Hello — please see my pictures — I am aware that I need to replace these mounts soon. Question is, how bad are they? Wife wants to take a ~500 mile trip this week — should driving the car be avoided at all costs or is it probably OK until after the trip when I can replace at my convenience?

Thanks

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David
1986 300E Anthracite + ECodes + MB Mileage Award

Well, lots of highway miles kinda means that there will be less up and down movement.... so I THINK it will be okay... lets see what others have to say...

If you are very concerned, get a rental car!!!

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2006 BMW M5 "Heidi" @ 106,000 miles
2005 MBZ C55 AMG "Lorelai" @ 134,000 miles
1990 MBZ 500SL "Shoshanna" @ 118,000 miles

She can always take the 300E -- but no A/C at this time.

Is mount failure catastrophic -- will it fail and go up through the hood or will it get worse and worse and rattle for awhile before it

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David
1986 300E Anthracite + ECodes + MB Mileage Award

I've read posts here that said that if the mount lets go, the strut rod could go through the hood. But there's a limit stop built into the design, which should prevent the strut rod from rising too far, and could theoretically let the car limp home (?).

What's the condition of the bottom of the mount? That could give you an indicator about how extensive the cracking is.

For what it's worth, my mounts looked like that for quite some time (and many thousands of miles) before I had them replaced with the front struts at around 270,000 miles.

Can you inspect the mount from underneath to see if the cracks run all they way through ?

FWIW, you can replace these with a floorjack and handtools (no need to remove strut), IF you disconnect the front swaybar.

:-) neil

Failure of the top strut mount would drastically alter the camber and caster, and dramatically change the toe-in/out condition of the alignment. The wheel would unlikely fall off. The spring keeps the control arm from going up. The only thing that would be pressing up on the hood would be the gas charge in the strut (unless you hit a very large bump). Pure speculation but I think a failure would go something like the car massively swerving to one side of the road.

check out the DIY WIKI for close up photos: 124 Ball joints.

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89 300te 222,222
92 300e 190,000