now to remove an ABC system from a benz just to save some $$ is just so far against what the car is all about to begin with... I mean why stop there, repairing a V12 is really really expensive so why not just throw a cheaper V6 or V8 in there when the V12 winds up having any issues... why not just put some 17" wheels and tires on when you need tires, afterall they are cheaper too... hell even the brakes are so expensive, next time there due you may be able to downgrade to 12" rotors and single piston floating calipers... brake jobs will be cheaper from then on too...
I agree with those that feel that the ABC is such a defining feature on such a fine car that removing it should only be done if your car is one step away from the junk yard and you just want to buy a little more time to use it as a beater before you junk it, otherwise why remove the ABC for coil springs??? that is just so backwards... anyone who thinks this is the right way to go probably just bought the wrong car to begin with... and no, I don't own a benz with ABC, but if I did I would do so knowing that when the time comes I will have to spend the thousands to restore the suspension on the 100k+ car that I bought, regardless of what I paid for it used... if not then you just bought the wrong car to begin with...
what really makes the 12 that much more to fix than an 8 cylinder? besides the cylinder deactivation feature there's not a lot of difference besides the fact that you have no room to fix anything in a 12 cylinder engine bay! lol i understand your point but your analogy is comparing apples and oranges...
the abc system is faulty at best. go to any high end mercedes forum and you'll see ABC ISSUES within the stickies....it's kind of pathetic coming from what is supposed to be the top notch car manufacturer
the w215 is still a nice car without the abc feature... i'm not sure why everyone thinks the w215 is basically a piece of shit without abc...seems to say a lot about the car you chose to buy, does it not?
if the abc system wasn't as faulty as it is then i would have had no problem investing maintenance costs to keep it up. but thousands of dollars every year just to have hydraulics is absurd from any logical persons standpoint....but then again so is owning any foreign sports car for that matter lol
in my particular situation, i put 30k miles on my car in a year. i bought the car with 58k miles and it had already had the abc pump replaced once... when it went out a second time at 70k...it was a no brainer as far as whether or not this system was reliable enough to maintain...
in my particular situation thats a new abc pump every year. not to mention one of my struts was already leaking. valve blocks fail, there's numerous hoses to fail, struts fail and a hydraulic pump that fails once a year is not up to my standards, and should have never been up to mercedes standards either (unless they are aware this system costs a lot to maintain, selling the cars to people with wallets big enough and egos big enough to maintain such a system) DING DING DING, congratulations you all just fell into mercedes' trap of sucking you dry even after you paid off the car. i think i've seen videos of w215's on fire because of abc related hoses ,(although corrected under recall) what gives?!?!
i respect your opinion however
edit: i chose the coilovers because i was aware that if i fixed the abc even one time, i would be venturing down an arrogant path of endless investment considering i want to keep this car for the rest of my life. perhaps a lot of you plan on getting rid of your abc equipped cars when they aren't "cool" anymore, but i absolutely love this car
i can also personally attest (since i'm the only person here who has experience with both abc and coilovers) that installing the coilovers is just about the same difficulty as changing the abc pump. except you only have to do it once instead of once a year....
cars are expected to have regular maintenance costs, that will never change. and parts for more expensive cars will obviously cost more. but there are plenty of 100k dollar cars that don't require thousands of dollars every year just to maintain one particular feature!!
i think everyone needs to wake up and get out of the past. there are probably extremely few people here who actually paid 100k for their w215. i would bet that most of us bought them for somewhere between 12k-28k.
does it make sense logically to spend just as much as you spent to buy the car, on maintaining the abc over the course of say 3 or 4 years? i understand the people who bought these cars new maintaining the abc but lets be real. our cars haven't been 100k dollar cars for damn near a decade....ozan even pointed out to me that there are w215's in good condition selling for under 10,000 now....wow....
we all like telling people we drive a car with a 100k msrp price tag, but do we really have 100k dollar cars? for christs sake theres american parts (chrysler) ridden all throughout this thing. pretty sure our same transmissions are used in dodges, chryslers and the like. let's be a little more realistic and less arrogant. i know we drive mercedes, but we dont all have to fit into the stereotypes
