What Have You Done To Your Merc Today?

[Londonscottish]

• Drove home in new CLA 200 loan car - quite impressed for a small 4-pot that even had a nice light beige interior. Not so impressed when I looked online and saw that the lovely interior is only available on the base model when you chose a black exterior!

MB UK options are beyond bizarre these days. For a while I was looking at 300e's and I couldn't seem to find one with wheels that weren't plastered in black or grey paint. Why? What's wrong with, you know, silver? And, after looking for ages, I found out they'd discontinued Tansanite. At that point I just gave up.

 

[ALFAitalia]

To be fair most makers change most of their colours bi-annually.....Tanzanite was introduced in 1997!

 

[TC350]

MB UK options are beyond bizarre these days. For a while I was looking at 300e's and I couldn't seem to find one with wheels that weren't plastered in black or grey paint. Why? What's wrong with, you know, silver? And, after looking for ages, I found out they'd discontinued Tansanite. At that point I just gave up.

The issue I have with MB UK is that they drastically limit the options that MB are making. Whoever it is at MB UK who makes the decisions as to what’s available in the UK seems to have little knowledge of what the market really wants. They think that just because something sells, it must be good. They don’t realise that it’s only selling because the preferred options aren’t being made available.

 

[guhvies]

Went to collect my daughter from work, a 130 mile round trip. Mrs D insisted taking the cleanest (black) car, instead of my suggestion of a clean-ish (silver) car which has already driven in rain this week. It blooming rained 10 miles from home

Mrs D knows best, remember that. Plus that's the best way to keep you from getting under her feet and it gives you a chance to do something you love...

 

[Stevie1982]

Early rise to beat the que at the local tyre fitters. £40 later and new boots are fitted. (excuse poor refurb pre my ownership and is on the list to be fixed) yet the P Zero's had to go.

Intial thoughts, feels smoother and quieter.

 

[G7Wagen]

@Stevie1982 ... Snap!
0830 attended appointment at ATS Euromaster's to have a full set of new "All Season" tyres fitted to my E350 Coupe.

255/30/ZR19 Minerva All Seasons on rear. I looked hard for Michelin Crossclimate 2's for the rear but availability was zero in this size in the UK after many excellent reviews of the Belgian Minerva's I decided to give them a try.

235/35/R19 Michelin Crossclimate2 all season tyres fitted on the front.

Both ends feel great...

Since 2012 I have twice a year been swapping summer and winter tyres onto and off my one set of rims.
This has been both expensive and a bit of a pain.. when I saw both my summer and winter tyres were worn down to the wear indicators, it was time to get some All seasons.

This car is used mainly for commuting.. so performance is not really a concern.

 

[Londonscottish]

My son's away travelling and my wife took my daughter away to Greece yesterday for a week. This morning I had the choice of going to gym for the first time in a week or giving my car a bit of deep clean.

Seeing as it was cloudy I went for the latter. I treated it to a hand wash, some decontamination with magma spray, a once over with a clay bar then a silicone spray and finally some glass cleaner.

Started at 9.00 and finished at 11.30.

 

[TC350]

@Stevie1982 ... Snap!
0830 attended appointment at ATS Euromaster's to have a full set of new "All Season" tyres fitted to my E350 Coupe.

255/30/ZR19 Minerva All Seasons on rear. I looked hard for Michelin Crossclimate 2's for the rear but availability was zero in this size in the UK after many excellent reviews of the Belgian Minerva's I decided to give them a try.

235/35/R19 Michelin Crossclimate2 all season tyres fitted on the front.

I had the same issue when looking for Michelin CrossClimate 2s for the rear wheels on my C350. They didn’t exist. I even contacted Michelin in France but just got a reply of “Sorry, we don’t do them yet”. I ended up having to opt for Pirelli Cinturato All Season SFs all round (I didn’t want to mix). They’ve been good in all weathers, including 2 winters, and are very quiet. But the fronts are significantly narrower than the rims, leaving the latter exposed to kerbs and potholes

 

[TC350]

My son's away travelling and my wife took my daughter away to Greece yesterday for a week. This morning I had the choice of going to gym for the first time in a week or giving my car a bit of deep clean.

Seeing as it was cloudy I went for the latter. I treated it to a hand wash, some decontamination with magma spray, a once over with a clay bar then a silicone spray and finally some glass cleaner.

Started at 9.00 and finished at 11.30.

View attachment 142689

All that in 2.5 hours was probably a better work out than you would have had at the gym!

 

[ALFAitalia]

My son's away travelling and my wife took my daughter away to Greece yesterday for a week. This morning I had the choice of going to gym for the first time in a week or giving my car a bit of deep clean.

Seeing as it was cloudy I went for the latter. I treated it to a hand wash, some decontamination with magma spray, a once over with a clay bar then a silicone spray and finally some glass cleaner.

Started at 9.00 and finished at 11.30.

View attachment 142689

Gym or cleaning car?.......out of those two options Id be doing the car even if there was a thunder storm occurring!!!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Mrs D knows best, remember that. Plus that's the best way to keep you from getting under her feet and it gives you a chance to do something you love...

You’re right there

 

[johnsco]

The dash warning came up today on Mrs J's C200 Coupe for the right-hand brake light.
Removal of the lamp holder was a bit of a puzzle - Especially as the instructions in the handbook were wrong.
The book says "Press the tabs on both sides of the bulb holder"
The problem is that there are two tabs - But that's not how you do it.
There's a single tab about half-way up the bulb holder in the middle.
You pull that down and - Out it comes.
Fortunately I had a 21W bulb ..... 30 seconds to change it ..... Replacement is easy when you know how it came out.
Result !

 

[PaulG]

Just got the E240 back from my local specialist. The dreaded SBC pump was sent away, has been reconditioned and I will hopefully not have to worry about it failing again any time soon. They saved me the job of getting it washed which was a nice bonus.

 

[Londonscottish]

After the deep exterior clean at the weekend I've been tackling the interior. I cleaned the driver's seat and rear seats before running out of cleaner. Found some interior shampoo and moved onto the door cards and all the plastics. Then tackled all the grubby marks on the headlining.

More leather cleaner arrived yesterday so I'll do the passenger seat tonight and finish the hoovering. And then feed the leather.

It's great being left to my own devices - I've probably spent 5 maybe 6 hours on it this week. Would never normally get that amount of time with the mrs & kids around. There's always something to do even if it's just sitting down for dinner. Not having to talk to other human beings saves a lot of time.

This week I've done all my socialising in company time - I was invited a lunch in the city and round out that one of my colleagues was a right petrol head and has 5 cars inc an M635 CSI and an Chevy Impala.

Tomorrow's a day off so I can get down to Comand Online for my new door speakers. More talking random nonsense about cars

 

[rich1068]

Not having to talk to other human beings saves a lot of time.

 

[BTB 500]

After banging my head again at the weekend I finally replaced the 16 year old gas struts on the Vito's tailgate today.

I'd been putting it off for ages but it turned out to be a really quick & easy (and cheap) job. The most fiddly thing was finding something to hold the (large and heavy) tailgate fully open while I did it (I used a ladder in the end). After that it took a minute or so each side - they are just held by a C clip at each end, which was easy to lift with a screwdriver. The new struts then simply snap on. I bought a pair of mid-range struts (claimed to be from an OEM manufacturer) for £15 delivered on eBay - they looked good, fitted perfectly and work fine. Checked Euro Car Parts first and struts there were £25-£50 each.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

Parked E55 up in the factory today and SORNd in preparation for the strip down and investigation into its fault.

Since the supercharger etc. is coming out it's time to take things to bits and give them all some tlc.

 

[Londonscottish]

Had the new Morel door speakers & tweeters fitted yesterday. As I've said in other threads, I'm very happy indeed. To my ears, they give home hifi levels of detail; I think a lot of that will be down to way Rob bonds them to one metal panel whilst Dynamatting the other two. Plus the tweeters are stupidly good.

Must invent a reason to drive somewhere......

 

[HappytalkAgain]

After banging my head again at the weekend I finally replaced the 16 year old gas struts on the Vito's tailgate today.

I'd been putting it off for ages but it turned out to be a really quick & easy (and cheap) job. The most fiddly thing was finding something to hold the (large and heavy) tailgate fully open while I did it (I used a ladder in the end). After that it took a minute or so each side - they are just held by a C clip at each end, which was easy to lift with a screwdriver. The new struts then simply snap on. I bought a pair of mid-range struts (claimed to be from an OEM manufacturer) for £15 delivered on eBay - they looked good, fitted perfectly and work fine. Checked Euro Car Parts first and struts there were £25-£50 each.

Pre Internet I had an old Astra van and an old bit of 3x2 cut to length to hold the tailgate up because the gas strut was missing. Used it for a good 3 years. Looking back I really don’t know why I didn’t just goto Vauxhall and order one.

 

[PaulMason]

Both what I've done to my Merc today and also what I've LEARNED today. My 10 litre oil catch tray, which is definitely big enough to hold the 8.5 litres coming out of the ML, isn't 10 litres!! So glad I cleaned my drive a couple of weekends ago!!