Originally Posted by Island300D

Thanks again to this forum, I have learned the truth of the previous helpful post about not tackling the rear bearings lightly. Have read enough to see it is a pain in the butt. I know I could do it, skill and tenacity wise, but nothing I am eager to do. I was just going to do them as regular maintenance, but screw that idea. I've done rear bearings on Volvo's, VW's, Ford's, GM's and Toyota's, none of which were anywhere near as complicated as on this Mercedes!!

Wouldn't it be great if all the car manufacturer's got together and shared Best Practices so no one came up with with their own horrible way of doing something when someone else had already figured out a perfect way to do it? Why did Jaguar and MG ever try to do their own electrical systems? Why didn't everyone just copy the slant 6 of the Dodge Dart? And why the hell did Mercedes think it was OK to make their rear bearings impossibly hard to work on, when most every other car manufacturer has a perfectly simple and effective system for doing so? Oh well, we can't have everything!

Now I am having a hell of time getting the oil fill screw out of my rear differential! Two feet of breaker bar and the damn thing still won't budge. Oil I drained out was toast and filled with metal shavings. Glad I am doing this one...

Thanks for the heads up...