PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

pawoSD · #3 11-20-2004, 10:22 AM

I'm not sure if the things you mentioned are incredibly critical, our van had a failing belt tensioner that made squealing noises, and we drove it that way for a while till it got in under warranty repair. When I got my 82SD 1.5 years ago our dealer went over it too, they found "a lot" of stuff to replace also, like thousands of dollars worth of stuff, probably close to what you mentioned. All in all we had about $2k done on it as it was stuff really needed, like timing chain/transmission seals and some steering components. Other than that, we didn't have them do anything else, and along the way I have just been doing a part here and there when it becomes necessary.....like water pump.....tires.....oil changes.....brakes and so on. I wouldn't trust that all of what the dealer said is true, it sure wasn't in our case. Probably the only truly "critical" item was the timing chain and steering parts, less than $800 total, far from the thousands they wanted. Dealers are there to suck money out of people....in my opinion anyways.