Uneven suspension - puzzling

[zorin]

Hi all,

I had a broken coil and shocks on my 86 300E (124). I changed the pairs of coils and shocks on both driver and passenger side. Now, as seen in the attached pictures, the passenger side sits about couple of inches higher the driver side. It has been few weeks now and it is still uneven.

Initially the dealer had sold me the wrong coils and the mechanic thought the diferrence in height is due to that. (one of the coils was sitting with a curve). But once we got the correct ones the problem was still there. The correct parts had the same number of dots of paint on them, three yellow, one blue.

I am not sure what would cause this and what I can do to fix it. Any help would be appriciated.

Thanks.

[zorin]

Bumped!

[sbourg]

May seem like a pain, but swapping the springs side-side should show if the problem is a mismatch. Udder dan dat..... you'll have to take it to someone who can spot whatever you must have missed.

Steve

[t walgamuth]

like the wrong spring. cant think of any thing else that would make it sit so high.

tom w

[Phalcon51]

Was the work done at an MB dealership? Wherever it was done, they shouldn't have let it roll out of the shop looking like that! Unless you did the work yourself, I would take it back and insist that they either correct the problem or give you an accurate diagnosis of exactly what's wrong. If you bought the parts at one place and then gave them to the mechanic to install, he still bears some of the responsibility to make sure that they're both the same length before he installs them, although it can certainly be argued that you should have noticed it as well.

A couple of questions:

How exactly did the coil and shock get "broken", and in what way were they broken?

Do you still have the old broken springs? Were both the bump pads (rubber spacer pads) completely removed with the spring, attached to the upper coils or did they remain in the upper spring seat? They normally should come out attached to the top of the spring, and in the shape of a closed, inverted cup. Did the tech install new bump pads?

Did you do any kind of side-by-side visual comparison of the both of the new springs, and perhaps the new and the old springs? Notice anything unusual?

What brand and type of shocks did you install? Did they come as a matched pair? Again, any side-by-side comparison new-to-new or new-to-old?

Did you inspect or replace either or both of the upper strut mounts? If not, inspect them both loaded and unloaded.

There's not a lot that can go wrong inherently in the front suspension as long as none of the parts are physically damaged or mis-matched. It's a pretty straightforward system. You might try jacking the car up yourself and take off one wheel at a time (both, if you have a pair of sturdy jackstands) and simply inspect the various parts of the front suspension that would be involved with the shock/spring swap. Make sure the springs appear to be properly seated top and bottom. Count the number of coils visible on each side. With the wheel(s) off the ground, check the extended length of the shock from the inside upper mounting point to the lower mounting point and compare. Eyeball the angle of the extended lower control arm as viewed from the front. If there's a difference in length when the parts are extended, the problem likely lies with the shocks. If the difference is only apparent when the weight of the car is on the wheels, then probably it's the springs, or the way they're mounted.

Please post a follow-up and let us know what you find out ultimately. I'd be curious to know.

Gary

[theairboy]

Yes and I was wondering about the broken spring thing to. Is it possible that the side that is low now is also the side that the spring was damaged?

Find a mesuring point on the crossmember area and make sure the upper spring purch wasn't broken to causeing it to raise up and give you a lower shassis hight on that side.

Not sure who did the work or an alingment was done but if the spring isnt seated properly it can cause a little increase in that sides hight. If the car was this way and you just bought it get it on the alingment/frame rack befor you spend any more money on it.

[t walgamuth]

the issues discussed above would make it sit so high. must be the wrong spring.

tom w

[zorin]

Thanks Guys.
The work was done by a mechanic who's a friend of mine for minimal charge.
We inspected both the coils that I bought from a dealer. They were the same size and the same color coding as the old ones.
The old shock from the passanger side was leaking a bit and the coil from the driver side had a broken ring at the bottom but it was still sitting there.

I will be taking it to the dealer to see what they think.

I will let you know once the problem is resolved.

[zorin]

I did not have to take the car to the dealer. It seems that the suspension even-ed out by itself. It just took a while. I am thinking there might be a slight problem in the chasis as few years ago I had a head on crash which caused the suspension to adjust slower than usual.

Thank you everyone.