Bin waiting 7 weeks for the bankrupt car warranty company to kick through some coverage for the $4500 front end job prescribed by Hanz und Franz down at Heavy Karl's Mercedes shop. (Upper & Lower Ball joints and associated pull, push, and whatnot rods; replace steering box; do front end steering shocks). Well ole Randi Massokist (hey - he works for an insurance company buying out car warranty outfits that go broke) finaly came with the proposition that they would cover the absolute essentials. Which got me a thinkin - got lost in thought as it is not familiar territory, of course. Took it into the front end shop and told them it had been diagnosed with a bunch of stuff including the ball joints. They said it needs about $1100 for shocks and upper ball joints. Took it to the ole Merc Shop which specializes in old Mercedes and did not tell them anything about symptoms. They drove it and examined it. Came in and asked me what the problem is with it. I said that was for them to find. They finaly said they could fix the slightly leaking seal on the steering box by rebuilding it and that would cost about $600, but it doesn't really need it. This last opinion fits with my impresion of what it should be at 120,000 miles. The tires do not show any strange wear patterns, it shows no symptoms, and I have never even driven it on a gravel road! So should I take it back to Hanz und Franz and let them do their thing and pay about $2000 for stuff which is probably not needed?
And by the way - ole Merc Boyz took a look at the check engine light and found a burned out relay which had generated 9 different problem codes - or - my worrisome thought says the relay had been burned out by 9 problems. They did explain that the carbon build up is caused in some etf tube or something that takes exhaust gases and cycles them through the intake system to burn them up. This problem takes about $300 to fix and not the $1500 - head remove - grind carbon out - replace heads suggested by Hanz und Franz. They did have one Eclass that had to have the heads pulled to get the etf tubes reamed out or something, but that was only one case out of many. Sound familiar to anyone???
Gee - kin ah git them ole boyz in tha bak hooked up to them ole etf tube does ya think? Sum dayz after them ole boyz haz bin a partyin on all nite .... shore culd improve tha air quality ta close ta EPA standards!
mcbrue headscratchingly under the bridge in the trailer down by the river
96 S420