This one is simple:
A. If the body shop is correct you have presumambly 16K Euro in Equity in the car. If the car becomes as good as new, you have 16 thousand reasons to believe in its road worthiness and safety.
B. If the body shop is incorrect, and you are uncomfortable with anything, sell the car and take your Euros and go home or find another Sclass that hasn't been wrecked.
Good thing is your can have plan A and use B as your back up.
Lots of negative comments here. It seems EURO 6000 is kind of low estimate for the repair but then, in different countries prices are different, like here in the U.S. this car would be totaled for sure.
If the repair is done correctly I don't see why it would not be as safe as a new car to drive and have another accident in it. If you just replaced the suspension components yourself without bending anything back and was able to drive it to the shop with just some "feel" of problems then the hit was not really that hard and in my opinion bending that 1.5 mm back should not weaken the car structure at all. In fact, lots of steel used in car manufacturing are work hardening steel grades meaning that when you cold work it (bend for example) it becomes stronger. As long as the cold working does not cause crack in the steel it is actually stronger than it was originally made.
If chassis is not bent such cars can be driven as Arrie said but I think I would not buy and drive a car if airbags deployed as a result of collision
Airbags did not deploy. At first I found it hard to believe. But they really didn't. And it's not like they were disabled or anything like that. They check out just fine.
Mercedes quoted around 13K EUR for the repair (still far below the car's market value, so it is not TOTALED).
The reason why I haven't repaired it at the Mercedes dealer, is so that I could buy parts from junkyards from around the world far cheaper than what Mercedes would charge. Thus lowering the costs to around 6K.
If anyone is interested, I am attaching what I have spent so far in parts:
Total comes at 3,735 EUR in parts. I estimate another 2,500 - 3,000 EUR in labor from the body shop.
at 30mm bent it could be nothing if it doesn't have any creases - they are just going to flex in a half hour bit of bodging - if you then get second-hand, wing, bumper bonnet and light unit - especially if they can get the same colour - then 6k is more than enough
in Europe you get those bits for 1800 - the way animals do straightening that's just 100 - he could do it in 5 hours and put 2k in his pocket
at 30mm bent it could be nothing if it doesn't have any creases - they are just going to flex in a half hour bit of bodging - if you then get second-hand, wing, bumper bonnet and light unit - especially if they can get the same colour - then 6k is more than enough
in Europe you get those bits for 1800 - the way animals do straightening that's just 100 - he could do it in 5 hours and put 2k in his pocket
Yeah for sure the leg doesn't have any creases, cracks, whatever, I inspected it myself, and the Mercedes dealer also told me they would not be replacing the frame rail.
I still haven't decided what I'm gonna do, but probably sell the car away and buy another one. Although that too is a risk, cuz you never know if the one you are buying has been repaired the same or worse than this one.
Carfax isn't a thing in Europe, and I'm not even located in some random European 3rd world country. This is "Europe's best"
Well, well, he is heating that High Strength Steel, there's no way that's safe.
Well, nobody can say whether it's safe until the car crashes again, but for sure there's no way the structure of that car is the same as when it came from factory. One just doesn't heat HSS....
the joy of ANY second-hand car purchase - that one is definitely very naughty - he does a Merc rear corner where he ALMOST does a good job - that's quite different - this Beemer is a death trap and he should go to jail and never be allowed to do it again -
The car has been completely repaired. Took it today for wheel alignment...
I guess it isn't factory spec. But the car drivers perfect, even at 180kph... Been told to expect a very slight tire wear on the left side. But shouldn't be a big problem
Did you do a Final all-in cost recap? Hopefully your projections held!
Would you do it again?
Pictures?
The total cost came in around 1K EUR higher than I had hoped for. But keep in mind that this cost recap include some trivial things that don't have very much to do with purely repairing the crash damage (such as new front tires, or a new battery, cleaning the inside, etc etc).
Also keep in mind that the car was painted in whole save for the roof. As the paint job was pretty rough with some deep scratches running from the front fender all the way to the rear! So I decided to do it properly and paint it all.
Photos of the repair will follow in my next post down below.
PS: In the last picture you can see the front bumper is not properly attached, because I lack one AC line which goes from the evaporator all the way to the drier unit, the one that is bolted to the frame leg, and it hasn't arrived yet. So I just put the bumper on to take it for wheel alignment in the mean time that AC line arrives and I will have to remove the bumper again.
Provided this car was virtually gifted to me, it made a lot of sense financially to repair it. Which is why I did it.
On this basis, I would do it again 100% if the chance came. Now, if I would have had to pay 3 or 4K EUR for purchasing this car with that impact.... It would have been a very tough decision, and I probably wouldn't have done it.
I saved a lot of money by using parts from junkyards, yes, you don't always need new stuff. The headlight unit I even imported it from a junkyard in China. (But keep in mind I've lived for over a decade in China and can speak the language, and have my contacts there, so I don't recommend doing this to anyone else).
The car drives fine, no noticeable pull to either side, tested it on the expressway at around 180kph... Smooth ride. Took it to my local track, nothing weird when cornering. (Just a whole lot of understeer, but I guess that's common to all W221, my E63 corners much better, definitely not the W221's level of understeer).
The wheel alignment fella said it wasn't perfect, but not too bad either. He called it "acceptable".
What he feared the most, was some slight tire wear due to the 1 degree difference in camber between left and right.... Only time will tell, but if in the end the tire wear becomes bothersome... I could always install an eccentric bolt kit to adjust the camber/caster and bring it to much less than one degree difference...
PS Anyways.... I'm very happy with this car, and with having completed the project. She is now part of my Mercedes family, and won't be leaving any time soon :P
left front camber - buy the washers (available separately) and grind off the stupid lug on the subframe so u retain the better stronger original bolts - it might bring the castor closer to spec too - one side is usually wrong at build !!! I think you want the arm effectively longer - but double check
Wow. Impressive. I can paint cars, and bolt on fenders but I absolutely despise doing body work. If insurance doesn't pay for it, I would probably have just let the car go.
I do have an Audi that was hit from the side, and I put a used door and new fender on but then the door didn't close and align properly, only would get to 1st latch position. I took it to a body shop to have them adjust it and they put it on the frame rack and pulled the A pillar out. Cost me $900 US which I thought was a fair price. Got new control arms and alignment on the front side that was hit and it drove fine. Carfax is still clean since the insurance didn't get involved. Normally I would have just sold the car for a low price as a project car or mechanic's special, but it belonged to my best friend who passed away so it had sentimental value to me to try and save it as long as I didn't have to spend more than $5000 out of pocket on it. That was my limit and I got it all repaired for less than half of that.
Wow. Impressive. I can paint cars, and bolt on fenders but I absolutely despise doing body work. If insurance doesn't pay for it, I would probably have just let the car go.
I do have an Audi that was hit from the side, and I put a used door and new fender on but then the door didn't close and align properly, only would get to 1st latch position. I took it to a body shop to have them adjust it and they put it on the frame rack and pulled the A pillar out. Cost me $900 US which I thought was a fair price. Got new control arms and alignment on the front side that was hit and it drove fine. Carfax is still clean since the insurance didn't get involved. Normally I would have just sold the car for a low price as a project car or mechanic's special, but it belonged to my best friend who passed away so it had sentimental value to me to try and save it as long as I didn't have to spend more than $5000 out of pocket on it. That was my limit and I got it all repaired for less than half of that.
Yes, from what I can see, unless the car has been taken to an extremely cheapish body shop, or is in very bad shape, they will be able to leave it pretty much to factory spec and get it to drive just fine.
Obviously, I am convinced, that in case of a second crash affecting the same parts that got compromised and repaired, it will probably behave differently, maybe causing further injury to the occupants or maybe not, who knows.... There is no way to know until another crash happens, and let's pray such won't be the case.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure you could crash and repair the frame of one of these Mercedes 10 times and it still would be much safer than many American made cars... so we should be fine (just a joke, don't kill me)
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.
(just a joke, don't kill me)
