Last weekend I took my car out for a drive and did several pulls from dead stop. After the 3th or 4rd pull I noticed shimming/vibration in the gas pedal and steering wheel past 40mph. At first I thought it was wheel balance or something.

I brought the car to the dealer yesterday and they checked wheels, tires, balance, suspension front and rear, motor mounts, tranny mounts, drive shaft and no cause has been found so far.

The strange thing is that the problem suddenly appeared after several consecutive pulls and only starts to show at 40mph+ while applying the gas. The vibration goes away as soon as I let off the gas pedal or go below 40mph. Revving the engine in N at any speed or stop does not produce the vibration.

The dealer contacted MBUSA for advise and the car is still in the shop. Any ideas?

 

hummmmm very odd, I dont get any of those symptoms... could be the drive by wire electronics are acting up at those speeds?

 

Well, just a got a word from my dealer. They will keep the car for another day. That will make it 3 full days and still no idea what is wrong.

 

Keep away from MB massapequa they are a bunch of morons !!!!!!

 

Just a wild guess but maybe some play in one of the front calipers?

 

My dealer is usually pretty good at finding and fixing problems. It is the first time in 10 years dealing with them that it took so long to figure this out. But today my advisor called and told me that they believe that the problem is with one of the tranny mounts. They ordered the part and will be here this coming Monday. So hopefully it fixes the problem.

 

Albert good luck. Hope they don't blame your mods-no prim cats.

 

So far no blames, and I passed inspection

 

Finally my car is fixed, but not by the dealer. My car spent a total of 6 days at the dealer trying to figure out the root cause of vibration. Finally they decided it was the tranny mount and it took several days to get the part.

Today, finally, the dealer calls and informs me that the new tranny mount is in and installed, but the vibration is still there -- problem not solved. That is after almost 6 days working on the problem. I was disappointed to say the least. Moreover, they claim that the problem is more likely due to my modified exhaust and not covered under warranty. I disagreed. It just did not make sense. I've been driving with the modified exhaust for over 4 months without any problems. But they gave me a lengthy "logical" explanation and suggested either to put me back to stock (with $4K+ on the stock exhaust) or to try to realign the exhaust.

Frankly I did not buy the story, picked up my car, still with major vibration over 40mph+.

So I went to a small local shop specializing in MBZ and asked for a second opinion. The main mechanic identified and fixed the problem in less then 30 min flat. after test driving my car. Moreover, he did not even ask for payment.

I was shocked. Apparently several bolts came loose at rear end of the drive shaft connecting to the differential. One of the bolts was completely dangling. The whole rear could have come apart. He tightened the bolts -- problem fixed.

What the hell are these dealers doing????? Unbelievable. They should have seen the problem had they inspected the drive shaft as they claimed they did. They spent 6 days on this and nothing. Not cool at all. Makes you think twice before visiting dealers.

The other logical question, why would the bolts come loose like that? I hope it wont happen again.

 

Albert im pretty sure that you have heard of my issues with the transmissions "3 to be exact "thru MB massapequa. MOst of these techs suck . im bringing my car on Monday to Silver star to see if they can figure it out . Next fiasco in the making

 

Yep, I heard about your issues, but I thought they were long gone. I found my local MBZ tech via a personal referral, PM me if you want to talk to him. He seems like a very knowledgeable tech, he might be able to help you.

The funny thing is, while at the dealer they told me that their best tech was working on my car (the one that does SLSs and SLRs). Really??? Kind of sad. I feel bad for folks that shell out some serious coin and get that kind of service. Wow.

 

My tech was 23 years old and my first thought was i have underwear older than him , LOL JK on the underwear part but damn a lil chit azz working on my car .

 

OMG, thankfully you were smart enough to handle it quickly and well without MB. that's quite impressive how you took care of it so well. hopefully you go tit fixed permanently.

and it is mind boggling how incompetent the dealer was.

 

Albert I bet if you had the stock setup the dealer wouldve fix the problem.

 

Really? you think? I think they only fell back on that excuse because they coudln't figure out WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS!

 

I agree, I don't see a big deal tightening a set of bolts had they examined the rear of the drive shaft. Also why keep the car for 6 days and replace the tranny mount (maybe they were milking the MBUSA for warranty service)? They could have blamed on the mod right away. I think they just could not figure it out and the mod was a way out. They also suggested to re-align my exhaust for a fee of course. Let me go out of the stop with a loose drive shaft would be a huge liability for them, I doubt they would do that had they known the root-cause.

But to be fair, this is the first time they were clueless like that. I've been dealing with them for almost 10 years now and no problems until this incident.

 

Amazing,

If the scan tool or the dude linked up to your car via network in Germany can't figure it out you've got no hope at the dealer.

If bolts come loose again use loctite

 

If you haven't already, you should take the car back to the dealership and show the shop foreman and service manager what the problem was. I'd also like an explanation from the dealership/MB why all those bolts were loose and why they didn't check for that.