Wife had an unexpected 7 hour drive to South Carolina for work when a massive car wreck closed I95 southbound to Richmond, VA- and she missed her flight out of the Richmond airport. She shrugged it off, pulled the ML500 over and filled up and called to let me know the new plan. Days later on her drive back to VA however, she noticed a shuddering sound coming from the passenger front. She pulled off the highway thinking the tire was going flat- but everything appeared OK. So, she called me and I started diagnosing over the phone, when the "it's like a fast whump whump sound" returned.

Not wanting to take any chances, I instructed her to call AAA and I came on here to find a shop near her (and I'm NOT digging the whole "go to gen discussion, find your region, read thru all the posts, pull out your map, then read all posts again to see IF there is a recommended shop near me- thing. I liked it better when we just clicked a state...) Anyway, after doing all that, I used Roy's link to IATN- and did a search, and when I called my wife back, AAA had given her the same shop to check, Tharrington's in Rocky Mount, NC about 25 mins from where the wife was on I95.

I called ahead for my wife, and got voicemail. I called back and this time spoke to someone named Lee Ann, and explained how I found them, and what the symptoms were on the ML500. She said they were going to closing in 45 mins and they get all of their BMW, MB, and etc. parts out of Raliegh, but "tell your wife to c'mon and not to worry we'll have a tech check it out for her." The wife drove straight there, where they immediately took her in, test drove the 500 and put it on a lift, and checked tires, checked for play, etc. The tech came in and explained that there was a spot on the passenger front wheel where he could see that wheel weights had come off, so she was likely just getting wheel vibration at higher speeds. He said it should be perfectly fine to drive the rest of the 3+ hours.

He handed her the key back, and told her to have a nice drive back to Virginia. So, I wanted to post here because they took the car in immediately just before closing time, checked it out immediately, were very courteous and professional and in the end, charged us nothing for their time. They took good care of my wife, and therefore us- and I would certainly return as a customer if they weren't almost 4 hours away. So, Tharrington's Auto in Rocky Mount North Carolina belongs in our list of "Good Shops!" -John