The midnight an azure blues do look similar in photos. In person, they also both look great, although there is a clear difference. For one thing, I think the midnight blue cars I’ve seen did not appear to be metallic. In addition, the azure is a bit lighter and seems to have a bigger tendency to change shades of color depending on the light.

Actually, my flair developed after a fluid and filter change that was done when I had a check engine light come on for a faulty kickdown actuator. They also did all of the seals “while they were in there”, which I now realize was stupid to do since I have a leak free trans that will need to be rebuilt anyway. This is the main reason I gave up on the dealer. After they did the work and I had the flair, they told me I needed a transmission for $5000.00. They never said anything about the vacuum modulator adjustment.

I played with the vacuum modulator myself and also played with the bowden cable to try to minimize the flair. I learned about that on this forum. It helped, although the firmer shifts don’t really feel that great. At first I thought I liked the firmer shifts. It was like a racecar, but now I wonder if the firm shifts may be contributing to an earlier total transmission failure. I had to choose between firmer shifting or the flair. The flair can’t be good for the transmission either, so I am staying with the firm shifts. I am very careful about using reverse, since I was told that the reverse is most likely to fail and the pressures there can be considerable if you crank up the modulator too much. I only went about a half of a turn. I have my fingers crossed.



I do think I was seeing some sag. I thought it was due to a leaky Bilstein HD shock, which has now been replaced with my original shocks. I guess I will try to get the HD shock fixed under warranty, although I am considering getting all new Sports. My car is lowered by about 1 inch, which is an intermediate drop and supposedly ok for either the HD or Sport shocks. I just wonder now if the slightly lowered stance contributed to the HD shock failure. I also wonder if the stiffer Eibach springs may have contributed to the perch failure. The firmer springs certainly were not providing the same level of “spring” to protect the perch. Like a lot of things about these cars, many folks doing the mods really have not owned the cars for years and years and years. I have had my car for about 12 years and it has been lowered for about 6 or 7 of those years

__________________
I just couldn't give up on my 1995 E320.

I think it might be like always going back to that same bad relationship with an ex girlfriend.
You feel you love them too much, or you are just too stupid to know any better.



Flickr slideshow of my 1995 E320
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24145497@N06/sets/72157616572140057/