We tried our hand at selling Renntech stuff. Epic fail. We didn't make a single sale.

They are mind numbingly expensive.

Having driven an older Renntech E60 vs an E55 AMG, I'd say the factory car was the better package overall. Its hard to improve upon for sure. That coupled with the very low number of people who want to modify them makes for expensive upgrades.

The biturbo V12 left a lot on the plate. Simply reflashing the computer makes massive improvements in power output. The transmissions are rated to hold 1000nm, which is what the engines were tuned for in the "65" guise. Yet they will lay down much more if you simply turn up the boost. The problem at that point becomes the intercoolers. Apparently that is the weak spot on all the cars that have them, as they are sized to the required power output only. Even the SLR requires intercooler upgrades if you increase the power output.

I can say that I drove a standard S600 with the Renntech computer only, and the thing felt faster than a 65. A lot faster. It was stupid powerful, as if the stock ones aren't enough.... Yet it kept throwing charge air temperature codes along with the fact it couldn't pass OBDII readiness testing. I put it back to stock so it could get emissions inspected.

It is exceedingly rare to see a failed transmission due to breakage of hard parts, the same goes for the engines. Sure they have their "pattern failures" as does any car, but to have one blow up, lock up, or anything along those lines we might see just 3-5 of them on a bad year. Right now my neighbor has a 111 engine that broke a timing chain, and since that was so unheard of I had him borrow my compression tester and recheck the thing before he pulled the valve cover and found it. We also have a 119 engine that the customer drove for quite a long time without a fan belt. It melted a piston before it quit. Most of the ones in recent memory were due to hydrolock from driving through deep water, and one of those was a new CLS55 AMG. It was spun over without the plugs to blow out the water, and it ran fine afterwards! The insurance man was happy as a pig in shit because he was staring at a $75,000 engine replacement for a $100K car. MB is incredibly proud of their engines, and the pricing shows it.

And I think I made 9 hours today. Another round of shitty cars, brought in by people who can't afford them. Today's gem: A 175K mile C230 Kompressor, someone has been under the hood of that car that really shouldn't have been. Its a nightmare. I am taking the extrodinary step of requesting CLT and compression tests before work is started. Its been sucking unfiltered air for a while I just get the feeling it might not be worth fixing. Better safe than sorry.

Originally Posted By saturnstyl: BTW, why a brake kit on an AMG car? Were the stock brakes not large enough? Try that same engine in an SLK 32. Even MB admitted it was "overpowered". Those cars are a ton of fun! 349HP in that tiny little roadster. It gets a little tailhappy sometimes.

Track days + heavy car + sticky tires = totally inadequate brakes for him. Frankly, I think he's a poser bitch, but hey, whatever he wants.

I don't like SLKs. Not even the AMG C32 (test drove one). Lots of power but:

1) Chassis sucked for hard driving. If they want to build a driver's car, they should focus on bettering the Z4 M Roadster and Boxster S, not the Cadillac XWhatever.
2) MB can't make a manual transmission to save their lives. Considering how good their automatics are (experience from 928s) they still haven't figured out how to make a clutch and shifter interface worthwhile.
And because of that, I understand why they didn't offer it in that car.
But we get to Jeff's ironclad rule #1: If it doesn't have a clutch pedal, I'm going to hate it. That includes Tiptronic, DSG, PSK, and whatever else you want to call automatics, manumatics, automanuals, etc...


And I agree with everything in the post before. And to honor you, I worked on a MB today.

Today was so-so. Our Mitsubishi guy is on vacation, so I've been working on a few of them today. They're really ginormous, steaming piles of shit not so bad cars.

'99 Eclipse (with the Chrysler 420A ) pouring every fluid it can, '07 Outlander with some ABS/ASC problems. Got a Rodeo after that someone else tuned up and broke the rubber boot on the #6 coil, causing a miss. Navigator with a power liftgate inop, the forkbolt/detent switch is bad, the module doesn't know where the liftgate is. Town Car with an A/C not cooling concern, the evaporator is leaking.

Everything's waiting on parts or approvals.

Speaking of EVOs, we got our first MR the other day. The TC-SST trans is pretty neat, but on a car like that I like rowing the gears myself.

It's also $42,000. For an Evolution.

Actually when I first started at this dealership, there was a customer that had a pristine '91 Impulse RS. This same guy owns like a '92 Capri, and a Merkur XR4Ti. Safe to say he has some unusual tastes in cars, but I haven't seen him in five or six years.

I never got to work on or drive that RS. He always brought it in for driveability problems, if that's an indication of anything.

I forgot to check my flag, but I don't think I did very well today.

Started off replacing a seat frame for a 3rd row seat on a GL450 that wouldn't fold anymore.

Did a service, got all my upsells for the last two or three days declined, which might be a good thing since most of them were disasters on wheels.

I had to give up a brake job I upsold, because someone finally bought the SLR. It is being shipped to LA tomorrow, and they wanted a GPS tracking device installed. (never mind the fact that most mercedes come with them already from the factory )

So being that the car was carbon fiber, installing it somewhere it might actually get a signal was going to be a real bitch. I finally stuffed it back behind the instrument cluster, there is a hollow plastic bezel there that should allow a signal through. I took power and ground from the cluster rather than screwing with the ghey OBDII harness plug they provided. Too much work and totally unneccesary. I took the starter lock out harness out of the box and threw it across the shop. It was "optional" and I simply was not going to deal with it. I'm not hacking up a half million dollar car any more than absolutely neccesary. The little blinky lights on the module came on, and that ended my commitment to installing it. I'm done, and I could not care less if it works or not. I'm sick of dealing with poor quality aftermarket garbage in applications that just don't make sense.

That basically ended my career as an SLR tech. I've got one more floating around in the area that I'll likely never see again. The first one is in switzerland, and this one will be in california. I didn't even get to test drive it one last time, it was raining when I finished it.

I'd buy 'em but I have no money.

11 hours today. Some BS I don't remember. One four wheel brake job, the first I can recall in I don't know how long.... A seat motor and a belt on another car. Did a technical conference call, and had lunch with my dad.
Yesterday I failed a car for inspection because the window tint was too dark. Today someone reinspected it and passed it. I'll just wait and see what happens there, but probably nothing as usual.

The SLR got loaded up and is headed to LA. You know the "OMFG it has to be ready first thing in the morning!!!!" one. Yeah. They picked it up around 4:30 this afternoon.

Remember the car I wanted compression test and CLT tests on? It left, he didn't buy anything. It was towed in today because it won't run. Now he is paying me to diagnose the same shit I told him that was wrong yesterday..... Good news is that it has 160psi compression on all four holes. He ought to get out of this for $6-700.

7 today for me, nothing special.

The used car department had a 04 silverado dead on the lot that would not start. Bad fuel pump. Theybought it but CRIED The truck was a old farm truck that was beat to hell. It had so much mud on top of the pump I had to wash it off just to get to it.

Finished up today with about 7. Still waiting on parts for a couple cars, got a couple declined. It's not looking good for the home team, and we're not even in the slow season yet.

Originally Posted By Quintin: All my brothers of the wrench, be you independent techs, dealer guys, owner/operators, how's things going? Whatcha been up to? The work load in my hood has fallen off drastically. It should be the busiest time of the year, with several cars left over from the day before, but we've been running out of work at around 10-11 AM for the past month or so. Things are looking pretty ugly...and management hired two more technicians, when we don't have the work load to support what we've got. Fortunately at least, with the weather, A/C work has been fairly consistent. I ain't been doing great, but I've been holding my own...barely.

I'm used to booking 70-80+hrs a week.
last week.........45


business is slow and we have at least three too many techs.

Today I was done by lunch. I can'tkeep standing around waiting for something to happen in the afternoon.

This is the time of year I depend on to get the savings up for the weak winter.