Strange ride

[all624]

I have a 1997 CL500 Coupe (W140) the car has full merc history and has never been involved in a smash. The car started to handle strangely in that it felt jiggly and that the wheels were out of balance. The front springs were found to be cracked and were replaced (genuine parts), so were the shockers at the front (genuine), the steering damper (genuine) and the top suspension control unit which had play, all wheels have been checked a number of times and rebalanced, tyres have been changed, tracking checked. Suspension bushes changed (pattern), all discs and pads changed (brembo), prop shaft checked.

Everybody is shrugging their shoulders, but the car still drives in a wobbly manner, crabbing a bit around corners and not like the silky express that it should be.

Any ideas?

 

[turnipsock]

What about the rear of the car, has this been looked at?

 

[all624]

Checked out and all seems fine with shockers in good order. My car has not got the fancy adaptive damping which can cause all sorts of problems. All the vibes are coming up via the steering and you can feel some vibration in the passenger footwell.

 

[jberks]

If it's crabbing, could the diff be playing up?
I'd also have it optiflex checked, like they do after an accident to ensure that all geometry is absolutely perfect.

When I had an obscure undiagnosable fault (engine in my case but all the dealer could say after 4 attempts, was that its normal), I found a specialist (cheaper and more flexible than the dealer), demonstrated the fault, handed them the keys and said 'only let me have it back when its right'. As the fault was intermittent I also told him to use the car as his own to give the maximum chance of it re-occuring. It took a few days, as they start the same process as the dealer, the difference is that they don't give up, so when the standard ideas failed again, they kept looking. After a week, I got my car back running perfectly.