[09heritage]

Didn't realize how bad she was rotted out till a shop used those lift points

 

[ChuckWagon]

That sucks to see. That is exactly what happened to my car.

 

[09heritage]

That sucks to see. That is exactly what happened to my car.

Just gonna have my bud weld in a long plate and some angle iron. She's got 300,000kms

 

[ChuckWagon]

I should've done that but having built a house and going way over budget, money needed to go for other things. Have 240,000 miles on the clock and the rest of the body is still pretty decent.

Good luck and I hope you get to enjoy your car for many years to come.

 

[09heritage]

Thanks man, the body of my car is still mint so hopefully doing a patch in that area can get me another 5 years or so

 

[hemi_57]

Winters and Salt maybe.

 

[09heritage]

Winters and Salt maybe.

Yes and the fact the plastic covers held in alot of road debris and salt. Poor designs, it's like they did everything they could to make these rust out.

 

[hemi_57]

Lots of old Mercedes design left over.
Do not ever pay for a 4-wheel alignment as your suspension is NOT adjustable. There is NO Camber/Caster adjustment for the front, only the toe. There is no Camber adjust in the rear and only a very small amount of toe.

 

[someotherguy]

Yes and the fact the plastic covers held in alot of road debris and salt. Poor designs, it's like they did everything they could to make these rust out.

As the saying goes, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -- or maybe more accurately in this case, just not considering the long-term effects of the design. Many vehicles have areas where road salt gets in and wreaks havoc.

Lots of old Mercedes design left over.
Do ever pay for a 4-wheel alignment as your suspension is NOT adjustable? There is NO Camber/Caster adjustment for the front, only the toe. There is no Camber adjust in the rear and only a very small amount of toe.

From factory, not that I know of, but there are aftermarket solutions for rear camber and this was even mentioned to me by the alignment tech that did my 300. My tires were wearing strangely for a low mile car so he threw it on the rack and said the rear looked mostly OK; it's been a while so I can't recall for sure but I think he did even loosen the subframe and shift it a tiny bit. He brought up the camber and said it looked fine but that in the future if it needed it there were camber bushings available.

Pretty sure he wasn't just soaking me as I was there for the whole job and he worked like a bastard on it and it was not necessarily reflected in the labor cost.

Richard

 

[hemi_57]

As the saying goes, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -- or maybe more accurately in this case, just not considering the long-term effects of the design. Many vehicles have areas where road salt gets in and wreaks havoc.


From factory, not that I know of, but there are aftermarket solutions for rear camber and this was even mentioned to me by the alignment tech that did my 300. My tires were wearing strangely for a low mile car so he threw it on the rack and said the rear looked mostly OK; it's been a while so I can't recall for sure but I think he did even loosen the subframe and shift it a tiny bit. He brought up the camber and said it looked fine but that in the future if it needed it there were camber bushings available.

Pretty sure he wasn't just soaking me as I was there for the whole job and he worked like a bastard on it and it was not necessarily reflected in the labor cost.

Richard

I installed SPC upper A-arms to correct the front camber/caster. I picked up a complete set of on-car adjustable BMR rear suspension kit and a set of adjustable camber arms for the rear.

 

[Jim McVeigh]

Check out AAD. They have everything that's adjustable.

 

[hemi_57]

AAD....$$$$

 

[jdm7]

Is there anything left to weld a plate too? i have the same thing going on, heard some unpleasant crunching noises when I tried to jack up the rear end. wondering if I should sell it now before it gets worse, so very curious to see how your attempted repair turns out!

 

[09heritage]

Is there anything left to weld a plate too? i have the same thing going on, heard some unpleasant crunching noises when I tried to jack up the rear end. wondering if I should sell it now before it gets worse, so very curious to see how your attempted repair turns out!

I'm not sure, I showed pics to my buddy and he said easy. He's had to do it on 3 of his cars. I've peaked around under some at used car lots and they look about the same here in Ontario Canada. I'm not really concerned since there's worse out there doing just fine