mhawel

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About mhawel

  • Birthday 10/28/1980

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  • Location
    Guelph
  1. That whistling could simply be a misalignment of the hose that rests right up against the air intake inlet on the body. If you pop off the center disc, you'll be able to see if it lines up or not. Could also be the other end down lower where it lines up to the air box. I got mine back from the dealer after a starter replacement with a really bad whistle, and they replaced the turbo twice to try and get rid of the issue.... I eventually located the issue... Gonna get mine back on the road this spring after a couple years!
  2. Thanks! I had no idea there were any articles in the articles section... Been a while I guess!
  3. I'm going to be putting my smart back on the road soon, and I'm wondering if anyone knows of shops that are able to work on 450's other than Oakville and Kitchener. It needs a new starter, and the HP fuel pump changed (will have rebuilt myself). Other than that it needs a B service, and this magical A/C fix I've read about on here... Any suggestions?Thanks!
  4. How much do they weight, and how much would shipping to ontario be?
  5. Are you kidding? A new part from Mercedes only comes with a 1 year warranty, and that's only at the $5600 price... I guess that's what the other half, or $3200, goes towards...Interested people should contact me with they're best offer, that's usually the way these things work... If there aren't any more interested people aside from the ones I've already messaged, they likely won't bother looking into a well taken care of top for a 2005 convertable for less then half the dealer cost.Mike
  6. Well, I've sent out PM's to all those who expressed interest at first, but no one has replied. Is there anyone still interested in this top? I'm asking $2400.00, as a complete unit, with the rear window repaired.
  7. Of course I want to sell the top Dave. No need to yell. CsC has been moved to the back of my mind as of late because a family member needed to go in for emergency surgery recently. Honestly haven't even thought about the top in a while. My apology's given your situation.Let me know if your still interested in the top. I imagine you are as when I called MB for a list price, they said the whole top is $5600 part only, and $1800 for the back half. Mike
  8. Hi Everyone!I've had a 2005 Convertable top sitting in my garage for a while now, after the window was damaged during the winter. The top was completely replaced by insurance, and consequently, I have a whole top available, needing the rear window repaired obviously. I'd be willing to do all the work shopping around to find the best replacement option (zip out perhaps?) and have the repair completed, so the top can be picked up by you, and installed by yourself, mechanic of choice, or Mercedes.The top was in extremely good cosmetic shape before the damage was done to the window, and after the repair and installation on your vehicle, there'd be no way to tell it was a used unit. I conditioned the top with the smart kit every year, and it looks fantastic.Any takers?Mike
  9. I just hit a pothole last weekend going to Tillsonburg from Kitchener. It was on the shoulder where they had us driving because of road work at about 1:50am last friday. The car had the driver side side airbag go off, both driver's side rims bent badly, and a noise coming from the front left while pushing the car in neutral. The pothole was about a meter long, and 4 in deep at the end; the sharp near vertical edge at the end is what caused all the damage.Mike
  10. I had this happen to me when there was water damage done to my E-box down in the battery compartment.. Have you had the service done where they move it up and out of that area to prevent water from damaging it?Mike
  11. In all fairness, I must acknowledge that the $750 I had to pay was refunded to me without my having to ask. Don't know what happened behind closed doors, but a refund cheque was issued via mail. A letter that came along with the cheque stated I had some sort of protection from betterment charges, even though betterment charges are nowhere to be found in my policy.It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future if I ever have to make a claim again. Knock on wood!Mike
  12. Just talked to my mom tonight (I left the car at her house, where it was damaged, so the adjuster could see everything he needed), and she said she was told my my claims advisor, that the whole roof would be replaced, and the total bill would come to just under $6000. This was well before we went on holidays, and on two seperate occasions when she asked him what the total cost to me would be, he said it would only be the $400 deductable. This proves without a doubt that he decided, along with the adjuster to did the estimate, to try and substitute a half roof repair for a whole roof replacement without notifying me of the change. After the dealership replaced the whole roof anyways because of the complications involved in repairing only the back half, RBC offloaded the cost difference of the half ass repair compared to the proper repair to me (and then later changed that to half the cost difference).This is even worse than before as far as I'm concerned. I now know that my insurance company outright lied to me about what course of action they were taking... I'm fuming right now...Mike
  13. Yep, got it fixed alright... not exactly what i had in mind, but it's fixed. I called my cut rate insurer, RBC, and they sent out an adjuster to see if it would be covered under comprehensive. They decided it would be, and they said that the top would cost 2150.00, and the whole top would be replaced. London MB is where they got this info from, but Oakville said that that the part that's 2150.00 is actually just the back half of the roof, and the repair to stitch it in almost always results in replacing the whole roof according to several other dealers including missisauga, and the apple auto glass that London MB used to do the repairs. Unfortunately, I'll never know wheather Oakville Autohaus Collsion decided to do the repair without calling RBC to notify them the entire roof would be 4150.00 (instead of 2150 for just the back half), or if RBC heard about it, and just didn't want to pay, but here's what happened: The repair was supposedly done this past friday, but according to RBC there was an issue that needed to be worked out with the collision centre. That issue was that RBC didn't want to pay for the repair because of the cost difference, and Oakville wouldn't release the car until the bill was paid. After a lot of phoning around Monday, I got a fax that from the Oakville showing that the roof was to be replaced, for 2150.00. The cost of the roof was actually 4150.00, so they did it anyways, with or without telling anyone (certainly without telling me). RBC finally said they'd adjust the claim to reflect the new costs, but I'd be charged a "betterment," or, an amount of money so large it almost covered the difference between what they wanted to pay, and what they had to pay, effectively offsetting that amount onto my shoulders. The betterment was $1500. I called my claims advisor, who said that they'd cut that amount in half, to 750, offering absolutely no good reason whatsoever as to why there was a betterment charge now (according to them, because i now have a 08 roof on the car instead of an 05) when there wasn't a betterment charge in the beginning, when they were planning on replacing only half the roof. I'll say this right now - Never was it let on to my by RBC that they were trying to replace half the roof. The words "the whole roof" were the only thing ever communicated to me by my claims advisor. CUT RATE INSURANCE DOESN'T PAY. The only way to go is to get an insurance broker who deals with multiple companies. DON'T go calling around yourself to companies you've heard of through adverts and such, because you've got no idea what kind of policies your dealing with. Only a broker can properly explain the intricacies of a company's policies, and give insight using past experiences with claims. Needless to say, I will not be renewing my policies with RBC when it comes time.
  14. The law is pretty clear here in Ontario... Unless it's changed since I last looked it up, your allowed to pass on the right as long as there's room to do so without going onto the shoulder. There are several places around where I live where that's possible, and perfectly legal. Touch the gravel, and it's a $110 ticket, or make a manouver that's clearly aggressive, like squeezing way to close, too soon, or whizzing by too fast, and it's up to the officer who tickets you to determine if you were driving dangerously.Mike
  15. Thanks Tardis! I forgot to mention when i posted the picture that I had been to Home Depot, and bought some Gorilla Duct tape... that didn't work either, although it didn't completely freeze up as soon as I exposed it to the cold (like the Home Hardware brand duct tape I tried to use at first), it didn't stick to the nice clean plastic either. I cleaned it with some warm water bit by bit, wiping it off immidiately, until the small amount that managed to freeze was removed as well. The plastic is just too we cared for I guess.. i routinely cleaned it and polished it in the summer, and when it's clean now, even in the cold, it's just too smooth for anything to take hold... I'll try the UV tape though... If it ever snows and blows I'm in trouble right now Mike