I know the tell-tale creaking is a sign of bad ball joints. What else?

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14 E250 Bluetec 4Matic "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 157k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 175k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver on Tan, 144k mi, wastegate conversion, ALDA delete

19 Honda CR-V EX 70k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

when you cant perform alignment on the car. Also real bad ones will make a knocking noises over bumps

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1986 300SDL, 211K,Dealership serviced its whole life
1991 190E 2.6(120k)
1983 300D(300k)
1977 300D(211k)

The spindle falls off the car.

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1984 300D
Euro spec, 5 speed
217,000 miles

And then there are the really bad ones. They break when you hit a pothole on the freeway. What happens after that can be bad, real bad or really bad.

vibrations at random.....vibration when braking.....a loose feeling on the road

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

Happiness is a rebuilt, in spec, freshly aligned front end.

I've just had three cars done in the last six months and they've almost already paid for themselves in saved tires.

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Codifex
1981 240D ChinaBlue (Got her running with a donor engine.)
1983 300DTurbo w/sunroof.
1984 300TD manual sunroof. (Electrical Gremlins)

you can visually tell the ball joints are wearing out, by the amount of space between the control arm and the knuckle. also, torn boots are a sign of imminent failure...

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

It's no fun when it happens. Borrowing a 300E 2.8 for the week

-J

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

They are very simple to check. Safely raise the car on jack stands then apply the 4 P's; Push, Pull, Pry & Prod. You will learn if they are tight or not. If they are loose replace them.

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2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

The one on that W124 had no play. It did have a torn boot though, and rusted in place. It twisted in half as I was pulling into the parking space.

-J

No wonder. It appears you were parking at a Toyota dealer.

I think under the circumstances the w124 was justified in lodging the protest

Seriously, if you're going to have a ball joint failure, that is about best case.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

in my humble opinion, the MB had absolutely ZERO right to fail in that dealership... the Japanese are all laughing at Germany right now...

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

This is EXACTLY what happened to me, except I was in a Food Lion parking lot & it was the driver side that went. All the tow people out here have rollbacks & it took some creativeness to get the car on the back of the wrecker (used a floor jack to jack up the damaged wheel & pull it on the rollback).

Hope to get it back from my indie today....

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1987 300DT
2002 Ford F-250 7.3 Crew Cab Short Bed

I wasn't going to the Toyota dealer across the street, I was going to the Goodwill store behind me to kill 20 min on my way to a client's.

That WAS the best possible case... not when I was going 70 on the beltway weaving between the ever changing jersey barriers

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

Whew! Doesn't seem to have damaged any of the sheet metal. And yeah, didn't happen on the high way.

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Codifex
1981 240D ChinaBlue (Got her running with a donor engine.)
1983 300DTurbo w/sunroof.
1984 300TD manual sunroof. (Electrical Gremlins)