Dear Benz....

Dear Mercedes Benz Car;

I just wanted to drop you a note to clarify some things.  I think there has been a slight misunderstanding; you seem to think that breaking down and taking all my money is somehow acceptable and funny.  Let me make things perfectly clear to you; it's not.  So last week when you decided to stop shifting into any forward gears and left me stranded outside of Seattle in a Burger King parking lot, that was not interesting or cute.   It was embarrassing, terribly inconvenient, and ended up being very expensive.  And I have to be honest with you, when I went to open the hood and that clever little release in the grille came off in my hand denying me access to the engine bay, I seriously considered the future of our relationship.  I considered it again as I lay face down in the dirt, after slipping while trying to push you up the ramp onto the very expensive tow trailer, you know the one, the one that tows all four wheels because the rental company wouldn't allow a Mercedes on the one that only tows two wheels.  Because you're supposed to be special.  I've got to say that as that long, long day of trailers, towing, getting lost, getting harassed at the border (who would have thought two guys with an empty UHaul towing a Mercedes would be suspicious) I must say I gave serious thought to the words my Dad, Wife, and friends were saying; "Get Rid of that thing and buy something nice and reliable".

In the week that you were gone for repairs I had some time to seriously think.  I had to take transit and drive a loaner car.  I won't go into detail regarding my transit experience only to say anyone who choses this mode of transport is a serious self-loathing masochist.  It's cramped, it's loud, it's hot, and it smells.  And it ain't cheap.  For how much it sucks they should be paying you to ride it.  The loaner car; a pristine 1997 Honda Accord LX.  This is the base 4 cylinder mode with a 5 speed manual, hand-crank windows, and no power locks.  It's a great car and exactly one of those "nice and reliable" cars everyone was talking about.  It's even beige with a well put together beige interior. Let me tell you something Benz, if you weren't in trouble of getting sold before you definitely were when I got behind the wheel of this thing.  The manual shifter is a joy to use, the engine is torquey and peppy, the steering is light at parking lot speeds but precise and communicative when you get going.  Honda knows its engineering and this is one well engineered car with everything you need and nothing you don't.  Sure there's no tilting and wide opening sunroof, sure the rear headrests don't fold down out of view at the touch of a button, yeah you've got to constantly fiddle with the AC because the fan has only four settings and all of them louder and more annoying than the next unlike the Mercedes climate control which silently works in the background to make the cabin utterly comfortable, sure that excellent Honda engine is loud inside the car, like really loud, and not a good sports car engine loud like in the Miata and not a refined hum like in you, but a bad economy car buzzing loud, and what's with all the road noise?  Are the tires made of wood? Constant road noise and shuddering from the chassis over every bump, I felt like going for a hay ride in a buck wagon. You're nearly ten years older and solid and silent and pleasant.  Where was I going with this? Oh yeah; You win.  At the end of the week I was more than happy to pay to have your transmission ECU replaced and reprogrammed.   I didn't look forward to driving the Accord, it's just a very good appliance to get from one place to another. You; you're special.  I guess you can take all my money because you've spoiled me and no other car will do. The Mercedes Benz motto applies: Perfection or Nothing.



Sincerely


Your Self-loathing Masochist Owner

Crank(y) Shaft Pulley Part III

Well the weather has turned and the sun is out so the Mazda should be coming out of its winter hibernation, but alas, the Crank shaft pulley problem has kiboshed those plans. You may recall that last fall my other twenty year old car, the 300E had some transmission problems, which meant that I had to use the Miata later into the season than intended. You may also recall that due to time constraints, when the front of the engine was apart I did not actually replace the wobbling pulley, figuring the Miata would be on the road for such a short time it wouldn't matter and it could be done this year. The Mazda was not on the road a short time and it did matter, a few days before the Benz returned from the transmission shop, the pulley and key started their wobbling thing and the whole thing went crappo; no power, horrible banging noise, etc. At the time my fragile nerves couldn't handle two major breakdowns so I parked the Miata, went on holiday, forgot about it, picked up my Benz and motored happily for the winter and spring. But now it's summer and I want some top down enthusiastic shifting for myself driving. The plan right now is to see if the shaft and pulley can be jerry fixed again, or if more dra$tic measures will have to be taken. New engine anyone? Regardless something will have to be done because right now it's sunny outside and the Miata is sitting under a tarp in the garage like some forgotten junk. No one said owning twenty old cars on a budget would be easy.

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.