Rear-left damper bust - which one to buy? (w124 Sportline)

[svetor]

Hi everyone!

I have a question which I hope you can help me with.

The problem is that my rear-left damper is leaking and needs replacing but I cannot afford a replacement damper of the same type - sport dampers are 3x more expensive according to my local garage.

My questions are:

• is it possible to replace the original sportline damper with a non-sport damper - or would this be ridiculous?
  (I gather that the sportline springs are lower than usual so I wonder if having a non-sport damper on the rear-left and a sport damper on the rear-right would affect the driving in a significant way - would i be driving in circles? )​

and

• which makers of dampers should I consider or are known to work with the sportline suspension? I have heard of Bildstein and Monroe but do not know if these makers or which types of them work with the sportline setup.

My car is: E280 1993 Sportline

Hope you guys can help!
thanks

 

[bigasotonuk]

Shock absorbers should be replaced as a pair.
Go to MB armed with your chassis number to get a price on a pair.
I have a C Class Sport and I bought genuine MB shocks for it, though I can,t remember how much they were, but they could,nt of been that bad as I would of remembered if the price was that expensive.
If you were to go for after market ones I personally like Bilstein and Koni.
There are plenty of w124 owners on here, who I,m sure will have a few things to post regarding their experiences with shock absorbers.

 

[brandwooddixon]

Most OEM MB are Spachs or Bilstien. Replacing as a pair is recommended for a high mileage or old vehicle.

 

[rayhennig]

Sportline Dampers

Dear Svetor,

Sportline dampers from my experience are Sachs (not, NOT Spax) - the company is Sachs-Boge, part of ZF (http://www.sachs-boge.co.uk/).

I have recently replaced the suspension on my Sportline Coupé and I researched part numbers for the originals.

This is what I found:

Rear dampers: 300CE-24 Sportline: Sachs 106 879

Front dampers: 300CE-24 Sportline: Sachs 115 070
Dust cover: 900 012

I'm pretty sure that the Bilstein equivalents are:

Rear dampers: 300CE-24 Sportline: Bilstein B6 Gas: BE3-A044

Front dampers: 300CE-24 Sportline: Bilstein B6 Gas: VN3-A043

Note that these are 'standard' length. If you fit shorter springs (best done all-round), then you need Bilstein's B8 dampers which are best bought as part of the correct B12 kit for your car.

So, if money's short (fully understand!!!), find the best price for a pair (NOT one) of Sachs or Bilstein B6s to replace the originals.

Best price I could find for the Sachs damper was 74.26 Euro at http://www.autoteilebox.de/shopen.html - sorry, it's in Germany.

As previously said, do check part numbers before you go ahead.

All the very best to you.

RayH

 

[brandwooddixon]

Sportline dampers from my experience are Sachs (not, NOT Spax) - the company is Sachs-Boge, part of ZF (http://www.sachs-boge.co.uk/).

Sachs - that's what I meant to say. I don't know where that 'p' came from.

 

[svetor]

Wow guys - thank you for taking the time to answer me, especially rayhennig - great answer!

I will look into this, perhaps I can have them shipped to my location.

Thanks again!

 

[television]

Wow guys - thank you for taking the time to answer me, especially rayhennig - great answer!

I will look into this, perhaps I can have them shipped to my location.

Thanks again!

Whats it like living in the most expensive country in the world

 

[svetor]

Hehe - good question!

Well its.. expensive! But the flip side of the coin is that the wages are also high.

The purchasing power of Icelanders however has been on the decline now because of high inflation. We are a small open economy and import almost all of our goods so when the financial markets catch a cold, like in the past year, our currency depreciates and everything gets much more expensive to import!

So returning back to the topic the price of MB parts in Iceland is very high these days

I just sold my 280E sportline however so my MB worries are part of the past

Whats it like living in the most expensive country in the world