Mercedes 500e. The Management Fleet. The Duchess

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Life with The Duchess hasn’t all been plain sailing the last couple of months. We jumped at the chance of owning the legendary V8 monster just under a year ago and up until the recent niggles, it’s been a bag load of fun and an easy ride.

Enjoying the granite like build quality and “Super” SUV bashing pace has been great and after working out how to disconnect the frustratingly restrictive traction control system things got even better. That should read as “Smokey burnouts ensued”.

However, after a trip to the USA earlier this Summer she started to grumble…trouble was on the agenda and the bank account stood back and prepared for the beating…

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The first sign that things weren’t all good in the engine bay started with a random fall onto 7 pots….annoyingly it only happened occasionally and seemed to disappear as quickly as it appeared.

Then there was the issue of brakes that had been skimmed to within an inch of their life (very Dubai) and were causing drive line vibrations up through the car making it feel like a cheap Motel vibro bed!

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Added to that she wasn’t coping with the extreme summer heat very well and then the shocker of all shockers. The intermittent engine fault and the cooling fans decided to become more than intermittent on the same day, at pretty much the same time. So there I was…running on 6 pots and over heating like a fat man! It was all falling down around me.

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However, thankfully, Simon Dennis at Gargash Mercedes came to the rescue. With service I could have never imagined, the big bad Merc was whisked away to the Gargash Service Centre down town to have some much needed love applied.

To say that the service, quality and cost blew me away was an understatement. The fault in the motor was traced to a degraded engine harness (thanks to Mercedes for thinking that was a good idea in the early 90’s) and the faulty cooling fans, brake discs and exhaust hangers where all replaced. Added to that a full engine service, gearbox service and a full body mop where all undertaken. The final being the surprise and delight touch

The Duchess was back in business…

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So now it’s back to cruising the searing hot roads of Dubai in the Old School monster, listing to my music…

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She’s a classy piece isn’t she?!

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The last thing that needs looking at is the A/C, as I think the gas needs a top up to get that chilled breeze coming through the cabin again.

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The well used, peppered front end. All being well that will be rectified in the coming weeks, with a twist to the look and feel of the car as it is being turned into Crank&Piston’s rolling advert.

More updates to come in the near future, so stand by.