I am posting this in the tech help section because I think it may be helpful to some that may have been or had considered taking their mercedes to quick lube and tires plus type places for oil changes.

Well today I just went to a longtime customers home to do a brake job on his 97 E-320 and a B service on his wife's ML-350.

He was complaining that his E-320 was making a tapping noise and was smoking.

I checked the oil on the dipstick and it was way, way overfilled.
Not only that but the oil filter was not correctly snapped into the filter housing as the technician had a hard time getting the filter and housing past the flexible fuel lines as they are sometimes in the way.

The oil filter housing was not screwed down all the way because the filter was cocked inside the housing.
Also oil was leaking pretty bad at the housing gasket which was almost exposed.

The housing looked like the tech had unscrewed the oil filter housing with a stump grinder as it was all chewed up from not using the correct tool.

I must have drained 10-11 quarts of oil from the car, and the customer was embarrased and it was hard for him to admit he had tires plus do the oil change while he had his tires replaced.

Well, the tapping and the smoking, and the oil leak went away, but I warned him as I had warned him in the past to not let any of those quick lube and tire joints touch your Mercedes unless you want problems.
Man, I hate it when my customers don't listen to my advice.

I have seen way too many screw ups from theese types of places as a technician, and I don't have enough time to relate how many horror stories I have witnessed at the dealerships throughout the years from cars coming in damaged after the quick lube joint practiced on their mercedes ruining $20,000 engines.

So ....cheapskates, stay away from the quicky lube joints, eventually little pimple faced Billy will ruin your car after a hard weekend of partying.

At least find an independent who knows what they are doing.