[R129 SL] R129LIST Digest, Vol 30, Issue 24

[Matthias Fouquet-Lapar]

There has been a problem within a certain time frame with evaparotors, 
both on W140 and R129. Alhough it's a well know problem, I would be 
interested to hear what other car manufacturer would pay to fix a 
problem on > 10 years old car.
Some of the comments on this list regarding A/C are just frightning, 
like the one who was thinking about charging more gas because the 
cooling ws intermittent. The R129 (in particular later models) have a 
_lot_ of on-board diagnostics which let's you diagnose the problem.
Otherwise, a pair of standard gauges will do it. It also assumes that 
you know what you are doing of course. I do all my maintenance, 
including A/C work, on my 500SL and 500SE (W126). I converted my 500SE 
to R134a 3 years ago without a problem (replaced only the dryer) and it 
has been cooling fine since then.
I'm German, living here in France, and have access to all Mercedes 
documentation which really helps. There are also exceptional good 
(German) mailing aliases which even include specialists from the factory 
who build the cars.
Frankly, some of these discussions on this mailing list are frightning 
to me (when it for example gets to the roof) and my impression that 90% 
of te problems are home-made or an original minor fault is turned into a 
big project because of ignorance.

These are extremely fine cars and will last forever if you take correct 
care, have access to the right documentation and some limited amount of 
tools

My 0.02 Eur

- Matthias