Well, I am now officially the owner of a M-B 240D (my first). I made the 10-hour trip home on Saturday, and for the most part, the car ran great - 75MPH and not a drop of oil burned. The trip was not without incident, however...
After about 2 hours on the road, I began to hear this intermittant rattle from the left rear of the car. Knowing that the P.O had just replaced the exhaust system, I suspected that may be the cause. A quick stop at a garage confirmed that it was not an exhaust rattle, and nothing else underneath appeared to be loose. Also checked the lug nuts - all were tight. OK, back on the road.
The noise continued intermittantly, mostly appearing when the car was under heavy load (in the mountains of W.VA) and going away under normal, level driving.
However, by the time I made it to Cincinnati, the noise had developed into a constant (and quite loud) clunking, with the frequency directly related to wheel speed. In addition, the clunking disappears when I depress the clutch and take the car out of gear... Sunday morning, I decided to take the car out for a little local driving to try to isolate the clunking, but heard nothing...until the car had warmed up after about 15 miles.
Any thoughts on what may be causing this? Oh, and I'll be sure to post a pic or two as soon as I can.
