When I replaced the spark plugs on the V8 engine (W163) it greatly helped to jack-up the front of the truck, remove the front wheels, and remove the plastic wheel arch cover (what ever it's called) to gain easier access to the plugs. I wonder if this would also help on the W210.
I would like to add a few points here, as an MB tech myself and been at it since 1967.
The vast majority are not bad mechanics, but they dont specialize. ie if you drive a Mercedes would you take it to a Ford garage? Would you take it to a garage that works on all types? or would you take it to a stealer?
Fact is most customers, understandaby, want the job done as cheap as possible and this does not work with cars like Mercedes and BMW.
A specialist would know the difference between a missfire and engine vibration due to dud mountings but the regular mechanic may not have come accross oil filled engine mountings before so makes a bad diagnosis.
Unlike the problems doctors face with humans, MB and BMW are bringing in new technology all the time and more and more mechanical components are controled by computers and even using fibre optics. The human body has not and cannot change as fast as technology is doing today.
So next time you want to fix your (expensive) car dont take it to a BACK STREET GARAGE looking for a cheap fix and then blame the mechanics. If you became ill, would you look for the cheapest doctor in town? and then tell all your friends this man is a quack, why ?
I had one customer today whom I had told his car needed two suspension units, even though the suspension was down on one unit. He said no and only change one, so we did and now the other side sits low and it will not adjust/respond to the DAS ride height adjustment. Now he is trying to claim that we damaged the other unit
Look at yourselves before you accuse others please and thank you for taking the time to read this.
I had one customer today whom I had told his car needed two suspension units, even though the suspension was down on one unit. He said no and only change one, so we did and now the other side sits low and it will not adjust/respond to the DAS ride height adjustment. Now he is trying to claim that we damaged the other unit.
IMHO he is over 50% right.
Being service man myself (house repairs and remodeling) I know it takes lot of guts to tell the customer "We do only the jobs that can guarantee satisfaction. If you want to do patch only, you will have to look for other service"
But I tell you. Over the years it really paid off. My customers of 10-15 years will not even consider talking to somebody else. Quite often taking 6-weeks vacations I had customer waiting with the repair for my return.
Um, to the techs that responded, are you completely humorless? Kajtek1 is the only one who recognized the intro was a joke and originally a lawyer joke (although I heard it as 99%, 1%). You can either be defensive and rail about it or chidingly laugh along and take it as a reminder of common perceptions, vowing not to fall into the misconceived "bad guys" (that's what I did when I practiced law...).
Motioneffects, any decent mechanic who is familiar with MBs, when faced with a post-facelift W210 at 80,000 miles and a customer complaining of a "miss" at idle when in gear is going to replicate the issue and think "spark plugs" only after eliminating the obvious: motor mounts. Her mechanic is a generalist who also works on MBs, which was at root my point: she needs a different mechanic. I'm quite certain if she'd dropped $1,000 plus on a plug and wire job he would feel doubly bad: not only would he have failed to rectify her problem, but he would probably have lost a long-time customer (this is their first benz). I'm not down on mechanics per se, if you read my other posts you'll see that while I'm a DIY guy, I recognize that many aren't and I stress continually that a good indie is invaluable. However, trying to find one of those is much harder than it seems it should be.
That said, IMHE the vast majority of the time when there is an actual misfire you'll find either a CEL or a stored/pending dtc. Moreover, plugs being a 100,000 mile service item (and usually being good for many more, that's just the interval) and how completely bizarre the car feels when the mounts fail, yes, it would indeed fool a mechanic (or forum member) who is not familiar with "hydraulic" oil-filled mounts. That too is the point, which Eric so deftly identified: if you're going to a mechanic, go to one that KNOWS MB cars.
Musikmann, I hope you read back up the thread to the joke I posted, if you hadn't heard it I think you'll appreciate it. With respect to the inquiry you made, when motor mounts fail on these cars it can feel like a very severe miss, almost like you've killed one or more cylinders -- completely. Having been in a car with a burned valve in a V8 (about 20 lbs compression in the cylinder) the benz feels worse than that. It's a noticeable shake in gear that goes away off-idle or if you go to neutral or park (still noticeable at idle in park, but barely so). For another comparison, I had a GTO way back when that had pretty bad engine issues (later disassembly revealed one piston skirt had broken off with piston slap in that cylinder, another cylinder had lost the lands on the piston for about 1/3 of the arc/perimeter, the top ring was damaged and the second and third rings had broken up and fallen through the resulting hole in the piston and were found in the bottom of the oil pan, also partially clogging the oil pickup) that required you to retard the timing to start it and then advance it after starting so it would run. Guess what? It was only a bit worse at loaded idle than my 210 is right now.
All that to say, hey, I'm sorry I touched a nerve. It was a joke. Get over it.
Vehicle: 2001 SLK 320(96K Miles), 2002 E320 Special Edition(113K Miles)
Location: South Bay Area,L.A., CA
Posts: 1,175
I think many times there's a problem on both sides. Some mechanics are bad, but then so is some customers - cannot describe the symptoms at all, thus making it impossible to diagnose the fault.
Some are of the type "Either the battery is dead or it is out of gas - but I don't know which one'. I'm not a mechanic, but I've had some experience with dragging out a description from my wife if she has a problem with her car, and I can tell you I don't envy any mechanic at a time like that.
So if you and your mechanic cannot communicate, that may be another reason to find a new one.
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Honest politicians (and lawyers) are like UFOs. Most people believe that there must be some out there somewhere, but nobody has yet been able to prove their existence.
Anytime you want to come down and walk in my park you're welcome to do so. Between my back and the sharp edges, it simply wasn't fun. I used the Lisle tool and didn't have any real challenges with the wires/caps, at least once I remembered the dielectric grease (insert dope-slap here) but until then it was harder getting them back on than it was removing them.
The Benz was almost worse than doing them on my 1984 Z-28, on which I couldn't even see most of the plugs. The benefit on that car was that I could throw a piece of carpet over the engine and just lay on it, with the new plugs up on the cowl, just reach down, pull one out, toss it over my shoulder, put in the new one, find the darn wire, put it back, and move on. On the other hand they had to be done more frequently than the benz, so...
Still, pretty much anything is better than changing the battery on the original Cobra (remove passenger side cylinder head) or doing plugs on the old Chevy Monza with the V8 (unbolt motor mounts, raise engine for center two plugs on each bank).
How times have changed, eh?
Take care and enjoy the ride,
Greg
Do not know where you got that about the Cobra but having owned one for many years a long time ago and changed out several batteries the job was a snap and did not require the removal of anything. Took about 10 minutes. Mine was one of the last 289's and was s/n CSX2272. Perhaps you are thinking about one of those Mustang "so called Cobras" Actually everything on that car was quite accessable except the brake master cylinder which was a real pain to change.
Hey, Sosh. I was referring to the original design with the battery placement low in the front passenger fenderwell...behind the tire. Which is why relocating the battery to the trunk was very popular. Probably the dumbest thing I ever saw in a production car...although the car was always meant for the track.
Perhaps you are thinking about one of those Mustang "so called Cobras" Actually everything on that car was quite accessable except the brake master cylinder which was a real pain to change.
Thinking about it, where is master cylinder in Mercedes? Owning bunch of them have yet to have any issue with master cylinder.
Um, to the techs that responded, are you completely humorless? Kajtek1 is the only one who recognized the intro was a joke and originally a lawyer joke (although I heard it as 99%, 1%). You can either be defensive and rail about it or chidingly laugh along and take it as a reminder of common perceptions, vowing not to fall into the misconceived "bad guys" (that's what I did when I practiced law...).
Motioneffects, any decent mechanic who is familiar with MBs, when faced with a post-facelift W210 at 80,000 miles and a customer complaining of a "miss" at idle when in gear is going to replicate the issue and think "spark plugs" only after eliminating the obvious: motor mounts. Her mechanic is a generalist who also works on MBs, which was at root my point: she needs a different mechanic. I'm quite certain if she'd dropped $1,000 plus on a plug and wire job he would feel doubly bad: not only would he have failed to rectify her problem, but he would probably have lost a long-time customer (this is their first benz). I'm not down on mechanics per se, if you read my other posts you'll see that while I'm a DIY guy, I recognize that many aren't and I stress continually that a good indie is invaluable. However, trying to find one of those is much harder than it seems it should be.
That said, IMHE the vast majority of the time when there is an actual misfire you'll find either a CEL or a stored/pending dtc. Moreover, plugs being a 100,000 mile service item (and usually being good for many more, that's just the interval) and how completely bizarre the car feels when the mounts fail, yes, it would indeed fool a mechanic (or forum member) who is not familiar with "hydraulic" oil-filled mounts. That too is the point, which Eric so deftly identified: if you're going to a mechanic, go to one that KNOWS MB cars.
Musikmann, I hope you read back up the thread to the joke I posted, if you hadn't heard it I think you'll appreciate it. With respect to the inquiry you made, when motor mounts fail on these cars it can feel like a very severe miss, almost like you've killed one or more cylinders -- completely. Having been in a car with a burned valve in a V8 (about 20 lbs compression in the cylinder) the benz feels worse than that. It's a noticeable shake in gear that goes away off-idle or if you go to neutral or park (still noticeable at idle in park, but barely so). For another comparison, I had a GTO way back when that had pretty bad engine issues (later disassembly revealed one piston skirt had broken off with piston slap in that cylinder, another cylinder had lost the lands on the piston for about 1/3 of the arc/perimeter, the top ring was damaged and the second and third rings had broken up and fallen through the resulting hole in the piston and were found in the bottom of the oil pan, also partially clogging the oil pickup) that required you to retard the timing to start it and then advance it after starting so it would run. Guess what? It was only a bit worse at loaded idle than my 210 is right now.
All that to say, hey, I'm sorry I touched a nerve. It was a joke. Get over it.
Take care and enjoy the ride,
Greg
Hi Greg, I have read a lot of your replies on the diagnostic side and I must say pretty accurate mate. I have, only recently, began to realize how difficult it is to do a diagnosis over the internet.
Real problem is, the more you know about these cars the more difficult it is to give a (simple) answer. As someone pointed out on this thread, communication is vital and hard enough in real situations let alone the virtual world in which we find ourselves.
Vehicle: 2001 E320 - Brilliant Silver/Ash: MBCA member
Location: The Mountain State
Posts: 6,381
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregs210
...Musikmann, I hope you read back up the thread to the joke I posted, if you hadn't heard it I think you'll appreciate it. With respect to the inquiry you made, when motor mounts fail on these cars it can feel like a very severe miss, almost like you've killed one or more cylinders -- completely. Having been in a car with a burned valve in a V8 (about 20 lbs compression in the cylinder) the benz feels worse than that. It's a noticeable shake in gear that goes away off-idle or if you go to neutral or park (still noticeable at idle in park, but barely so). For another comparison, I had a GTO way back when that had pretty bad engine issues (later disassembly revealed one piston skirt had broken off with piston slap in that cylinder, another cylinder had lost the lands on the piston for about 1/3 of the arc/perimeter, the top ring was damaged and the second and third rings had broken up and fallen through the resulting hole in the piston and were found in the bottom of the oil pan, also partially clogging the oil pickup) that required you to retard the timing to start it and then advance it after starting so it would run. Guess what? It was only a bit worse at loaded idle than my 210 is right now....Greg
Hi Greg,
I just read that doctor/mechanic joke and I liked it; I had not heard that before.
Thanks for the further explanation of the motor mount issue.
MM
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Between my back and the sharp edges, it simply wasn't fun. I used the Lisle tool and didn't have any real challenges with the wires/caps, at least once I remembered the dielectric grease (insert dope-slap here) but until then it was harder getting them back on than it was removing them. 
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