500E Rear ride height

[David Hendy]

Took my 500E out this weekend, first time since Thanksgiving, what with the bad weather we have had. The right rear of the car is sitting about 1/2"-3/4" lower than the left.

Drove for an hour or so, no improvement in ride height, did not seem to be any difference in the quality of the ride(then again with 275/40 Pilot sports who would know!).

Any thoughts?

David Hendy
1992 65K miles

My Clk 55 rides like that...1/2" higher on the left rear than the other three corners....both before and after lowering.

[Michael]

David,

Is this one of your rear springs going bad? The load leveling system does not act on the rear wheels independently, nor is it responsible for establishing static ride height (unladen), so I'm disinclined to think there's a problem there. Did you visibly inspect the rear springs? Perhaps one may have broken?

Just an idea....I'll initiate a few inquiries on your behalf and get back to you if I find out anyhting substantive.

[Edited by Michael on 01-16-2001 at 01:35 PM]

[yhliem]

most likely a bad spring or bad rear strut. michael is right in that the SLS does not work each side independantly, but it CAN be used to set the static ride height to a degree.

[Michael]

David/yhliem,

Indeed the adaptive rear suspension CAN be utilized to affect rear ride height, it's just not supposed to have to fill that role; the springs are.

Mike, ol' bean, try something:
disconnect the control rod from your 500 and go for a spin :-)
see if lack of level control affects static reight height or not. by the time you roll out of your driveway, the distance between your rear wheel center and lower fender will have declined by a good 0.5-0.75 and you'll be bucking like a cowboy hee hee hee.... :-)