Mercedes s500 1995

Maintenance/Repairs
1

I have a creeking sound coming from the rear of the car as I am driving in NYC on the uneven roads. I just had new front shocks put in by the dealer. I heard this car could have chassis (?) problems or suspension issues and those have not been corrected. Is this creeking related to this major repair?

2

Have someone (not necessarily a dealer) take a look at the rear suspension. The complexity (and cost) may depend if you S500 has a self-leveling system.

3

Is your rear suspension hard ? If so it’s probably the accumulators.

Otherwise, good starting points are the lower control arm bushings and rear sway bar bushings, usually the first components to wear. The S500 rear suspension is excellent though complex with 4 control arms, 2 of which are adjustable, plus about 20 subframe to frame bushes.

Get it thoroughly inspected before starting work ~ some of those parts are expensive.

4

Thanks for the note. Everytime I take the car in for repair it’s $800-2000, and it has a myriad of problems. It’s a big, heavy car, and old. I was pondering taking it to a local repair shop, one recommended by cartalk bloggers, instead of the dealership, but was afraid they could do more damage or use inferior parts.
In your question - Is the rear suspension hard, meaning tight? It bounces alot.

5

Thank you for the note. I thought of going to a repair garage recommended by cartalk bloggers.

6

If it bounces alot, I would suspect the rear shocks. I would look for an independent benz shop in your area, they are likely to be less expensive than a dealer. Ask these guys for a recommended shop in NYC:

http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/forumdisplay.php?f=1

or look here:

http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/forumdisplay.php?f=63

7

Thanks Craig. I can’t believe there are all these people out there chatting about their cars !! It’s extremely helpful. I had bookmarked your second link before I went to ‘or look here’ in your letter. I would like to send you a photo of my car which had a motorcycle impaled in the front grill a few weeks ago. I live in NYC. My concern was street cleaning regulations began at 9:00. The police came to help me right the bike- fortunately there wasn’t too much damage to the grill.

8

Ouch, you should post the photo here and/or on the other forum. NYC must be tough on cars.

9

the above mentioned MB and bike

10

You’re probably lucky it was just the grill, it’s relatively inexpensive:

http://catalog.worldpac.com/mercedesshop/sophio/wizard.jsp?partner=mercedesshop&clientid=catalog.mercedesshop&baseurl=http://catalog.mercedesshop.com/&cookieid=1CQ0J3JZ42DM148VAJ&year=1995&make=MB&model=S-500-001&category=All&part=Grille+Assembly

11

My car is parked infront of our house and I looked at the grille, it’s just some screws holding it in. Incredible.