W210 Front End Vibration
 

1997 E320 - car has new tires checked and balanced on latest Hunter balancer. Dealer aligned all four wheels after installation of new tires. Car has been inspected by dealer for any problems with suspension components including the oft-talked-about lower control arm bushings. Dealer says everything is tight. Yet I still have a mild-moderate vibration coming thru the steering wheel right at 60 mph which feels like a tire out of balance. Funny thing is that during a recent very cold spell here in the midwest (temperatures down to 10 degrees or so), the vibration was greatly diminished if not done away with. Car has 60 k miles on it. Tire pressure has been kept at constant at 29-30 psi. Tires are Bridgestone RE950's on 17" AMG monoblock wheels. I have another appointment with both the tire store and the dealer in the next few days. Does anybody out there have a possible explanation? Does anybody have any ideas about how to troubleshoot the problem? I will get rotation and re-balance when I go to tire store even though the tires have less than 4k miles on them. TIA.

I would have your front lower control arm bushings checked.

Swap tires front/back. If there is any CHANGE in the character of the vibration, you likely have one or more bad tires or a bad mount to the bead.

Steve

the 99 wagon would vibrate for the first 10 miles or so on 'green' michlens.

are your rotors okay? can you mount your old tires and rims to pinpoint the problem?


edit. whenever i buy tires, i always get them rebalanced after 100-200 miles. the bead never really seats and the tires don't really cure until you drive them. i try to stay below 40 and avoid all potholes durring this time. food for thought.

you can try a truck tire place and get them strobe balanced on the car at 60 mph.

The problem is in the forward lower control arm bushing. It needs to be replaced because with your tire package a brand new bushing will likely not be stiff enough.

The extra loading caused by your tire combination probably would be best dealt with through an aftermarket high performance bushing (if such are made). I have dealt with this issue on a 140 chassis. I had a fellow here in Florida make me some hard bushings for a car with 20in wheels. Did the job with the vibration but the design loosened after a year and we haven't decided what to do next.

I had a 17 in. set of Toyo tires put on and had same thing happen. Dealer put tires on one of there machines and showed me that 3 out of the four tires were not round ( I was supprised too) Replaced them with Michelins and problem was gone. Dealer told me there is a differnce in tire quality and that these cars can tell.

Got a question, did you have the same vibration before you installed the new tires, if not, its the balancing or the new tires?
enjoy your drive, timreid

Stevebfl
 

I didn't understand your response regarding the lower front control arm bushing. Did you mean that I would need a new bushing which would be stiffer? Would a weak bushing be stiffer in cold weather and thus the problem is less severe on really cold days? This wheel and tire package is the same used on the E420 and E430 Sport models of the W210 cars. Can you tell me if they used different bushings?

What I really mean is the front bushing needs to be stiffer and yes I wouldn't be surprised to see the bushing be stiffer in the cold.

Unfortunately the bushings are the same on all the models. They shouldn't offer those wheel packages without such modifications but its entirely possible MB is out more for the money here. There was an article a while back (somewhere I can't remember) that discussed MB's decision to sell accessories for their cars to take the money away from a bunch of aftermarket "tuners".

I guess they figure if you would give your money to AMG or Lorenzer (sp?) for wheels they should get there first. (actually they did by buying out AMG)

In any case the forward bushing on the 210 chassis (and probably the 208 and 209 chassis) cars is a weakness. The new bushing will also be a weakness. If there were stiffer options they would be the natural answer. My concept is that the stiffest stock bushing will be a properly installed new bushing. To see how soft these bushings are putthe car on a lift and take a pry bar to the control arm. A small effort will cause movement that translates to huge caster changes - watch the base of the tire or lower ball joint. The movem,ent is forward and backward at that point. For some reason 55-60mph causes enough force deflection and rotational speed to cause some form of resonance. This is what you feel.

Steve, thanks for your reply. I'll take it with me when I go see the dealer Monday. Understand what you say about the need for stiffer bushings but I'm surprised the boys in Stuttgardt haven't realized that. Just think about an E55 thats rolling on even bigger wheels and rubber than what I have.

Stevebfl: Re control arm bushings one more time
 

Just talked to Phil at PartsShop. Bushing kit has been updated at some point in time. Same kit used in all W210 cars. New part number is 210 330 04 75. Old part number was 210 330 01 75.
Can you tell me what reasonable number of hours would be for dealership mechanic , with proper tools, to install two of these kits on E320?

As I understand it, it is important that the final tightening be done when the car's weight is resting on the wheels - correct?
Also, assume that alignment specs should be set up as if car is E420/430, not E320 due to wheel/tire changeout.

TIA

If no aftermarket polyurethane bushings are made for MB, has anyone experimented with adapting any intended for another vehicle? I would think in certain applications such as swaybar that vibration and noise transmission would be negigible, and newer types do not have squeaking problems. Perhaps here for just the bushing in question, they might offer a solution.

Steve

I had urethane bushings made for the 140 chassis as I described but they didn't last over my test period of a year. They still function fine but the centers are loose and we will have to redo them some way. The guy who does this makes and markets bushings for BMW.

The problem with these bushings revolves around the reason one tightens them under real loading. The flex in the front end is dependant on the ability for the inside and outside of the bushing to deflect the amount necessary. This is done in the rubber bushing by flexing. The urethane bushings have no flex so something has to give. Eventually the inner sleeve rotates in the urethane. The bushing guy and a machinist and myself have been pondering the idea of building a joint from two small tapered wheel bearings. Its not a front burner project as I basically see no need for the wheels except cosmetic.

I had my front control arm bushings changed on my 97 E320 (40k mi) at the dealer and the vibration is still there. I had them do an alignment and have had my tires balanced. I use the stock wheels with Michelin MXV4 215/55/16 tires. My observation is that it makes vibration at constant speeds below 50 mph.

W210 Lower control arm bushing
 

Can these Bushings be changed at home, Or is there a some special $1300 tool needed.

My last reply to this thread indicated that the re-balancing of my wheels by the dealer had improved the vibration situation a great deal. However, that was during a period of very cold weather and I believe that the front lower control arm bushings were "stiffened" up due to low temperature. As the weather moderated and the temperature came up into the 50's and 60's, the vibration returned. So back to the dealer. This time the shop manager came out to the rack, took a long pry bar and put some side-wise force on the bushing. The driver's side was very mushy and the other side somewhat less so. They said they would replace the bushings. However, when they went to press the old bushings out of the control arms, their tool broke - I think that may answer the question above. Their solution was to order new control arms with busings pre-installed. Car is supposed to be finished today. I'll let you know how it feels after I drive it for a bit.

Any Idea what they would cost ? I know the tool to remove the bushings are expensive.. The one to remove the front one cost $1300 and the one for the rear is about $150.. The arm and bushing combo should be cheaper..

Steve,

This seems to happen to the W202 bodies as well. One reason I sold off my 17" wheel combo was the inability for the factory bushings to handle increased loading thanks to the larger wheels and tires. Luckily, the dealer covered the repairs under warranty.

I went back to the 15" set up, but might "tinker" with some mild 16" set-ups to try to get a bit more grip without compromising suspension tuning. I did install the AMG suspension, and would like to take advantage of it a bit more, but huge 17 or 18" boots are not needed on the C230. It's only got 150 ponies.

More On the Control Arm Bushing Issue
 

Picked up my car from the dealer last night. If you read my previous post, you know that I was getting new lower control arm busings by way of a replacemnt of the control arms themselves - this because their tool used for pressing out the old bushings broke. Anyway, I drove my usual 15 mile route to the office this morning at my preferred speed of 60 MPH and the car felt great. I really believe they got it this time. Thanks to STEVEBFL for continually pointing to the bushings as the culprit.
The dealer comp'd me all the parts and I got by for $345 which included a $100 charge for re-alignment. I thought that was very fair as car is 21 months and 12,000 miles past the warranty limits.
Any of you with W210 cars still in warranty should ask your dealers to test these bushings via the pry bar method and replace them if they are not really stiff. Ask to witness the test yourself.

How Much was lower control arm bushings..?... Was the upper a problem too..?

Sorry I meant to say the whole arm ? Compared to just the bushings..

Cost of Control Arms
 

Sorry, I don't know what the cost of the control arms would have been because the dealer did not charge them to me. He harged them to Mercedes-Benz. I do know that the dealer wanted $68 per set of lower control arm bushings. Two set are required. Drove the car some extra miles last night and my wife could definitely notice the difference as a passenger.