Our RALIVAN hasn't seen much authentic action since our last road trip. In fact about the only two outings it has had were to get rustproofed and also a visit to the (not so) local Mercedes dealer.

Before that all went down we took it round the corner for a new windshield. Not that there was anything wrong with the old windshield; it just wasn't glued in! We had been wondering what the clunking noise from the front could be and had been thinking about replacing the upper strut mounts, a known failure point. However, one day we were poking around in the cowl are and saw the windshield actually move. Then we realized we could lift it along it entire lower edge. We scheduled a visit to our local windshield repair shop which is literally round the corner. It actually takes longer to drive there than to walk! They tried their best to save the windshield and our BRAID banner but failed on both counts. In retrospect the new windshield is much better than the old one. You don't realize how nicked up they get to you replace them. Now the clunking has gone and we can even see out better. We do need a new banner though.

A good friend of ours and mega YouTuber, Chris Amos, always gets his cars rust-proofed by Krown Rustproofing, even if they are not brand new. He's been using them for years and swears by the stuff. Our poor RALIVAN is pristine underneath as it lived all its life in Texas. We felt we could throw a Michigan winter at it without giving it the very best chance of survival, especially as these vans are not known for staying rust free. We schedule a visit to Krown of Rochester Hills about 20 minutes from us. The staff were very curteous and professional and we happy to let us document the process. They do drill holes in your vehicle but seal them well with rubber plugs. The whole process only took an hour and so far it hasn't gone rusty ;)

Before & after

Late last year we got a weird recall notice from Mercedes in the mail. They said they was a recall on the emissions system that we needed to have done and they would give us a couple of grand if we had it done! well, we don't turn down free money so we scheduled it ASAP with our local MB dealer. Well, local is about 40 minutes away and ASAP was about two months out so there's no free after all. A nice discounted one though. In the meantime we got another notice about an airbag recall so we aded that to the list. Then we remembered another mod we wanted to do so called them back and had them do that too. We still had to leave the van for about a week but when we got it back we found on the local Autobahn that the mods had added about 12mph to the top speed!. Not bad eh? Must be the new airbags. Maybe they are lighter.