ah, what the borescope would have shown me was the heavy accumulation of lube oil gum on the piston crowns.

when we pulled the heads, i saw piston crown deposits that bore no relation to the cleanliness of the piston crowns of my 560sel[86], that i acquired new, when i pulled the heads at 220,000 miles when its lube oil consumption began to to suddenly increase radically.

the 560sec was the first used car that i ever acquired. the interior was immaculate. [only evidence that anyone had ever been in it was the antique cell phone that had been installed]. as was the body. no rust. for the first 10,000 miles that i owned it, no evidence of excessive lube oil consumption. and then one day, i exited an interstate at 80 and was braking for a light. when i had decelerated to about 10mph, the light went green. i had a clear frontage road in front of me and i put my boot into it. what a cloud of white smoke. i was able to do this at will under similar conditions throughout the day.

i pulled the heads the following day.

now, had i borescoped the engine, i probably still would have acquired the car, it just might have enabled me to negotiate a lower price.

i knew that the m117 engine was prone to valve guide leakage, i just did not expect to see it at such a low mileage level. taught me a lesson that lack of use can sometimes be a problem in and of itself.

lastly, concerning this rear view mirror. candidly, when i encountered this flaw, i did not expect it be one that could only be corrected by replacing the mirror. i have an oral commmitment from the selling dealer that they will pick up the cost of this repair. but i have been troubled that i cannot get them to put that in writing.

my independent mechanic deals with this dealer and considers them straight folks. his opinion is that they will live up to their word.

and i trust that he is correct. i am probably naive, but i live up to mine and accordingly, i expect others to live up to theirs. i am adult enough to tell you that my expectations have often been short-changed.

i can afford a new mirror if it comes to that.