New Front End & Alignment and Still Wearing Tires??? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

350SL4spd · #6 11-12-2007, 02:48 PM

Hey guys,

Well, I had it out with my dealer and received at least a little better treatment over my last few visits, but they can't solve my problem.

The car now has an entirely new front end in the last 10 months: Front shocks/wheel bearings & the left ball joint 10mo ago, and all new tie rods, drag link/shock and control arm bolt/bushings this month, as well tires rotated & balanced the last time in.

The dealer has had it on the alignment rack no less than three times and has had everyone from the Shop Manager to the Head Tech go over the front end. They say the front end is perfectly aligned and that there are no parts left to replace (coming from the dealer, that's saying something). But it is still rubbing tires. Same wear pattern on the inside edge of the left front tire.

Obviously anything like a damaged control arm or a bent frame would become incredibly obvious when they got it hooked up to the computer. But everything comes out roses with their numbers. The last thing the dealer could tell me to do was replace the tires, but I'm currently running the second post-alignment 'fresh' tire on that corner with the same results: that the wear pattern gets it's teeth in after about 30 miles.

When I went over the car one of the techs at the dealership he immediately felt the wear pattern and commented that that particular wear pattern was almost always indicitive of a bad strut on the w124's, "But I see you already replaced those".

Is it possible to get a bad strut right out of the box? I put in Bosch HD's straight from Phil, less than 11mo ago, but could the strut have come from the factory with no oil in it?

The dealership has no idea what else to do with it & I'm still rubbing tires. any ideas??

Thanks.