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Change shocks or accumulator on a 560 SEL

5105 Views 13 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  keifer103
I'm a long time Mercedes lover, but only a recent owner of my "weekend drive" : 1987 560 SEL. It has 213,000 miles but it drives very good. The only problem I am having is when I drive, the rear of the car bounces too much, messing up the ride. I have looked into it, to replace the shocks (which are self leveling suspension) but I dont know if I should replace the accumulators first, since they're less expensive. An interesting "symptom" is that my rear sits much lower than the front of the car.
From anyone's experience, are the shocks gone, or the accumulators need to be changed? I searched the site, but not much help on this topic. CAn anyone give me advice, link, and/or supplier for these parts? So far I have my eyes on Bilstein.
I'm only 22, hoping to expand to my collection...
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I did mine a couple months ago w/o too much trouble. Just for reference, dealer quoted me $820 for the job, parts plus a relatively cheap $80/H labour.

Please do a search about SLS and accumulators. My car had exactly the same thing like yours - rough ride and low rear end. I flushed the system, change to a new filter and test the valve first. Even the pump, valve and everything else are in working order, the car's rear end still sits low.

The accumulator job should take you about 3 hours max and the system will self bleed so you don't have toworry about the air. Make sure you order quality hydraulic fluid. AFter the accumulator job, the rear end has been up ever since.
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