A Mercedes Guy

The transmission in your car fails, what do you do?

If you own a new car, with a warranty, you curse the car and the people that built it and then you call your dealership and make an appointment. Pick up a loaner then wait while they investigate and hopefully honour the warranty and fix the car. Your cost is probably zero and you just have to deal with the hassle of the impersonal dealership experience.

But what do you do if own a $1600 20 year old Mercedes and the transmission fails? Well first you ask a mechanic and he'll say "Oooh Mercedes? That's complicated shit, most people wouldn't touch it, call a transmission shop and see." So you call the transmission shop up the street. "Mercedes? No we don't do those, call the Mercedes specialist." So you call the Mercedes specialist shop that seems to work on every older Mercedes in the city. They're busy when you call, lots of broken old Mercedeses. They rudely tell you that they won't have time to look at the car till next week but if it's a problem with the transmission it will need to be rebuilt and they charge $5000. You cry and start thinking which is your favorite car donation charity program; the Cars for retarded kids or Cars for kids with bad kidneys.

Then while lamenting about your predicament at a soirée, one of the other patrons tells you about his Iranian Mechanic who's brother is also a Mechanic who works on Mercedeses for cheap. You call him, a guy with a thick accent picks up. "Transmission? No I don't do it, awful job, call this transmission shop, they do Mercedes." Your heart sinks, when the Mercedes guy doesn't want to do the repair you know it's bad. Reluctantly you call this transmission shop, they're free and are willing to look at the car. The shop is empty when you arrive and everyone looks really desperate for work. They drive the car around the block and come out scratching their heads. The estimate is between $2000 and $4000 depending on what they find when they open it. They're not sure because they mainly do Fords. Cars for Kidney Kids it is, the money from the scarp metal goes to pay for a part of a dialysis machine.

But before you can call, another party and a friend of a friend tells you about a guy he knows that owns a Mercedes and works on the transmissions. A day later you have the number. He's polite. You tell him the problem and he knows right away. You talk on the phone for a bit about how great Mercedeses are. He's got a '72 with collector plates and he's done over 30 transmission rebuilds. The estimate he gives is reasonable. He's got a small workshop on the edge of town and he likes taking the things apart and putting them back together, he likes how they were made and engineered. The car is gone for a week and when it comes back it works like it's supposed to. When I pick up the car we chat about about cars in general and he doesn't get bored and start talking about some TV show. I've found my Mercedes guy.

Go Forward

When I think of the proud German people I think of a nation looking ahead and moving forward, never backward - never backward. I wonder if some of that was engineered into the automatic transmission of my Mercedes-Benz 300E. From the day I bought it I've known that the transmission had problems and would have to be replaced sometime down the line. Well that time has come. While parking recently I flipped it into reverse..... and nothing. It shuddered, it shook, but it would not go backwards. It's like it's in neutral. On flat ground it will slowly creep backwards but apply any gas and it just revs without any acceleration. Clearly some clutch pack in there is toast and it will need a rebuild. That can't be cheap.

Crank(y)shaft Pulley Part 2: The Fix

I talked earlier about the crankshaft pulley problem that early Miata's have; the bolt holding the pulley gets loose, the key holding things steady bangs around deforming the crankshaft, the timing starts to get screwed up and the engine becomes worthless. My car was exhibiting some of the symptoms (wobbly pulley, low low-end power) but I didn't know for sure. Well in May at the start of the Miata season it was time to change the timing and accessory belts so while the front of the engine was taken apart I could have a look: bad news the key and crankshaft were badly damaged.

Here's the end of the crankshaft, the slot at the top where the key fits is about one and a half times wider than it's supposed to be from all the banging.

and here's the key that holds things in sync, notice the large extra groove that's not supposed to be there. It's been banged out too.

Looks bad. No hope. Engine is a gonner.

or is it?

I don't know who came up with this, me or my dad, but we decided to fashion a new key that would be wider at one end to fit snuggly into the wide groove on the crankshaft and line up the sprocket and pulley at the other end. Where we were doing the repair they had an assortment of keys from various vehicles, one from a Dodge Ram was wide enough to fit into the wide end of the crankshaft groove, then we had to machine it to fit the sprocket and pulley. There's me using a fine rotary grinder to thin out one end to fit into the sprocket groove.

Afterwards we banged everything together and it all fit tight. Put the car back together and it works. The timing between the crankshaft and valves matches so it has way more low end power. It's a completely different car, a real peppy sports car. You can powerslide all the time and darting through traffic is a cinch. The fix cost nothing because we got that key for free. So if you've got the same problem don't replace your engine, just machine a new key and it will be fine. Oh and the wobble: It appears the wobble is caused by the rubber damper at the back of the pulley breaking down with time. A new pulley should remedy the problem, I haven't gotten one yet (next season) and I'll let you know. So far it only wobbles when the engine bay is hot, indicating it's the rubber breaking down. I was totally stunned that this worked and saved me from getting a new engine. Next year I'll replace the bolt and pulley just to be sure and inspect to see if everything held during this season. Ingenuity eh?

From Yin to Yang: Starting up the Miata after Winter Hibernation

Well it's that time of year when the sun is out more and the temperature is heating up. It's time for top down driving. I started up the Miata for the first time after a six month hiatus. Last year when I did this it didn't go too smoothly: 1. I let the battery go totally dead so I needed a new one. 2. The oil had pretty much completely drained out of the engine and into the pan, so when I started the car in clanked clattered and stutered and probably caused some damage. This year I actually disconnected the battery so it wasn't drained at all and to prevent the horrible start up, I pulled the Fuel Injection Relay starving the engine of gas. Then I cranked the car running the engine on the starter only and gently circulating oil up into the engine. I could watch the oil pressure go up on the gauge, when it looked like it wasn't going any higher, I put the relay back and started the car on the first crank no problem. It ran a little rough at first but then smoothed right out and it didn't make any horrible clattering sounds. When I park the car this year I have to remember to add fuel stabiliser, I think that will help with the rough idle.

The insurance isn't on the car yet so I could only drive it a bit around the garage. It really is the yang to the Mercedes' yin. The 300 is serene, quiet, and isolates you from all the messy dirty parts, while the Miata is loud, rauchus and you can feel and hear every single dirty part spinning and whirring. It got my blood pumping just moving it from one spot to the other; what a car. Driving the Miata is a different kind of relaxed and both are great.

Fuel Economy?

I keep very close track of how much fuel my cars use. Needless to say the Mercedes uses more than the Miata. It hungers for fuel, craves it, thinks about it all the time, and not the cheap stuff, it wants the goods.Premium fuel is the only gas the Mercedes will accept, and it accepts a lot of it.
The Mercs gas tank is 70 litres which includes the reserve, the Miatas is half that and it takes the cheaper gas and it burns less how much less? Here's how it breaks down:


City Mileage:
Miata 9.8l/100km (24mpg)
Mercedes 14.1l/100km (17mpg)
Highway Mileage:
Miata 7.4l/100km (32mpg)
Mercedes 9.5l/100km (25mpg)
Combined Average:
Miata 8.7l/100km (27mpg)
Mercedes 13.7l/100km (17mpg)
Best Tank:
Miata 6.3l/100km (37mpg)
Mercedes 9.3l/100km (25mpg)
Worst Tank:
Miata 11.4l/100km (21mpg)
Mercedes 16.8l/100km (14mpg)

In six months of Miata ownership I spent $1162 on gas and travelled 11100km, that's 10 cents per kilometre. In six months of Mercedes ownership, I spent $1210 and drove 8693km, that's 14 cents per kilometer, 40% more. But the Merc is way more car than the Miata so it kind of works out. These numbers are also scewed because the Miata is used in the summer, and is driven for lot longer distances; average km per day was 531 (this number is heavily scewed by the 24hr mad drive to Vegas). The Mercedes averaged 47km daily. But gas has been much cheaper than last summer so if gas were to match last summer's pricing the Merc would be even more expensive to run. Still it's a Mercedes, it's not a toy and it doesn't fuck around.

Is that your car?

I don't dress well. My favorite outfit is my "Rip Zone" hoodie (I have no idea when or where I got it), a pair of Levi jeans from Zellers, and a pair of discount runners (dicounted because they were ugly and no body bought them). So basically I don't look like high society, nor do I earn high society money. This has lead to an interesting phenomenon; people don't beleive I own a Mercedes. Here are some examples: Shortly after buying the car I was washing it in my garage when a neighbour noted "Why are you washing your bosses car?". On a recent trip to Oregon, in the line up to cross the border into the USA a pair of border guards came up to the car and asked me a long series of questions all designed to determine if it was my car "Is this your car? When did you buy it? From who?". But the most common response I get from people is "Is that yours?" or "Did you win the Lotto?". Sometimes I tell them how much I paid for it, sometimes I don't. It's sad because I realize that most people beleive that they can't afford a Mercedes, when the truth is, almost anyone can.

Unflappable

Rich people are safer. At least they were in 1990. At $50,000 the 300E was no bargain back then but you were getting a lot of engineering for your money. ABS, Airbags (neither which work on this particular car), side impact beams, crumple zones front and back, and more importantly unflappability. You just cannot upset this car; it is perfectly balanced. That's where I think most of that money went; to the engineering of a big heavy sedan, that's perfectly serene and quiet, has a soft suspension that absorbs bumps with aplomb, yet when you push it hard around corners the steering is sharp and communicative, it doesn't under- or over-steer it just goes around the corner with nary a tire squeal, and it does this even when it's wet or snowy (mind you you've got to back off a bit in the snow but it's amazing how well it tracks in the stuff). None of the cars I've owned before were this capable, the G20 or my Legend were great handlers but if you pushed them too hard they would get all out of sorts and under-steer totally out of control. Not even the Miata is as capable as the Benz. The Miata is sharper of course, more visceral, it's a super light sports car where the Benz is still a big sedan, but do something mildly drastic or irresponsible in the Miata near its limit and you will be punished with snap over-steer and total loss of control. The constant prospect of sailing backwards into a tree on your mind tends to keep you not pushing the Miata as hard, however the Benz at its limits is always controlled, you just get some mild, polite under-steer to remind you that you are reaching the edge of that envelope and that edge is way way up there. The Miata's tendency to over-steer is what makes it so dynamic, challenging, and exciting. It also makes it a difficult daily driver; left turn too fast oops spinning through that intersection (it happens). In the Benz things are always serene, dignified, and safe no matter how dumb you behave. That's what $50,000 bought you in 1990, not just leather, wood, and power this and that, but the ability to act like an ass and stay on the road no matter what; true safety.