W218 steering rack bolt recall

[MARtinClS]

Hi all,

Looking for guidance here -

Got the letter re the worldwide recall on steering rack bolts (I’m in a facelift ‘64 plate CLS SB).

Car was at the dealer Wednesday for the recall - got it back and alignment was off. Had the car back in this morning and despite the, “all the values are in the green” line, the alignment is still off.

Steering wheel is off centre when the car is in a straight line and it pulls to one side. Their service manager is calling me on Monday to resolve but I’m wondering if anybody has had a similar issue?

I googled the doc they use for this job and point 4 seems significant -

4. Assemble in reverse order. Perform wheel alignment check and carry out toe adjustment. Reset the learned values for the electric power steering with a scan tool.


They admitted this morning that the toe values were out, therefore no alignment was carried out initially. Can someone explain the “reset learned values for electric power steering”; what does this actually do/refer to?

I’m trying to work out how they can get an alignment wrong and wondered if there’s some set of steering values which, if wrong, could conflict with the physical alignment characteristics.

Even that seems unlikely to me; I’m leaning towards a dealer just rushing/not bothering to do the job…

 

[grahamcol]

Good luck with this.
I'd find this situation totally unacceptable and l hope it's resolved quickly.
Absolutely no excuses for this in my book.

 

[ajlsl600]

Hi all,

Looking for guidance here -

Got the letter re the worldwide recall on steering rack bolts (I’m in a facelift ‘64 plate CLS SB).

Car was at the dealer Wednesday for the recall - got it back and alignment was off. Had the car back in this morning and despite the, “all the values are in the green” line, the alignment is still off.

Steering wheel is off centre when the car is in a straight line and it pulls to one side. Their service manager is calling me on Monday to resolve but I’m wondering if anybody has had a similar issue?

I googled the doc they use for this job and point 4 seems significant -

4. Assemble in reverse order. Perform wheel alignment check and carry out toe adjustment. Reset the learned values for the electric power steering with a scan tool.


They admitted this morning that the toe values were out, therefore no alignment was carried out initially. Can someone explain the “reset learned values for electric power steering”; what does this actually do/refer to?

I’m trying to work out how they can get an alignment wrong and wondered if there’s some set of steering values which, if wrong, could conflict with the physical alignment characteristics.

Even that seems unlikely to me; I’m leaning towards a dealer just rushing/not bothering to do the job…

Issue simple. No issues previous? Tell em to get it fixed. They will have a certain allocated time! None of which is Yr prob. Just tell service manager to rtn car as was and giv u a car until its sorted.

 

[Turbocrofty]

Hello,

I had my car go in for the recall, I had no issues with the car after the work was carried out. I do have a few items which were found on the health check of the car though.

I would say it is down to the garage to sort it. As they carried out work on the steering rack, then that would have caused the problem. Good luck with it!

 

[MARtinClS]

Hi all - by way if update.

After a couple of further visits they finally resolved the alignment issue. That said; vague, evasive, difficult to deal with.

They’ve also falsified other alignment docs and provided to me as evidence of my vehicle being checked on certain dates (to corroborate information provided previously). I’ve raised a franchise dealer complaint to Merc UK.

In any event; stay away from Merc Edinburgh East!