Best Of

Saturday my wife and I traveled to Lexington to meet with the Bluegrass MBCA chapter for lunch at a local restaurant followed by a visit to James Motor Company, the Lexington M-B dealer. I drove the C43 of course- and I even left it in Geezer (Comfort) mode for most of the trip. We weren't the youngest people in the group, but we were close. A nice bunch overall, but only a couple of the people were what I consider gearheads.
One guy brought his SL 65, which meant there was only one real AMG, mine being an AMG Lite. Another guy drove his S124 E Class wagon- very nice. One lady also owned a new X5, and she told me that she missed her old X5, because she hated the new X5's touchscreen.
The GM was a real car guy and explained how a massive renovation of the dealership was about to begin to meet M-B's new dealership standards. He also mentioned that most new sales are SUVs.
My wife saw a GLC 43 that she really liked, while the only car I saw that I liked better than my C43 was a new GT63 S E Performance: 0-60 in 2.7 seconds and a top speed of 199 mph. Unfortunately, the price of admission was $229k.

Seattle MBCA events were like that for some time, I was usually among the youngest if not the youngest, made more fun by being in one of the oldest cars there. Lots of nice people and a few gearheads and old car enthusiasts, but the general vibe was a retiree who has a SL that's washed with a diaper and never driven in the rain. With any luck I will make it to that stage too

As time went on, some younger enthusiasts would appear, cars like a W202 C43 with an E55 engine swap and a youngish guy with a 6.9 come to mind, along an occasional tech/trust fund type with a wild special order vehicle, or just unique younger people with W123s - it's always a 123 for that crowd.

Not sure I mentioned, but I’ve been chasing the emissions leak on the Maser for a long darn time. I replaced all of the EGR pieces and ran a smoke test. Couldn’t find the darned leak and still had a stumble off idle under load. Oh and gas cap was holding pressure. After studying the overly complicated gas cap for a bit, I decided I really had nothing left but to replace that. It cost $90 on eBay. Well, I can report that the stumble seems to be gone now. I’ve cleared all the lights on the dash, including TPMS since I replaced all the sensors, too. Fingers crossed, arms crossed, and toes crossed that the CEL stays out, at least until something new happens.

In case you are wondering, the gas cap has a valve built in. So the gasket can hold tight but if that valve is bad, I assume that’s a problem.

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Why oh why do they fix things that ain’t broke?

jmonroe