R63 AMG The Unicorn of my Destruction

Team effort, my friend, team effort.

I'm just waiting till you're back on the road before I ask if this will be your One-Lap vehicle next year.

-Hans

Hello mazduece from New Zealand! Your internet fame knows no bounds. Like someone else has mentioned, I also picked this thread up from a Road & Track article and I've pretty much read the whole thing (I admit, it was a quiet day). I'm an ex-automotive engineer (got out of the trade many moons ago) and life-long car guy; you are indeed a brave man taking this puppy on. Keep up the good work! - Pete

Look what I was behind today at the car wash, a running driving Deuce-icorn

Putting the brush scrubber to is...hello paint swirls.

In reply to Pete_98:

It makes me happy to hear that people like reading along. Lord knows how many hours I've spent on other people's automotive adventures.
We actually have a series of corners at the rally school here in Texas that came about after the owner spent a month driving around New Zealand. He came home and hopped on the grader and started shaping the earth to mimic the great roads he had spent time on. You're on my list of "places I want to rent a car".

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Did you stop them and ask about their headbolts?

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

This picture reminds me of something I was thinking about when foolishly reading comments somewhere else. It was suggested that the only reason to buy one of these was to impress other people. I laughed. This is almost certainly the least impressive way to drive around 500hp. Nobody knows what an R63 is. Even with the license plate on that van repeating the badge, you were probably the only person for a week who had any idea why that minivan was any more interesting than an Odyssey.
When talking about the V wagon I always say that nobody accidentally owns a V Wagon. Everyone bought it on purpose and knows what it is even if nobody else does. It 100 times more true for an R63.

Back to the AMG GT for a moment. They look incredible in race trim too. We saw several during the recent Roar before the 24 in Daytona. Completely bad ass!

If they sold one with that aero in street form I might make a poor decision. It would help balance out the invisibility of the R63.

In reply to dyintorace:

I need a minute.

In reply to mazdeuce:

Email me if you come down and I'll point you in the right direction (peter@artcom.co.nz). I'd be happy to help you out.

mazdeuce wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: This picture reminds me of something I was thinking about when foolishly reading comments somewhere else. It was suggested that the only reason to buy one of these was to impress other people. I laughed. This is almost certainly the least impressive way to drive around 500hp. Nobody knows what an R63 is. Even with the license plate on that van repeating the badge, you were probably the only person for a week who had any idea why that minivan was any more interesting than an Odyssey. When talking about the V wagon I always say that nobody accidentally owns a V Wagon. Everyone bought it on purpose and knows what it is even if nobody else does. It 100 times more true for an R63.

The internet experts who keep parroting the "Bought a car he couldn't afford to maintain" line are a special breed of ignorant. Expensive cars aren't really that expensive to maintain in terms of absolute parts cost so long as you are not treating each system on the car as a component.

Obviously, you can afford to maintain it. The caveat in this situation is that you are performing the work yourself by opening what most see as a black-box. It isn't like the engine operates on some proprietary MB AMG principle. It's got some fancy tricks but at the end of the day it operates 90%+ of the same way a Civic operates. I have never understood why people are so afraid of these things or insist the dealer does it better.

mazdeuce wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: This picture reminds me of something I was thinking about when foolishly reading comments somewhere else. It was suggested that the only reason to buy one of these was to impress other people. I laughed. This is almost certainly the least impressive way to drive around 500hp. Nobody knows what an R63 is. Even with the license plate on that van repeating the badge, you were probably the only person for a week who had any idea why that minivan was any more interesting than an Odyssey. When talking about the V wagon I always say that nobody accidentally owns a V Wagon. Everyone bought it on purpose and knows what it is even if nobody else does. It 100 times more true for an R63.

Reminds me of a story I read once about 25 years ago in a Mopar magazine. Guy finds this one owner 440/6 Superbird that some old lady had. Had a sunroof in it. Story goes, old lady went to buy a car after her husband passed, and he only trusted chrysler, or plymouth or something. So she goes to the dealer, and is looking at all the cars, and finally settles on the big block superchicken. Why? After she sat in all the cars, the bird had the best seats. She had a sunroof installed because well, she wanted a sunroof. I've sat in the v and the non, the Recaros are a place to be for a good long while. I suppose it's possible, although extremely rare that someone could accidentally buy an amg or a v.

In reply to The0retical:

Most people don't work on their own cars anymore. Especially those that are not enthusiasts and buy late model German cars. So they have to take the car to shops to get fixed. And they don't take it there until something breaks. Then they get sticker shock; defer the repair; then the next repair; and so on. They balk when things like "Inspection I and Inspection II" are mentioned - "My old Ford didn't need anything like that! You're just trying to rip me off!".

I've seen it. I've heard it. I've lived it - when I started dating my ex- in '02, one of the first things I ended up doing was a ton of ignored maintenance on her '97 M3. While it was the second M3 she'd owned, she really didn't know anything about doing regular maintenance on a German car. While here parents have a couple, they were also of the "fix it when it breaks - maybe" types. The condition of the M-B 300SD they have was frightening.

mazdeuce wrote: This picture reminds me of something I was thinking about when foolishly reading comments somewhere else. It was suggested that the only reason to buy one of these was to impress other people. I laughed.

Yeah, you get that. According to the people on FARK, anybody who drives an expensive car or plays with firearms has a small hootus. (Well, not everyone. Just the people who feel like opening their yap when they have nothing useful to add. There are a good number of gearheads and gun enthusiasts there)

The funny thing is none of them have a comeback when I make the same lame comment in the Latest Smartphone Fanboy threads.

In reply to mazdeuce:

Since I often think I have more patience than I actually put into practice, I always end up with nicks and scratches when I try to scrape gasket remains off of aluminum heads/covers with a razor. That's why my go-to face-cleaning tool are these bristle discs from 3M:

3M Roloc Bristle Disc

Availability in multiple grits (50, 80, 120...) lets you pick the right balance of aggressive removal and time to yourself with power tools. Plus, no abrasive grit to escape from an emory disc and ruin your plane bearings.

They won't come close to bamboo skewers for cost effectiveness, but they will get the job done.

...and FWIW, thanks for the inspiration to continue to work shop time into the balance with family time.

In reply to The0retical:

"I have never understood why people are so afraid of these things or insist the dealer does it better."

I don't think it's fear. It's completely rational. The dealer has tools, training, and access to all the proprietary information it takes to do major work on these, and their work is warranteed (usually). Mazdeuce is a stay-at-home dad with several kid-less hours each day to devote to the project and a supportive wife. That is not a typical scenario.

As with all things, it's a question of what your time is worth. You do that calculation, and that tells you whether to take it to the dealer, an independent, or do it yourself.

mazdeuce wrote: Does it matter that I'm kind of in love with the AMG GT-C? It's like a hardtop Miata turned up to 12. Or 13. If you're following along Mercedes North America, I'm an experienced One Lap driver and I'm easily reachable.

They seem to be fine cars. There's a white one I see daily driven in Manhattan regularly. He was chugging along in the snow the other day.

In reply to 19Mustang70:

Thanks for the heads up on those. I'll look into them, and thanks for reading about this nonsense.

In reply to ascott:

My experience has been that people at the dealership level tend to be incompetent (expurgated)s who gravitate to dealerships because there's minimal work for maximum pay. There are exceptions, of course, since this is a very broad brush to paint with, but I could threadjack SO hard with stories from both inside and outside the dealership service bay.

My all time favorite was the vehicle with a plugged cat. It was a V6 with dual cats, and a MAF-measuring computer. Even if you ignored how it drove (no power, the customer concern) clue #1 was that one bank had a massively positive fuel trim and the other had a massively negative fuel trim at all speeds and loads, getting worse as load went up. One side of the engine was moving far less air than the other side, in other words. The clue-by-four was that a pressure gauge mounted in the offending bank's O2 hole would hit its 15psi peg at idle. At the dealership, where we sent the customer because it was still under warranty, their response was "Well that isn't in any diagnostic procedure so the catalyst is still good. You're trying to sell parts it doesn't need."

I said I wouldn't threadjack. Anyway I like not feeling slimy more than I like the vastly larger amount of money I used to make at a dealership.

In reply to ascott:

Everything you said is true. Especially if you've never been inside a motor before, you have no idea where to start. I acknowledge that although buying and installing a lift to fix the van seems perfectly normal around here, to most people it sounds as crazy as buying an airplane and learning to fly because you have a wedding to go to.
Part of why I do these threads is because it humanizes the experience of owning and working on cars. The same guy who pulled his motor apart isn't quite sure what to scrape gaskets with for instance. Not knowing things is ok. Most people are uneasy with learning as you go along. They want to know how to do something before they do it and that keeps them from doing a lot of things at all. If we all had an old guy looking over our shoulder we would all be more willing to tear into things. In a lot of ways the people that read along are the old guys, and that's comforting. What's cool is that a bunch of readers are also the equivalent of the 15 year old neighbor who wanders over and stands by the door with wide eyes and learns, and next year he'll come ask how to change brake pads.
GRM is the modern neighborhood single car garage. We turn wrenches and learn and BS and get in over our heads and the wise old guy helps us out. The young kid lurks by the door sipping his coke and we encourage him to bring home that $800 Civic that his uncle has behind the house. I'm so very happy that I get to do this with all of you.

ascott wrote: I don't think it's fear. It's completely rational. The dealer has tools, training, and access to all the proprietary information it takes to do major work on these, and their work is warranteed (usually).

I get accused of having access to special tool and special knowledge, even when I build cars on jackstands. Apparently most of it is not available to other people. But that's completely wrong.

A lot of it is simply attitude. You may not have the knowledge, but you can gain a lot of it by careful examination and reading. Not necessarily reading forums, but reading factory manuals and books. Regardless of where you get your information, you have to use your noggin and think about what you're doing. That's the key. And when you're done, you have special knowledge.

Special tools can be overcome, as we've seen here. I've had to make a few over the years. Very few of them are irreplaceable.

Mazdeuce, you didn't buy a lift to fix the van. You used the van as an excuse to buy a lift

In reply to mazdeuce:

Interesting post. I'm one of those old guys (turning 60 in May) and I once was that 15 year old kid who got hooked on cars. At 17 I started my apprenticeship as a mechanic in a franchise dealership. Spent the first year fitting mud-flaps and sweeping the floor until they realised I could actually fix stuff. Anyhow, here's where it changed. At 23 I asked one of those "old guys" why he was still fixing cars and he said "I don't know how to do anything else". That was one of life's "epiphanies" for me and I left the trade to expand my skills, stumbled into another industry and long story short, started my own company at 28 which I still own and run. The moral of my little story is this; don't hesitate to ask those old guys for advice, it might just change your life (or at least make it easier as you have discovered maz) - Pete

In reply to Keith Tanner:

True story. The van wasn't even the first car on it. Hell, he managed to drag home a whole other broken car in thr process!

Nothing says "I love you" like not getting killed for bringing home a dead race car when you already have a dead van.