What Have You Done To Your Merc Today?

LostKiwi

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Your Mercedes
'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
Must be one the best value for money for miles out there :). Just shows what cars can do if they're looked after. You cannot really compare, but the wifes Yaris has only costs us two rear brake cylinders, bulbs and a some servicing in over 10 years now.
Yep. In terms of costs per mile (excluding fuel, tax and insurance) it's cost us around 3p per mile including purchase price. Add in fuel and it's about 22p including purchase price. Pretty cheap motoring!
 

Capra

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W204 2013 C350 CDI Pan roof
Yep. In terms of costs per mile (excluding fuel, tax and insurance) it's cost us around 3p per mile including purchase price. Add in fuel and it's about 22p including purchase price. Pretty cheap motoring!
And you do all the servicing and as much of the mechanical work yourself?
 

ajlsl600

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france
Your Mercedes
clk3202001,sl6002003 with everything regrettably sold ,A class 170cdi auto. NG/TF1800 ML250
lovelly,s aclass on annual inspection ,rear brakes front brakes and flexible s oil change next ,was going to put rear discs from my doner car ,but access to change rear p/s h/brake cable a normal pleasure! so as linings new i am leaving that for next time i am bored enough.
 

LostKiwi

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'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
And you do all the servicing and as much of the mechanical work yourself?
Pretty much unless I'm time constrained (such as replacing the radiator the day before it went to France last time) or if needs specialist equipment I don't have (such as air con compressor replacement lady year).
 

ajlsl600

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clk3202001,sl6002003 with everything regrettably sold ,A class 170cdi auto. NG/TF1800 ML250
Pretty much unless I'm time constrained (such as replacing the radiator the day before it went to France last time) or if needs specialist equipment I don't have (such as air con compressor replacement lady year).


same as that .in simple terms i do everything myself and spend some considerable time finding out how,if i dont already know or have not had the pleasure of that particular task previously.
perhaps its not the case but i am leaning towards the belief that todays makers (all products but esp car makers ) likely have a panel of techs whose sole job is to make it as difficult as possible for the average human to be able to interview/repair the product he has bought. either in the way its held together,the tooling to open it,or the availability of anything to fix it, or indeed all of these.
the thing i believe is great about this site is the efforts , time ,skills that appear here circumnavigating in this case the best efforts of benz to turn us all into constant consumers .
 

LostKiwi

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'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
same as that .in simple terms i do everything myself and spend some considerable time finding out how,if i dont already know or have not had the pleasure of that particular task previously.
perhaps its not the case but i am leaning towards the belief that todays makers (all products but esp car makers ) likely have a panel of techs whose sole job is to make it as difficult as possible for the average human to be able to interview/repair the product he has bought. either in the way its held together,the tooling to open it,or the availability of anything to fix it, or indeed all of these.
the thing i believe is great about this site is the efforts , time ,skills that appear here circumnavigating in this case the best efforts of benz to turn us all into constant consumers .
I do pretty much agree with you there Andy. Looking at the relative ease of working on the 129 compared to the 230 or any of my Mercs compared to a 2005 Saab I had or Mrs LKs Mini (which is damned near impossible to do anything on). On the 987 Spyder I had a drive of yesterday you couldn't even see the engine without 10 minutes of panel removals!
I had a very pleasant surprise when our 8 year old Samsung washing machine failed the other day - not only could you remove the motor easily but the parts were available and cheap!
Back up and running for £8.39 so was well happy with that. Looking at the internals all the electronic PCBs are resin coated to keep out water but that does mean there's no way to replace a single component.
 

A.J.

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Your Mercedes
UnMerc - 2020 VW Polo 2.0t GTi Plus, DSG. Flash Red, Traditional VW GTi Tartan seat trim.
The first quote was considerably more expensive, however, he has a fantastic reputation, plus, he wanted to do the complete quarter panel to guarantee colour match, blend and finish, no short cuts or cheap jobs. The fellow's an absolute perfectionist.

This is the deal I would go for personally Jim. I too am a perfectionist and if it was not a proper job it would always be uncomfortably in the back of my mind. A proper job is what is needed.
 

Oldspanners

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C CLASS 2004 C180
same as that .in simple terms i do everything myself and spend some considerable time finding out how,if i dont already know or have not had the pleasure of that particular task previously.
perhaps its not the case but i am leaning towards the belief that todays makers (all products but esp car makers ) likely have a panel of techs whose sole job is to make it as difficult as possible for the average human to be able to interview/repair the product he has bought. either in the way its held together,the tooling to open it,or the availability of anything to fix it, or indeed all of these.
the thing i believe is great about this site is the efforts , time ,skills that appear here circumnavigating in this case the best efforts of benz to turn us all into constant consumers .
One of the great things on this site is that it allows you to have the feeling, if perhaps only briefly, that you have beaten the system that requires you to constantly pay for "updating". I also have the good feeling of perhaps found a real bargain even if it's the smallest of repairs.
I find many people's lack of curiosity about how things work and how they may be repaired strange as they immediately scrap and replace without ever thinking.
 

LostKiwi

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'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
I find many people's lack of curiosity about how things work and how they may be repaired strange as they immediately scrap and replace without ever thinking.
Absolutely this. We've been conditioned to replace not repair.
When the washing machine failed MrsLK's first reaction was "It's old I'll just prefer a new one". Initially she wouldn't let me even look at it but now after a sub £10 repair she's acknowledged fixing it was the right thing to do.
 

daibevan

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Alltwen, Pontardawe
Your Mercedes
W203 C200 Kompressor Elegance SE 2006 Tanzanite Blue with cream interior
I too love fixing things that have broken, especially if it's difficult. Gina says" I'm like a dog with a bone", as if that's a bad thing. I was recently gutted when I couldn't fix my dishwasher as it's now considered obsolete and the part is not available anywhere. ( I have fixed other faults with it in the past and it's at least 20 years old.)
 

Blobcat

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R171 SLK280, Smart R451, Land Rover 110 County SW, 997 C2S, R1250 GSA TE 40th, CBR600FP
Absolutely this. We've been conditioned to replace not repair.
When the washing machine failed MrsLK's first reaction was "It's old I'll just prefer a new one". Initially she wouldn't let me even look at it but now after a sub £10 repair she's acknowledged fixing it was the right thing to do.
So would a new one wash any better? Doubtful, just give the one you’ve got a decent clean (always amazed at how bad the soap drawer gets if you don’t clean it regularly)
 

LostKiwi

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'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
So would a new one wash any better? Doubtful, just give the one you’ve got a decent clean (always amazed at how bad the soap drawer gets if you don’t clean it regularly)
Exactly. I just ran a couple of empty washes through (with no soap) to test and it was amazing how soapy the water was. We don't use the soap drawer - she only use pods in it. It was just build up in the drum!
 

Jimbo1959

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VW Scirocco. The Quattro, E350 CDi Blue Efficiency Sport Coupe, now both gone
I too love fixing things that have broken, especially if it's difficult. Gina says" I'm like a dog with a bone", as if that's a bad thing. I was recently gutted when I couldn't fix my dishwasher as it's now considered obsolete and the part is not available anywhere. ( I have fixed other faults with it in the past and it's at least 20 years old.)

Like you I like to fix things, I put it down to being brought up at a time when most folk had to repair rather than replace.

The internet has helped enormously, there's just so much information available, tutorials, parts, everything really.

The only time I don't repair is, when the repair is uneconomical, for example, the main bearing on the drum of our washing machine failed recently and the only way that I could get one, was to buy the drum and bearing complete, Ok I thought, that'll make doing the job a bit easier however, the price for the unit was actually more than a new machine plus fitting of it, so, it was a no brainer to buy the new one.
 

ajlsl600

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Your Mercedes
clk3202001,sl6002003 with everything regrettably sold ,A class 170cdi auto. NG/TF1800 ML250
I do pretty much agree with you there Andy. Looking at the relative ease of working on the 129 compared to the 230 or any of my Mercs compared to a 2005 Saab I had or Mrs LKs Mini (which is damned near impossible to do anything on). On the 987 Spyder I had a drive of yesterday you couldn't even see the engine without 10 minutes of panel removals!
I had a very pleasant surprise when our 8 year old Samsung washing machine failed the other day - not only could you remove the motor easily but the parts were available and cheap!
Back up and running for £8.39 so was well happy with that. Looking at the internals all the electronic PCBs are resin coated to keep out water but that does mean there's no way to replace a single component.

yup and resin coating is ok by me .unless its a hotpoint lovelly bought a new one some yrs ago they were out to it three times in 1st 6 months ,in the end they replaced it. guess where the tray with the pcb was .... under the water pump ! i mean.. they have the whole basically empty box the machine is in and THATS where the pcb was.. i suspect a lot of P/G s past through there on the way to the car industry.
 

Jimbo1959

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VW Scirocco. The Quattro, E350 CDi Blue Efficiency Sport Coupe, now both gone
This is the deal I would go for personally Jim. I too am a perfectionist and if it was not a proper job it would always be uncomfortably in the back of my mind. A proper job is what is needed.

If money were no object Andy, I'd be inclined to take your advice and do the same, however, the other two quoters are quality repair shops with good reputations too so, must be given serious consideration. The location of each place also comes into the final decision as each presents its own problems with getting to and from plus, car collection when the jobs finished.
We'll see, lol.
 

Richard Moakes

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CL500; ML500
Finished the parking brake saga, it now fully engages at 5/6 clicks and seems to be pretty efficient. The shoes still need a little bedding in, but from a standstill I can feel the shoes ‘lock’ into place when I try to move forward under power.

Surprised I had to tighten the central adjuster with new rear cables, perhaps that’s a result of stretch in the front cable, but a nice side effect is that the parking brake warning light now goes out every time I release it, no more lifting the pedal up with my foot.

Did a pre MOT check and found one front fog light not working, turned out to be corroded ground connections, but changed the bulb anyway as I had gone to the trouble of getting into the light unit.
 

Craiglxviii

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970 Panamera Turbo; W221 S500L AMG Line, C215 CL500, W251 R350L AMG Line, plus several more now gone
Drove back from a caravanning weekend in the 251.

20.4mpg average towing a heavy German ‘van through the Peaks. I’m happy with that.
 

Oldspanners

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C CLASS 2004 C180
Nothing but a lovely sunny drive, about 120Kms round trip on great French D roads and enjoyed the car performing well (ahhh!!! what have I said) hope it lasts.
 


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