The two front tires on my 2005 c230 sport wear evenly. The two rear tires on the other hand do not. The inside's wear down to blad while the outside of the tires look practically brand new. I took it to sears and they said that these cars require a special machine to align them and only certain places can do it. Anyone have any suggestions for where to get an alignment besides the dealership so I can save a few bucks??

 

Unfortunately, you may run into this problem wherever you go to get it aligned if it's not the dealership. I have the same car and looked around at several shops and they all told me the same thing. Dealership charged me a few hundred to do it with no parts, etc.
It's another "benefit" of owning the car I guess. At least they did it right. Most independent garages and even Mercedes independents don't have the setup to align since the equipment is so pricey. You might be able to call around and find one, but it's gonna be tough. Good luck.

 

I have noticed on mine that the tire pressure means more then on any other car I've owned. Over a year ago I took it to the dealer and asked about an alignment, the cost was prohibitive ($600) so I held off. The tires are wearing just fine, I just have an early warning system when they are low.

I'm not kidding on the price, the dealer claimed I needed a special kit to align the car, "Mercedes didn't put the right bolt on the car for alignments", well the dealer could not explain why that was not a TSB or recall thing so I chose not to have the work done until I learned more, airing up the tires took care of the problem.

 

Thanks for the info guys, I will double check the air pressure and then go from there.

 

The people that align your vehicle need to set camber on the rear tires in addition to setting the toe. If they leave the camber setting too negative, tilted in at the top, it will produce the wear pattern you are referring to. The camber setting on the rear is -.96° ± .5°. Toe is set between .55° ± 25°. The minimum camber adjustment is -.46°. I expect you’ll still have a little inner wear if it is set here, but I think it will help the wear issue you are talking about.

 

The only difference in the way the dealer aligns is that they have a tool that puts pressure on spreading the front tires apart to take up any freeplay which you shouldn't have anyway if everything is tight in the front steering components such as tierods or rack bushings. Mercedes usually also recommends putting weight in the back I can't remember if it's 150 or 300 pounds so it simulates normal capacity with people inside. I think the regular shops don't want to do it is because the older Mercedes that uses worm and roller steering box is a real pain to align and usually takes 2-3 tries to get the steering wheel straight.

Alan.

 

Well as other people have stated you have two choices. Private or dealer. In my experience with other cars I washed my hands of dealerships long ago. On my neon I had a Dodge dealer in my town tell me you couldn't do an all wheel alignment on it. Obviously that was a lie. In 1997 I bought a grand am from a dealership and I took it there for fixes and about six months into owning the car I stopped going. I personally feel like they don't do a good job at dealers. When I started using privately owned garages I got better service, cheaper labor, and it seemed to hold up longer. I've never used dealers since. Owning a Mercedes I've found is expensive so I completely understand why you want to save money. The only thing I can say is to shop around and compare prices. I live in a small town and I happen to know a man who is able to do this in his garage at home. He has a state of the art machine and he's very good at it. I got our 04 Mach1 Mustang and my Neon a four wheel alignment for 40.00 each. Maybe you will be as lucky and find someone where you live like that.

 

I don't know where you live but There's a dealership near where I live that sent me a coupon for $49 alignment. Southern California.

Alan.

 

I wonder what they charge without the coupon? I wonder how many dealers actually send out coupons? Maybe you just got lucky. In Kentucky a mom and pop auto shop is easy to find, a dealer is hard to find, and an MB dealer is even harder to find. I believe there may be five people in my whole county who owns an MB and I'm one of them. No one owns luxury cars here and most people work on their own cars. I know a lot of gear heads who have rebuilt classic cars and they do great work in their own garages. If I need something fixed and we can't do it ourself we always can find someone who will help us with it and usually they charge very little. Being from a small town I try to give my money to people who are in business for themselves to help them out.

 

I think there may be a misconception in the 600 dollar alignment that started this thread. I don't think the alignment itself is 600 dollars but some mechanics always (most of them) tries to find other things wrong with your car as a simple alignment doesn't pay much (1.5 hours at the most) so they try to find other things wrong with the car such as tierod ends, pitman arm, idler arm or center link. These parts doesn't take long to replace and it pays a lot in time (flat rate). Usually this is what a $9.95 oil change is all about, attracting a customer in so you can find additional work. I knew of one mechanic that turned this $9.95 oil change into a $1500 "maintenance" repair that after he was done the customer didn't even get home in her car and needed a repair for his "repair"!!
If the place of repair allows you to see the part that needs to be changed and have a mechanic show you that it's bad, it might be better than someone on the other end of the phone telling you that the part is bad and is dangerous if not fixed right away and you have to decide on his words that you'll be wise to spend $600 for your alignment or $1000 for your brake job, etc.

Alan.