Anyone ever dealt with rebuild MasterTech? I'm gonna have to give them two thumbs down. I ordered 2 rebuilt front air struts for my CLS55 AMG and right from the start there was an issue where they lost my order and it was delivered to an incorrect address, an Amazon sorting facility 3 towns over. After dealing with a very rude customer service lady, who refused to replace the order until UPS conducted an investigation, leaving me with no suspension parts for up to 30 days while they try and find the item they lost, this should have been all the red flags I needed to not do business with them. Why should I have to wait for them to figure out the mess they caused, simply replace my order you lost ASAP.
. Eventually, 2 weeks later I got my order and installed them.
From the very first day they simply did not sound right. They rattled over small bumps or when the suspension was unloaded then reloaded like when going over a speed bump. The best way to describe it was the sound it would make of you had forgotten to tighten the top strut tower bolts. A very noticable clunking. Keep in mind my entire front suspension is all new, I replaced everything and the struts were 100% the issue.
They did agree to warranty them for a full refund and not a replacement which I found odd. If you read the email correspondence you can see towards the end where they basically tell me they do not "rebuild" the struts, they simply replace the airbag portion. So in theory you can receive a new airbag on a clapped out 300,000 mile strut.
So anyway I put my old Arnotts in after greasing them to make the noise that they made quiet down, packed up the RMTs and returned them a week prior to Thanksgiving. I was supposed to be refunded Wednesday the 23rd of November. I have not received the refund nor have they responded to my emails.
I was forced to contact my credit card company and file a dispute which hopefully they are able to get my funds back, cause as of now RMT has my money and the struts. I'm basically $h!t out of luck at this point.
Have a read through my messages with them and be the judge if I'm being overly demanding as a customer. This post is just to explain my interactions with this company, I'm sure others have had great experiences. Do what you will with this information.

 

Why wouldn't you just buy new? The Arnotts are a great price and you are receiving a quality product. It would have saved you all that headache plus tax. I'm curious, what do/did they charge for this?

I'm trying to follow why you decided to rebuild? Sometimes when it comes to these sorts of things, it's better to beat on your wallet than your head. My .02

 

They were $629 for the pair as opposed to each. However Arnotts are also dog **** and I'm not gonna skimp this time and just get the Bilstiens.
Arnotts also do not rebuild their struts and their new ones make noise on multiple different platforms.
I already had a set of Arnotts in the car that made a knocking noise when the wheel was turned. And they wouldn't warranty them cause I couldn't find a proof of purchase. so screw them also. All these companies are scams.

 

Best of luck, man, so many companies out there screwing people left and right in this industry - hell, every industry!

 

Your Arnotts are knocking and the Master Techs are also knockking? Are you sure that the noise is coming from the struts?
I removed airmatic on all my Benzes and have no regrets...

 

I replaced everything up front with the exception of the sway bar, and upper control arm bushings . The Arnotts you could feel and hear and audible knock as you turned the wheels. They were binding inside. The RMT sounded like a bad strut would sound over bumps, loose and rattles. I'm kinda exhausted chasing these noises up front.

 

I'm almost at that point. What did you do to alleviate all the warning lights once all the suspension was unplugged??

 

I changed the variant coding on some control units. I think it was instrument cluster, control unit for light adjustment and central gateway.Nothing complicated really, you just need Xentry

 

customer service is a foreign concept to these guys.

 

You ain't kidding. At this point it's straight up theft/fraud. They took my money and I don't even have a product to show for it. They STILL haven't responded to my emails. I should have known if it's too good to be true it usually is. I'm just hoping my credit card company can recoup the money.

 

Do you miss the air suspension? And which coilovers did you opt for? I see some require new rear control arms and some don't.

 

those $149 ebay front coils are real nice at least first impressions

no joke

 

One of the things I love about the E55 is the air suspension. I realize that it is expensive to maintain and frustrating at times. I have spent quite a bit replacing almost everything in the system, but I still love the "on the fly adjustability". I drive in various conditions and road types, so that adjustment is used frequently.

I actually work for a well know German performance suspension company. We make coilovers, including ones for the W211. I still kept the AIrmatic even though I could have converted at a very attractive cost. For those that cannot afford to maintain the system, I would suggest not going for the eBay coilover solution. They may look good in the photos, but any coilover set that retails for under $600 would cost about $50 to produce. You are not going to receive a quality product for that type of production cost. I know that BC is very popular for our application, but I have not been super impressed with they build quality and damping from what I have seen.

 

love my airmatic...even though i road race my car, 99% of my driving is on road driving and instant lift is well needed with all the speed bumps and oddly high driveways that i see daily. not once have a i scraped the bottom of my car over a speed bump when I did use the lift button.

 

Never once have i looked back.
I have Bilstein B4 and Eibach springs on my E220, which i have driven around 130000km on this setup. My E55 is on H&R Monotubes coilovers and my CLS500 has Sachs oem shocks and H&R lowering springs.If you go with around 30mm lower, it's perfectly fine for daily driving. The H&R monotubes are very stiff and not the best for daily driving i'd imagine, but very nice for sporty driving.

 

When I got my 2007 E63 back in 2017, little did I know just how much work I would be committing to in my efforts at making my E63 “good as new”. After removing the Heads to be rebuilt by Xtreme Heads in Palm City, Fl as well as removing the Intake Manifold to be rebuilt by RMT in Pompano, Fl., things just completely snowballed from there! I have mentioned in other posts the extent to which I have repaired/replaced parts, so I will not repeat myself here. However, as it pertains to RMT, not only did they do a splendid job in rebuilding my IM where they installed their beefy Throttle Body Plenum (A service they don’t offer anymore!) but they also repaired both my front Airmatic Struts and rear Airmatic Struts as well. That said, I’ll admit I have had a few issues but RMT has honored their Warranty well beyond what others might! For example, back in the Spring of 2018 after I had reinstalled both Heads as well as the whole front Suspension including a new Airmatic Compressor, it had been several months since I had originally picked up the “repaired” front struts as it took a while for me to order parts before and after removal of the Heads and put everything back together for the first time working on such an impressive engine! As I was getting ready to lower the car back from its Jack stands, I noticed the Driver front Air Strut was leaking Oil? I called them and explained the issue, that I was rebuilding the car myself etc., and they said to bring it back in for the tech to look at. So I did and the Tech, in this case was the Son of the owner, informed me that once the Air bag starts to leak hydraulic fluid, that there was nothing they could do to “repair” that. I was momentarily taken aback thinking I would have to splurge for a “New” Strut and he put me at ease by explaining that they would of course still honor the warranty but that it may take them a while to get a “doner”. It took them inside a week to get a replacement back to me.

Fast forward to March 2020, right at the beginning of the COVID/CPC Virus Scare, I had a Rear Main Seal Leak that was wreaking havoc by producing Oil Mist emanating from both the weep hole at the bottom side of the tranny but also the top passenger side where there is a slot from which the mist had falsely given me the impression I had an EVAP leak from the back of the engine as it coated my newly installed “Catch-Can” hoses with oil? That mist would also coat the exhaust pipe causing plumes of white smoke whenever I would come to a stop! I had been ordering/Compiling parts for the past year for the entire rear Suspension, Subframe, Driveshaft Discs, Tranny Mount, Hubs, rotors, brakes etc., so I had decided that now would be the time to undertake that marathon build. I had removed the entire subframe from the car, so it was a couple months since I had removed the rear Air Struts. Upon installation, they “looked OK”, but it was only when I had rebuilt everything and was using the STAR/Xentry to give a base level PSI to the rear struts when I noticed one of the Air Struts was deformed in the shape of a banana! Moreover, that front driver side Strut was leaking! Once again, I brought it them both back to RMT and they “honored” the warranty no problem.

Fast forward to present day, I just had to remove the TCM from the Tranny as I had been been getting an Output Gear Code which resulted in my tranny sometimes not reading the proper gear whenever I used the paddle shifters. This would cause for the car to remain in the gear it was last in, no matter how slow you ended up at. If I managed to get to a stop light and turn the ignition Off/On then most times it would reset, and I’d be ok. However, if I tried to shift to Neutral, then it would stay in Neutral and the OFF/On would usually reset. However, I eventually ended up stranded on the side of the road (ie-my Reset procedure wasn’t working!) whereupon I had to get my car towed. Once up on the stands, after removing the TCU, I noticed that once again, the front driver side strut was leaking Oil? Interestingly, when using STAR/XENTRY to release air from the driver strut, (I also lowered Air pressure from all the other struts as I do whenever the car is to be off the ground on stands) I noticed that when I manually released as much air as possible from the Driver Side, I had double-checked the pressure reading and it showed that the driver Strut was still full, however the passenger was fully depleted? This is perplexing because until this moment, it had been able to be filled/released via STAR no problem! It had been working just fine for the past year and a half, well past the first time I had brought it in back in 2018, and still they “honored” their warranty. I explained that there may be an issue with the sensor, but that I was still confused with why the passenger side was the side that actually released air when I had directed STAR to release from the Driver Side? STAR/Xentry showed no codes? Nevertheless, I should be receiving it tomorrow as we just had celebrated Christmas. It may be due to the fact that I come in personally and show them the pics I had taken during the process coupled with the fact that they know I am proficient enough to know when there really is a problem backed up by either video or pictures of the STAR/Xentry, but I have found they have been more than generous in honoring their warranty!

 

So what I got from that post was: in 3 years your RMT struts failed 3 times.🤷🏻‍♂️

 

local florida man gets better service than out of state customers over the phone

​not surprising

 

The fact that they are honoring warranty is great, however I would prefer not to install and uninstall my struts 15 times in a few years. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Well you have to understand that RMT doesn’t remanufacture the struts, they “Rebuild” them, as even their name “Rebuild Master Tech” implies. They have gone above and beyond their legal requirements to honor their service to me! And for that, I certainly am not whining about it! I understand they do their best, but when it comes to the inner hydraulic seal being seated on a smooth surface, it is beyond their scope to resurface the inner part of the strut, and I understand that. Perhaps that is why they chose to honor there services to me as I never once *****ed and moaned to them, only learned from them during the process along with my showing them pics and video of my interface with STaR/Xentry whenever I had an issue in my effort to prove to them the issue I was having was “fact” based.

I guess if your not willing to save a few bucks using their services then you always have the option of buying new from Mercedes, unless you are one of those who care not for the OEM Airmatic “on-the-fly” adjustment functionality and would rather give that up by purchasing an inferior copy, I think you know what Co. I mean here, in which case maybe you should swap to a Coil Spring? Good luck trying to convince a would be buyer of that being an upgrade, however!