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My 300SD in the hands of lunatics

Ok so a couple months back I brought in my 300SD with 208,000 miles on it for some routine maintence, such as replacing the belts, an oil change and some other work that they found wrong with it. (They claimed to have cleaned out the turbo booster and replaced some bad gaskets on my brake line). Two weeks later I went on a trip and when I arrived there was a horrible clicking coming from the engine... it might have came from the power steering unit. Anyways on the way back all the lights on the dash came on and the temp started rising so I got that sucker off the road. Three belts had disinigrated, and one had sliced open the auto trans line in the process. It was bleeding everywhere. It was a mess. I almost cried.

At first the shop didn't want to admit fault but they soon determined it was their fault and they replaced the belts incorrectly. I got it back in and they fixed all the belts accept for the A/C belt. They said the wheel assembly was damaged and they had to order in the part befoer they would put it back together.

So my car is now in the hands of these guys again. Should I be worried or does this actually sound reasonable?

-Travis

Reply to
travis.cannell
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My advice: Since they botched it up, let them repair it. Once it's repaired, NEVER go back to that repair shop.

Reply to
<maxh

Unfortunately for everyone, it sounds reasonable. If this shop is not familiar with M-B cars they didn't know how to do it but if it is a M-B shop then someone forgot to tighten one of the belt driven components. Either way, a belt came off its pulleys and whipped around in there destroying the other belts etc..

This shop made a mistake but they're not lunatics, just sloppy. And they're now correcting their mistake.

Upon the car's return you need to check that the a/c cools, that there are no oil leaks and that the engine oil and the transmission fluid are at their correct levels - between the notches of the dip stick - not above or below. Check transmission oil when it's HOT, engine idling, transmission in P, car parked on a reasonably level spot.

The same could have happened if the belts had not been changed and an old belt broke and so came off its pulleys.

Reply to
T.G. Lambach

I disagree. We all make mistakes. If they are honest enough to admit there fault and decent enough to repair it at there own expense, they are keepers IMO.

Reply to
Martin Joseph

Thanks for the input, your advice is valuable on this ng.

Yea as long as it all sounds reasonable then I am comfortable again. I probably will try to DIY most of the work in the future, but it is nice to see a shop fix problems they caused rather than not owning up to them. This is the M-B dealership BTW.

Reply to
travis.cannell

This doesn't sound reasonable to me:

"(They claimed to have cleaned out the turbo booster and replaced some bad gaskets on my brake line). "

I've never heard of any such maintenance on a turbo. And I don't know of any gaskets on the brake lines either. Sound to me like they are blowing smoke up your ass. And if that ain;t bad enough, you have to be fairly incompetent to screw up putting on some new belts, which is pretty easy on that car.

Reply to
trader4

I believe the banjo fitting and hollow bolt were cleaned - a ten minute non-technical job - and then "spinned" this simple task into "cleaned turbo booster" to justify the charge.

Service writers are, after all, salesmen.

Reply to
T.G. Lambach

That was an expensive 10 mintues! Well as an update they gave me the car back and said that the part they recieved was incomplete and they needed something else that wasn't in the box. This sounds really strange to me, but they washed my car so I forgave them.

Does anyone know how the a/c flywheel works? Is it hard to replace? I am having trouble believing that you could order a part and then not all of it is in the box. Perhaps they ordered the wrong part and are trying to shift blame or something....

Reply to
travis.cannell

The a/c compressor has an electric clutch between its belt driven pulley which turns with the engine and the a/c compressor itself. The clutch turns the a/c compressor ON or OFF.

With the belts whipping about in there it's impossible to know without seeing it what's missing, broken or still needed.

Reply to
T.G. Lambach

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