I am an owner of a 1987 560 sel that just came out of the shop. I loaned the car to my father and he wound up hitting a deer on the hwy not more than a half hour into his journey. The car was in pristine shape at the time and the accident required a new hood, grille, radiator, water pump and various other repairs to the tune of $9600 cdn. Everything seems to be functioning correctly except for one small item. The fuse that controls the vacuum locking system and the trunk light blows every time I open the trunk. I can not figure it out and I thought I would see if anyone out there can help me with this problem as opposed to racking up additional charges on my insurance. Any help would be appreciated.


The Dude.

I would take the car back and make them fix it properly. Your insurance company is required to make you "whole" after the accident (ie. everything in the order it was in before).

Don't worry about charges on your insurance.. From what I understand (I'm in Ontario also), they count the number of claims not the amount. This accident will either raise your premiums or not raise it (based on your driving record and any other accidents) irrelevant of the value of this claim.

My mom once got into an accident and the body shop fixed everything but told her they "weren't responsible" for the A/C no longer working (it worked fine before the accident. Apparently they didn't think they were responsible for replacing a condensor (damaged in accident) because they were a body shop rather than an A/C or general automotive shop.

Neal

PS. What colour is your 560sl and where do you live? I have the black/black 560SL in Oakville if you live in the area...

__________________
'83 300SD 335,000km (207k) mi SOLD
'87 560SL 163,000km (101k mi) SOLD
'86 300SDL 356,000km (220k mi) SOLD
'92 500SEL 250,000km (155k mi) SOLD
'90 300SL 140,000km (87k mi) SOLD
'01 S430 260,000km (161k mi) SOLD
'03 SL500 167,000km (104k mi) SOLD
'07 S550 4MATIC 235,000km (146k mi) SOLD
'07 GL320 CDI 4MATIC 348,000km (215k mi)
'13 GL350 BlueTec 4MATIC 170,000km (105k mi)
'14 SL550 72,000km (43k mi)

El Duderino:

I would take it to the chinese dude who "pissed on your carpet", to use the parlance of our times.

Walter

he's a good man... and thorough

I had a malfunctioning taillight (blowing fuses) that I eventually traced to a short (severed wire) in the conduit that carries wiring into the trunk. After eight or so years of bending each time the trunk was opened, the wire finally fatigued.

Point being, your malfunction may not be a direct result of the poor old deer or the elderly Lewbowski's wife Bunny. Tracking shorts can be a real bear. I got lucky finding mine. Pull the lining out of your trunklid and have a look. May take you an hour, but I bet you find it!

To all you urban acheivers out there, thanks for the advice. This case has a lot of ins, outs and what have yous....Neal, I'm situated at the base of the rockies in Calgary and my car is the color of the flesh of a banana with butterscotch interior. The 560 sel is a great touring vehicle. However, as seems to be the norm, my auto leveling is shot and I'm crossing my fingers that it is only the accumulators. I am still working on that short but Walter has lead me in the right direction. Now it's just a matter of finding the stress point. I've also got a leak in the transmission and am wondering what will be required to fix it. I'm off to fix that short.

over.