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Some more progress. Some filler on the rear quarters after the pull to address the remaining shallow defects. Also some good shots of the Prima DSP amp and connection hardware which is usually hidden.
Minor setback. If the impact is severe enough to fully engage the seat belt tensioners, the belt assemblies and one of the SRS units have to be replaced. $3k - $4k depending on if both sets of belts have to be done. My rears are gone for sure.
Great color match though. Quarter is new paint, door is existing.
Also got the phony C63 diffuser installed. Looks good.
Yeah, Palladium, like any metallic with a lot of "flop", is tough to get to look right in all lighting conditions and from all angles. The way the car has a gold hue in bright sunlight but reads more gray in shade will expose a bad color match pretty dramatically. MB colors tend to be very consistent over production runs so especially on a new car like ours it's pretty easy to get a good match. Just make sure your shop has a down-draft spray booth, or better yet is MB certified.
Yes. Share my pain vicariously and from a safe distance. I'm hoping to show that a heavy hit, while it sucks, is not the end of the world. A good shop with current repair techniques, equipment and training can work wonders.
That sucks. Glad no one was hurt. Looks like it's coming along nicely.
My W204 suffered the same fate. 14K damage after all was done. It was hell trying to sell it later on..
Some guy on EBay. The kit is not perfectly plug and play. The shop had to widen out a couple of the slots on the top inside edge of the diffuser to get a fit. No mods were necessary to the bumper so the original stuff can go back on.
I figured as long as it's been wrecked I may as well have a little fun with it. New wheels too.
Buttoned up, still filthy but at the dealer now getting the fault codes cleared and new wheels mounted. Also getting a new driver's seat upper skin. The original has already worn thru the color (crystal gray) in a small spot.
Needs the badges and rear spoiler. The shop wants to leave them off until they've done the buff out.
I had the insurance company buy the correct diffuser and tips under the claim (and I paid for the C63 clone stuff). I'll pop the OEM stuff back on, including the rims and original run flats, for turn in.
(Although odds are that the independent appraisal service the leasing company sends for the inspection doesn't know or care which bumper goes with which C Class)
Still no C. It was at MB getting all the faults cleared when the engine threw an emissions error. Cracked charcoal canister. They have it on order due Wednesday. Meanwhile, the wreck got me thinking about the fact that my 15 year old daughter's starter car was our 2005 Camry. Nice car but a dinosaur in terms of safety tech. Handled kind of sloppy too. Maybe she should be driving something with a top safety rating like the 205 and I should drive the death trap because I'm old and have so little to live for.
Then I came to my senses and traded the Camry for a 2017 Mazda 3 Grand Touring for her . Also a top safety pick with autonomous braking, lane departure (notification, no correction) adaptive cruise, blind spot detection, adaptive high beams, HUD with sign detection (reads and displays any standard DOT signage), rear cross traffic detection, pretty much all the stuff an inexperienced driver needs to stay out of trouble.
The sales guy had a pic of a customer's 3 that had struck a stationary disabled car at highway speed. (No autonomous braking on that car, although I understand they got it on their replacement 3.) The nose is unrecognizable but everything from the windshield and firewall back is untouched. They walked away.
The 3 is also surprisingly nice inside with heated nappa leather seats, heated steering wheel, navi, back up cam, high end soft touch bits, a really strong audio system, and for a FWD car it's actually fun to drive. The NA 4 banger is a little loud and rough and the ride on 18's is stiff but not punishing. The kid loves it.
The thing was almost $30k since you have to buy literally every other option package to get the safety suite, but that does get you a lot of car.
Big fan of the Mazda3. It's my recommendation for anyone looking for a car in that class and one of my friends bought a fully loaded 3 in 2014, the first year of this body style. It's a great car.
It seems to be in a class a half step above the Sentra, Corolla, Civic, Cruze, Focus etc. Really well done and good driving characteristics. Gotta hand it to Mazda. A few years ago they were close to dead in the US market.
Well the C is at MB getting recoded, a new drivers seat back cushion (premature wear), and the staggered 18" W204 AMG reps. At a 45mm offset (lower than stock by 11mm) and an inch wider in the rears the stance definitely looks more flush. Up front there's only 1mm of difference so no change there. I generally try to stay away from messing with anything up front to avoid vibration issues. The rears are usually safer to play with.
I'm still running the Michelin Pilot Supersports that were on the OEM wheels, so there's some stretch going on (1/2" in each direction) on the wider rims. Once I chew through them I'll replace them with wider tires.
11-04-2016, 04:04 PM
