Thought I'd do a "quick" oil change with an extractor pump on my father-in-law's e55...

Had to get a breaker bar just to remove the oil filter housing... thought "this is on way too tight, maybe the last guy here didn't lube the gaskets"

... then I saw the carnage. Managed to pick out some of the plastic chunks, but not all.

The e55 has been driving fine, it must have been like this for ~10,000 km I would guess.



Last oil change he went to one of the drive-in and out shops.

Normally I buy OEM, but have an amazon replacement arriving tomorrow.

 

Perform the oil change one's self. Just say "No" to the drive-in and out shops. No way I would trust either of my E55s to a 10-minute oil change shop.

 

Too many nitwits armed with air hammers. A friend's son managed one of these express oil change franchises. He said the average tenure of an employee is 6 weeks -- just long enough to learn that they had been doing everything wrong for the first 5 weeks.

 

Shouldnt that filter above have the string wrapped around it? I'm getting ready to change the oil in my W204 with M272 engine and think it uses the same oil filter. I'll be draining it since I want to go underneath and inspect everything anyways.

I dont trust anyone else working on my car.

I had a tire pressure sensor battery die so I bought a new sensor and took it down the street to a local tire shop to have swapped out. Charged me $20 which I thought was reasonable for 10 minutes work. The next weekend I went to replace the sway bar links and I could not get two of the wheel bolts off they were on so tight. Ended up needing a 3' piece of pipe over my breaker bar to get them loose. I never had wheel bolts on that tight ever. Awhile later another sensor died so I swapped it out myself using a floor jack to push the tire from the rim.

Last summer I had 4 new tires installed at a Monroe Tire. The appointment schedule was a nightmare in itself. When they finally drove my car in the bay I noticed they opened the hood, I ran over to the guy and asked what they were doing where he said it was a complimentary check, I said no thank you please close the hood and just do the tires. I'm **** with only using MB spec fluids I dont want them adding mystery fluids in there. After the tires were installed im driving home and the ride felt extremely hard, tire pressure warning popped up on the dash. They had the tires at 50psi when the label on the door frame clearly says 30psi front 35psi rear. Easy enough fix. Got home and was cleaning the rims they were filthy and noticed they broke two center caps and glued them in. They never bothered to tell me. That is shady.

I work on my MB quit alot since its a 2010 with over 150,000 miles on it. I keep a 1/2" torque wrench in the trunk for reinstalling the wheel bolts. I would always hand tighten the oil filter housing cap by hand but bought a filter cap just to see exactly how tight I was getting it on, turns out it is pretty close to the torque spec.

 

I buy tires exclusively at Discount Tire -- it's the only tire shop I've ever seen use air hammers set to low, and use a torque wrench to finish. It's the only shop I let touch my vehicles.