Taking My £500 Mercedes To A Main Dealer - Everything Wrong With My CL500!

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The cat has better things to do 😂

Bravery comes in many forms, and going to a Mercedes MD with a £500 car is one of them.

I had one of those so called called main dealer checks when i took in my old Honda accord for an airbag recall. They produced a massive list of things that they said needed doing. My M.O.T was due the following week so I put the car in with local independent guy. He looked at the sheet and declared most of it nonsense. They had also missed a completely knackered front suspension lower arm!

I was loaned one of these cars by a friend a few years ago. He had more cars than space to park them, and he was a generous man who got pleasure from sharing great cars with other petrol heads. Other than the CL500 he loaned me an XKR and a V8 Vantage - each for a month at a time. All great cars, but the CL500 was the one I was least keen to borrow. It was also the only one I didn’t want to give back. I said to him that it wasn’t a car, it was a spaceship with an orchestra in the boot. It was so quiet and effortless it was like being teleported in silence between destinations and the audio system 😍 It is a car that doesn’t grab you from the outside like the XKR or Vantage. But once you have driven one …

Love the cat strutting about. Great car too.

Well done, Mark! Nice to know there are still decent people out there.

It makes sense once you understand that the service manager job position is in the sales department.

The part I'm most surprise about is that MB don't stock parts for that car already. They used to keep spares for their cars right back to the year dot.

Looks like you've landed on your feet this time Jack, those ball joints are £25 each on eBay; I replaced them both on my R129 in a couple of hours after a bit of a fight.

When I drove Mercedes I always used an Independent in Gloucester Robin Lamb. I've known Robin since 1991 when he was service manager at the local main dealer. Definitely speak with them as they are really good and reasonable on labour rates.I remember when I owned a 190E Robin was at the main dealers when my car was serviced. They picked up on service that the exhaust manifold had a crack which was a £400 job. He told me not to bother fixing it as it was a common thing and would not cause any issues. I never had it done and did another 30,000 miles before selling the car quite happily (in those days there wasn't an independent locally). I know in the past that Richard Ashcroft and Steve Winwood among others used him rather than a main dealer for maintaining their cars. His labour rate currently is £60 an hour. If you decide to contact him tell him Les Abbott sent you.

mechanic here, i'm struggling to see excess play on those joints, but the clip is a bit short... anyway, a man of your talent will be able to do them for about £100 [vid please] undershields only slightly affect the car's balance at over 80mph, it's mainly noise they supress looks like you bought a good old smoker this time, fingers crossed keep it up young man

I replaced the gearbox sump on a 2007 E350 with the 7G box with the cheapest Ebay sump - about £60 with a new gasket and it was fine. Febi do W220 and CL front arms for about £150 a pair and you may find they are Merc parts with the logo and part numbers ground off.

Deja vu. I had the same issues with my CL when I bought it; the sump and the front ball joints. Get the sump sorted. It will leak. It is made of paper thin steel and will go soon. Mine did not look as bad as yours and started leaking. Same for the front joints. You can do it yourself in an afternoon, just have some map gas to hand and maybe consider having replaceable grub screws (4 of them) for the bottom of the shock. They tend to cease and are a bit of a pig. While you are in there, replace all you can. It's relatively inexpensive. You will do that job in your garage for less than £250 and it will feel much better to drive when done.

The CL500 is a fantastic used car and in my experience so far has not followed the trend of breaking the bank in repairs. mine came with ABC deleted on coilovers but i absolutely love my CL and i also paid quite a lot more than you for my example

How about the boys at SPR Auto Mercedes for a potential assist for stuff you can't manage in your driveway? Love their channel, they seem very straight ahead stand up guys.

Undertrays are readily available and cheap and reasonably easy to fit

£178/hour labour is not so exorbitant for a main dealer - even twenty years ago, VW main dealers were charging €110/hour in the Netherlands...

My local Volvo dealer charges £150 per hour and that's their minimum charge for diagnostic work. On a recent service they advised I needed a track rod end. Their quote - £414! I also needed trailing arm bushes which they quoted over £600 , to replace. Had bushes and track rod done by my local garage for under £600 including alignment The difference is that main dealers have a shiny showroom to pay for and staff earning much more than the local guys pay

How can that car be worth only £1500? It's a fabulous car...