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Car Forum / Mercedes-Benz Cars / December 2005

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My 300SD in the hands of lunatics

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travis.cannell@gmail.com - 14 Dec 2005 16:33 GMT
Ok so a couple months back I brought in my 300SD with 208,000 miles on
it for some routine maintence, such as replacing the belts, an oil
change and some other work that they found wrong with it. (They claimed
to have cleaned out the turbo booster and replaced some bad gaskets on
my brake line). Two weeks later I went on a trip and when I arrived
there was a horrible clicking coming from the engine... it might have
came from the power steering unit. Anyways on the way back all the
lights on the dash came on and the temp started rising so I got that
sucker off the road. Three belts had disinigrated, and one had sliced
open the auto trans line in the process. It was bleeding everywhere. It
was a mess. I almost cried.

At first the shop didn't want to admit fault but they soon determined
it was their fault and they replaced the belts incorrectly. I got it
back in and they fixed all the belts accept for the A/C belt. They said
the wheel assembly was damaged and they had to order in the part befoer
they would put it back together.

So my car is now in the hands of these guys again. Should I be worried
or does this actually sound reasonable?

-Travis
maxh@thegrid.net - 14 Dec 2005 18:06 GMT
My advice: Since they botched it up, let them repair it.
Once it's repaired, NEVER go back to that repair shop.

> Ok so a couple months back I brought in my 300SD with 208,000 miles on
> it for some routine maintence, such as replacing the belts, an oil
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>
> -Travis
Martin Joseph - 14 Dec 2005 21:39 GMT
> My advice: Since they botched it up, let them repair it.
> Once it's repaired, NEVER go back to that repair shop.
I disagree.  We all make mistakes.  If they are honest enough to admit
there fault and decent enough to repair it at there own expense, they
are keepers IMO.
T.G. Lambach - 14 Dec 2005 21:07 GMT
Unfortunately for everyone, it sounds reasonable. If this shop is not
familiar with M-B cars they didn't know how to do it but if it is a M-B
shop then someone forgot to tighten one of the belt driven components.
Either way, a belt came off its pulleys and whipped around in there
destroying the other belts etc..

This shop made a mistake but they're not lunatics, just sloppy. And
they're now correcting their mistake.

Upon the car's return you need to check that the a/c cools, that there
are no oil leaks and that the engine oil and the transmission fluid are
at their correct levels - between the notches of the dip stick - not
above or below. Check transmission oil when it's HOT, engine idling,
transmission in P, car parked on a reasonably level spot.

The same could have happened if the belts had not been changed and an
old belt broke and so came off its pulleys.
travis.cannell@gmail.com - 14 Dec 2005 21:40 GMT
Thanks for the input, your advice is valuable on this ng.

Yea as long as it all sounds reasonable then I am comfortable again. I
probably will try to DIY most of the work in the future, but it is nice
to see a shop fix problems they caused rather than not owning up to
them. This is the M-B dealership BTW.
trader4@optonline.net - 14 Dec 2005 23:07 GMT
This doesn't sound reasonable to me:

"(They claimed to have cleaned out the turbo booster and replaced some
bad gaskets on
my brake line). "

I've never heard of any such maintenance on a turbo.  And I don't know
of any gaskets on the brake lines either.  Sound to me like they are
blowing smoke up your a.s.  And if that ain;t bad enough, you have to
be fairly incompetent to screw up putting on some new belts, which is
pretty easy on that car.
T.G. Lambach - 15 Dec 2005 01:05 GMT
I believe the banjo fitting and hollow bolt were cleaned - a ten minute
non-technical job - and then "spinned" this simple task into "cleaned
turbo booster" to justify the charge.

Service writers are, after all, salesmen.
travis.cannell@gmail.com - 15 Dec 2005 17:46 GMT
That was an expensive 10 mintues! Well as an update they gave me the
car back and said that the part they recieved was incomplete and they
needed something else that wasn't in the box. This sounds really
strange to me, but they washed my car so I forgave them.

Does anyone know how the a/c flywheel works? Is it hard to replace? I
am having trouble believing that you could order a part and then not
all of it is in the box. Perhaps they ordered the wrong part and are
trying to shift blame or something....
T.G. Lambach - 16 Dec 2005 07:03 GMT
The a/c compressor has an electric clutch between its belt driven pulley
which turns with the engine and the a/c compressor itself. The clutch
turns the a/c compressor ON or OFF.

With the belts whipping about in there it's impossible to know without
seeing it what's missing, broken or still needed.
 
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