Originally Posted by psfred

Yeah, just did the TE this month while putting pads and rotors up front and pads in the back (plus a caliper rebuild). Nasty stuff, old brake fluid, nearly black.

While you have the rear wheels off, take a good look and the rubber in the rear links, special attention to the thrust (diagonal, bottom of wheel carrier to subframe) and torque links (upper center of wheel carrier to subframe, diagonal inward). Any signs of bushings out of center, tears, or shreds of rubber (or worse, hunks) sticking out, and it's time for new ones.

The multilink suspension uses the rubber in the bushings as part of the spring -- the center sleeve is locked down by the mouting bolt and the rubber flexes as the suspension moves.

When the rubber goes bad, the rear wheels no longer go straigh up and down, they 'steer' with side forces. The 300D aquired terrible torque steer (to the left under acceleration, right on decleration if I remember correctly), wandered badly, and cornered badly until I replaced the torque and thrust links. Torque link had a bout half an inch of play.

Another easy way to check is to jack the rear up, set the parking brake, and put a 17mm socket on a breaker bar. Apply rotating force to a lug bolt -- if the tire moves back and forth under rotating pressure on the bolt, replace thrust and torque links.

As I said, this cure a number of ills, including a noisy rear suspension, floating sensations, etc.

Take a peek at the four subrame mounts back there, too -- if bad, they do much the same things, just less. Put them on the "to do someday" list.

Peter