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Smashed the pass side mirror on the Flex yesterday. We have 3 single-bay doors in our garage & about 2" space on either side, and we back in. Misjudged by a bit & crunched the mirror, hard enough to pop the glass out & broke 2 of the locating pins inside.
This had happened a couple times on the driver's side (not me driving on those) & I ordered a mirror. Ford part descriptions. Ordered what I believed to be the proper mirror & got one without blind-spot indicator. Called a local dealer & they refused to give me the part number if I'm not ordering it from them
Every dealer I've talked to is $110-150 more than Tasca, and now that I've got 2 mirrors to replace, I'd be out almost $300 if I went via the dealer.
Cannot recommend Tasca to anyone after this fiasco.
Ordered the first mirror on 4/1. Received the wrong mirror. Have attempted over a dozen times to get a return/refund for it with no response.
Called my bank this morning & since it was ordered on our bank card, they can't do anything; because I ordered a mirror & received a mirror, it's not eligible for a dispute.
If I'd ordered a mirror & received a pineapple, they'd be able to help.
Giving Tasca 1 more chance to respond before I attempt other resolutions. Oh, and you can't call them, because the physical office is closed, no one to take your call...
1,675 miles in the 'Bu over the long weekend.
Drove up to MO (east of KC) for a wedding.
Still cannot fathom haw a 4cyl 'small' car gets such poor MPGs. Running ~5 over most of the trip & almost no city, apart from going in to Harrah's in KC for dinner & meeting up with some of the other wedding folks.
Averaged about 27.8mpg, with a best of 29.9
Those numbers make me miss the MB even more, as it could get mid to high 30s on the highway, running 80-85mph.
Over the course of 9,400 miles & 37 tanks, it's averaging 24.8mpg
Pretty sure, if it had the V6, it'd be the same or a bit better.
Found a random issue yesterday morning. Pitch black in rural MO, high beams on, hit the blinker & all lights went out for about half the blink of the blinker.
Only did it once, but think there's something wonky between the steering wheel & BCM. The lane change blinker only 'ticks' twice, but will tick 3 times if you use it again immediately after. The volume up button sometimes turns volume down & the volume down button changes the station/song.
Just gotta keep kicking it down the road for a while. Flex gets the upgrade first, probably next year sometime, assuming some return to normalcy in dealer stocks.
25mpg is about what our big Subaru mom car gets and that's a big ass three row lol. One of my cars fortunately gets infinity miles to the gallon but unfortunately the other does not.
Also, forgot to mention.
Managed to break the parking brake. It's a push to set, push to release type. Went to set it, got a loud bang & pedal hit the floor.
Still ratchets, so I'm guessing the cable disconnected itself from the pedal arm. Need to remove the lower dash panel & contort myself under there to see if it's able to be reconnected, or a more major repair (new cable).
Some browsing on a Malibu forum shows it's not an uncommon issue.
A few people had the end of the cable break off & needed a new p-brake cable run.
From what I could see, with the trim panel still in place, it looks like the pedal arm is still acting on the cable, but not pulling it. Hoping it's a simple fix.
Also, forgot to mention.
Managed to break the parking brake. It's a push to set, push to release type. Went to set it, got a loud bang & pedal hit the floor.
Still ratchets, so I'm guessing the cable disconnected itself from the pedal arm. Need to remove the lower dash panel & contort myself under there to see if it's able to be reconnected, or a more major repair (new cable).
Sitrep.
Got it all torn down on Saturday.
Pulled the whole pedal assembly, and the ball at the end of the cable is broken off, does not appear repairable.
Luckily, the whole pedal assembly is available on Rockauto for <$70, so I just need to figure out how much of the interior needs to be pulled to get to the T where the pedal cable splits to the rear brakes. Guessing I'll have to pull the driver's seat, and maybe the back seat & flip the carpet back.
Interior destruction for parking brake replacement this weekend
Hoping it's not much more than pulling the driver's seat & maybe back seat base to be able to flip the carpet back enough to get to the T-bar for the rear brakes.
Also, nearly defeated by the rear brakes on the Flex.
Could not, for the life of me, get the rear caliper pistons to retract, nearly broke a caliper tool.
Only after a couple hours working at it, did I think to google & found you have to twist & push
Picked up a 2nd caliper tool, with pins for rotating the piston, and still could not get it to retract. Had to combine the 'traditional' piston tool & the twist block to get enough pressure on the piston to push & use the block to twist.
Luckily, didn't damage the calipers in my quest to push them straight in.
Got in the garage on Friday night & got to work on stripping the interior. Realized I don't have the proper Torx bit for the front seat bolts.
Decided to pull what I could & was going to pick up a Torx on Sat morning.
Pulled F&R door sill covers, lower B-pillar trim, C-pillar trim (to be able to pull the cushion between the rear seat back & rear door), rear seat base, under dash panel under steering wheel, center console & 2 front footwell panels (L & R side).
Realized the carpet can be pulled back from the driver's footwell, without removing the driver's seat & the cable run doesn't go under the driver's seat, so it was all accessible with the seat in place.
Got the old/broken cable removed & the new pedal/cable assembly installed, only to realize that the cable seemed too long, with the pedal fully engaged, it was just barely touching the draw bar for the rear calipers. There's no method to adjust anything on the assembly.
YouTube to the rescue, the pedal has a pin in it to push the cable outward for easier installation of the rear cables in the t-bar that the pedal & front cable pull. Pulled the pin & it retracted the slack & all is working as normal again.
All-in-all, maybe 2 hours work & $68 for the part.
Last week was fun.
Wife called me on her drive home on Friday 2 weeks ago, that the Flex just 'died' but was still running Pulled over & was able to power cycle the car & get going again.
Took it to get the CEL read & had it fail on my about 100 yds from the house.
Turns out, it was a throttle body failure. Car fails to closed throttle if it sees a large gap between supply/demand, instead of the Toyota style uncontrolled acceleration.
Had to just park it, in case it decided to fail completely. Borrowed her dad's Indian for the week & she drove my car. 20 minute fix, but the worst tracking (FedEx) pkg disappeared for almost 2 days with no updates between CA>TX.
Hopefully that's the end of car problems for a bit.
Got the title to the Malibu on Thursday when we took the Indian back, once the Flex was fixed. Now to find the time to get it inspected & registered.
as my buddy tells me...shitboxes got hands...there's a meme of a guy getting knocked out by his used car and all of the constant shit that needs to be fixed on them.
Always something.
Luckily almost everything on the 'Bu is super cheap.
Flex is relatively inexpensive to maintain as well. Just have to hope you never need to do the water pump. It's inside the engine.
honestly, going forward from this point on I'm seriously considering ease of working on the car to be a main deciding factor on whether or not I want to own it.
W210 is actually easy if you can believe it...S2000 and TL easy, Suburban easy
the worst one I have right now is the S4.
Believable.
My W123 & W126 were quite simple.
W210 was getting a the start of the questionable reliability era for MB. While not my favorite, wouldn't turn down a clean one. W clean W124 would be preferable. E400 or E500.
Actually, the W210 was regarded as the first design that seemed like the engineers kept the mechanics in mind as far as servicing the vehicle.
Cheap plastics are what plague it...but at 149k and 20 years aside from a little valve cover weeping the damn thing is bone dry from below.
Also, for the trans swap...remove intake tube and you can get at SIX of the bellhousing bolts...and from below, shifter linkage, electrical connector
and cooler lines and literally it squeezes out WITHOUT removing the driveshaft or exhaust. Easy shit.
Can't complain about that.
I know the models across the MB range, were less maintenance friendly after that, less user friendly as well. My grandmother's '01 S430 had the worst user interface, much improved on her '05. Out of her 7 S-class, the 05 was possibly my favorite, as far as driving. The '14/15 S550 was a rocket, but very cost-prohibitive for a poor like me.
05-18-2021, 09:26 AM
Ford part descriptions. Ordered what I believed to be the proper mirror & got one without blind-spot indicator. Called a local dealer & they refused to give me the part number if I'm not ordering it from them 
The Flex does around 25 on the highway.
It's quite nice when a repair is quick and cheap and just generally not much of a PITA.
Pulled over & was able to power cycle the car & get going again.
E500.
