This story is true, but so weird I am honestly not completely sure how to tell it accurately. I will begin with photos that beg belief. They are pics of what was apparently installed in my '04 Crossfire Coupe LTD as manual shifter bushings when it was built at the factory. I got a "deal" on my Crossfire at 45,959 miles. I knew it had a few "quirks" of the kind that I usually enjoy fixing. I had no idea...this is the car that I hate to love and love to hate.

I have never owned a car with as many defects and problems as this one. The only saving grace is that I can be fairly confident that whatever goes wrong will have already been addressed on this Forum (my favorite of many, BTW). But with the latest comedy of errors that I have come across, I have never seen its mention here on the Forum. One of the issues that I decided to address after dealing with about a dozen others (admit it - you know what they are because if you haven't had to deal with them you probably know someone who has, or just search "Svengoolie" here and you will get the idea - no offense intended, the guy is my hero) was the dreadful "slop" in my 6 speed manual shifter. I have been driving manual trannies for 60 years, and I have never had one that was as sloppy, crunchy, finicky, and just plain awful as this one. Once things got even marginally warm in the operational parts of the mechanism it was time to hunt for gears, strong arm the shifter, and hope for the best.

I knew the clutch was OK, and there were no apparent issues with the transmission itself, so I narrowed things down to the shifter mechanism, and then to the bushings. I posted here asking about how difficult it would be to DIY the bushings, and got mixed and limited responses. I jacked-up and secured the car and took a long look underneath, and although I could barely see what I assumed were the bushings, I knew I could not begin to DIY the job. So, I took my car to my outstanding and long trusted Indy shop (they have done work on all my previous German cars - BMW's, MBZ's, and Porsches) and asked for help. The soft, squishy, thread spool-like objects pictured here are the actual "bushings" that were present in three locations on the shifter mechanism. These parts have no known numbers (unless you know them - Chrysler, MBZ, and about a dozen parts houses could not/would not claim them or number them). What's more, none of the parts I ordered per the manuals, diagrams, and listings and DIY's I studied existed anywhere on the entire shifter mechanism. I know this because I bought them and gave them to Cody at my Indy shop to install for me. There was not a single matching part to be found. I am going to post the photos, while I pause for a while and ponder how best to describe my truly baffling discoveries.


This was taken at the shop after removal.

"Bushings" are this long.

"Bushings" are this wide - smaller on one end than the other end.

With just a gentle squeeze, "bushings" are this soft and flexible.

Moderator note: Paragraphs are your friend, I separated text to make it easier to read.

 

paragraphs are your friend and make it a lot easier for us to read ... your post is interesting and we do want to read your story

 

If you know a hobbist 3D printer, perhaps you could get him/her to make you some bushings from Thermoplastic Polyurethane ~ TPU. I have seen online where some car guys have done that for their own cars and the material holds up well.
You may also try contacting MAYAman here on the forum and ask if he could help.
Good Luck !

 

Thanks! My Indy shop actually fabricated some by shaping similar poly bushings, and had to revise a connection between two of the rods. The parts of the rods into which the bushings were supposed to be pressed were oval shaped, and round bushings could not be pressed into them (I know, it gets worse). I will be posting at least one more installment of the repairs as I try to figure out the most cogent way to explain things.

 

And my apology in return. It just happened to hit me at a bad time, and the fact that you were right didn't help! All of which is no excuse for the snarky reply to a well-meaning observation.
STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EPISODE! I have to get it posted before the next mechanical surprise arrives.

 

To continue the sad saga of the Phantom Shifter Bushings I am going to share with you a diagram of where, on the shifter mechanism, the "bushings" were found, and photos that attempt to show how they were installed and utilized. Take a look at these, and see if you can figure it out. I am taking this approach, because when we ( Cody and I) first examined the parts and placement they were so odd that we had to talk through what we thought we were seeing. Frankly, the pictures do a poor job of illustrating the whole contraption and how it (was supposed to) work(ed).

Soon, when I get a little extra time, I will return and try to match what you are seeing with how it was installed, and how it so badly accomplished the mechanical functions for which it was manufactured and intended.

As prologue, I will say that I eventually arrived at the supposition that someone dropped-off a spare parts bin at the assembly line, and my car was put together more like a puzzle or a Legos experiment than an engineered automobile. I have still not been able to identify/number/catalog the "bushings" we found, nor have I been able to figure out why or how none of the repair parts that I ordered appeared anywhere on the mechanisms or operation of the shifter and the transmission.

More to follow when I can come-up with a decent description of what we found and how it was finally repaired.


This familiar diagram of the shifter mechanism is marked in red to show where the "bushings" were installed.

A "bushing" pressed into an oval hole in an articulating joint of the shifter rod. Circled to the right side of the mechanism in the diagram and closest to the point where the shifter exits the cabin and goes underneath the body.

Where the 2 "bushings" were rivieted in the shifter rod/arm circled in the diagram. Here the rivet head is being ground out to release the loosely installed "bushing".

"Bushing" out.

 

I was hoping that by now someone would check-in with a similar finding in the shifter mechanism of their Crossfire, or offer some insider knowledge or explanation about the apparently non-standard "bushngs" and mechanism fabrication that I had uncovered. Lacking that, and not a lot of apparent interest in this topic, I think I will dispense with this sad saga and merely finish by saying that the "bushings" are junk and have no business in the application for which they were used. The fabrication of the mechanism was about as crude and poorly designed and executed a piece of automotive engineering as I have ever seen. I am deeply disappointed to have found such junk in the manufacture of my Crossfire. I am right in the middle of a throttle body/stealth airbox upgrade, and have just installed a Needswings Oil Catch Can. The car looks beautiful. Occasionally it even runs and drives pretty darn good. When I finish putting it back together, I will sell it for whatever I can get for it and be glad to be rid of it, which with full disclosure of its sordid history will probably not be much. I guess it was bound to happen. I have bought, improved, maintained, driven and sold over 30 different cars, and I have never been as badly swindled and fooled as I have by this one. I am happy for those of you who love your Crossfires. I just wish I did too.

 

I think the title of your thread is throwing people off a little. That might be why there is not as much response. I have checked out some images of the section of the mechanism that you're working on.
Everyone I have looked at has those same red bushings in them. Did you put the bolt in there to hold the new bushing in place?
You might want to send a message to Rob at @NeedsWings he might know of a better bushing that will work. He does a lot of performance upgrades. I've tagged him in my reply, so hopefully he will respond soon.
I wouldn't give up hope yet. When I get frustrated with something I take a break from it and come back to it with a clear head.

 

THANKS! I appreciate the feedback. The shop put the bolt in to hold the new poly type bushings in place, and eliminated the wobble there that contributed to the slop. I don't know whether to be glad or disappointed to learn that all the other shifters you have seen have the same bushings and application. I have a weighted stainless steel ball shift **** coming in that should help settle things a little more. And now, having seen the actual assembly, I think I need to be more precise in my shifting technique and pay more attention to where I am in the gear pattern and locations. I have mostly had 4 gears to work with over the years, and these 6 are a lot closer together than what I am used to.

It is baffling to me that I have been unable to find these bushings in any diagram or numbered parts listing. All the bushing I could find and order looked just like you would expect them to look, and not at all like these red ones. Maybe I am just looking in all the wrong places (there is a song in there somewhere...) but the parts departments and vendors that I talked with could not find them either. They seem not to be a known item for either Chrysler or Mercedes.

Great advice to step back (off the ledge) and let the frustrations diminish. I think I will just drive the car (if it cooperates!) and try to be less in-tune with the things that could use improvement or fixing. With more driving and less wrenching I might remember why I bought the car in the first place.

You are also right about the title. I was referring to the fact that I could not find a part number or depiction of the bushings, but the real points of the post are not indicated by the title at all, and it is not at all clear whether I am offering help or asking for it! Thanks again for the feedback.

 

The quality of vehicles today are horrible, given that, engineers do not put the customer first. They are driven by the bottom line, and Mercedes Benz is not immune to the fact that todays consumers are trapped by worldwide competition and cheaply designed vehicles made to drive customers to take their cars to dealership shops (in which after the messy divorce between Chrysler and Mercedes Benz was so widely known after buying the Crossfire, it just doesn't practically exist).

We members take all the bad with the good while we find ways to keep our XF's on the road and running. Independent European car shops are the fallback when we cannot do the work ourselves (since MB wants NOTHING to do with the Crossfire). It is a bas-tard child that Chrysler wants in their service bays (only to take a chunk out of the owners pocket, it seems). While there is a very small number of dealerships that may still have the specialized tools and diagnostic equipment, we (members) are still finding ppl who think the dealership is the place to go for their car.

I may be wrong about who designed the manual shift mechanism (I do not own one nor have I seen whether or not there is a MB number stuck or stamped on the assembly), I believe the drive train is all MB. So, it isn't the car nameplate that made the cheap bushings, it is the economics of the business models of products being made that seem to start breaking down after the factory warranty. I am glad you have vented, there isn't a member here that finds the fact MB made the car and doesn't claim it's heritage. Seems to me MB shuns it because it is a red headed stepchild, may never be in a MB dealership shop unless it is done on the side (a friend, dealership needing the $, and so on).

Good luck with your car, when you are tired of it someone may buy it (either trade or sell yourself).

GrapiteGhost.

.

 

I want to make it clear that I did NOT use profanity or vulgar language where the four asterisks **** appear in my post. I did NOT put them there, and the word that was apparently censored is a common term for the item that is installed at the top of a stick shift and grasped by the hand to move the shifter. I guess in someone's vernacular it is considered a "bad word", but I can't imagine why or how it could possibly be misconstrued in my post. Perhaps this is AI hard at work improving the quality of our lives through technology? At any rate, the "you know what" that I am swapping out will hopefully improve the shifting!

 

Yup, it's probably AI. I just got censored in another post and I didn't use any fowl language at all. Either that or the person my comment was directed to was upset and cried about it.

 

*Moderator note*

I don't see any text with "****" in it. Either the IB Brands AI is doing this or your own browsers are doing something on your end. I THINK the word "****" was edited or blocked but Im not sure how since I don't see any edits right now.

Neither Gary nor I have edited any posts in this thread, nor have we received any complaints.
Well, I DID, just now, clean the thread up to "start with a clean slate".

PLEASE, EVERYONE: Do not assume that something that could be a product of IB Brand's AI (or the forum software AI, which is the same thing, really) is automatically something that Gary or I did - or that someone is complaining about your post. We get VERY few complaints, maybe 5-10 a YEAR on the entire forum, and many are the original poster asking us to "fix my mistake" or "delete my duplicate post".

 

I wasn't complaining. I just wanted to clarify the **** and my vocabulary. Now, for some strange reason I see that the **** have been replaced by the original word. As far as I know I have never been censored by my own computer, but who knows? Anyway - I think you and Gary do an AWESOME job with this forum and I have zero complaints about it. Thanks for all you do!

 

I have had my 6 speed slip out of 1st gear on occasion, it will do it if I don’t consciously make sure it’s fully in 1st when I take off. It will pop out with a big bang noise. I wonder if these bushing are a contributing factor? Did you have to pull the transmission to get them out? Or just lower it after removing the driveshaft? Replacing with poly sounds like a good idea.

 

Mine did the same thing, and not only is the BANG! a little disconcerting, one then sits there with the engine revving looking like a kid stranded in the bumper car arena. It has not happened since replacing the bushings, but I have to add that I have become a lot more attentive to the precision of my shifts, as these 6 speeds do not seem to allow much room for error. It was necessary to lower the exhaust and the driveshaft and pull the shifter assembly altogether to replace the bushings and engineer the modification to secure them tightly. With new poly adapted bushings the whole mechanism is much tighter, including the vertical up and down, which admittedly makes finding reverse a little more difficult. I am usually a big DIY guy, but I left this one to the shop. I think doing it without a lift and some other expensive tools (and a helper) would be extremely difficult. I have one more piece to add to the puzzle, and that is a weighted stainless steel shifter **** that should settle down the last of the wobble/slack and make locating the gear positions even easier.

 

I have had my 6 speed Roadster for 8 years and driven 54,000 miles and only have used 1rst gear when starting up hills or steep inclines
Starting in 2nd gear seems to work well and I have had no issues with the clutch and never needed to ride the clutch out slowly to start in 2nd gear
IMO 1rst gear is such a low gear it isn't really needed unless starting uphill

 

They called it granny low, in the old days.

 

I may or may not dig into the project of pulling the shifter mechanism. I’m needing to sell the car so I may just disclose it to whoever is interested in buying it and hope it doesn’t turn them away. Interesting that the stiffer bushings make it harder to get into reverse. Nice work on figuring all that out!

 

I remember my son took it for a spin and remarked about how low 1st gear is. I haven’t tried starting in 2nd but might give it a try. My car has around 80K miles on it and I noticed on the CARFAX report that the clutch was replaced at around 50K. So I have always tried to take it easy on it.