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Ordinata
I dropped the C55 off for a service and MOT (as I've mentioned recently), the wheel refurb chap dropped off the winter wheels to the garage (DDR in Ashtead, Surrey), and they buzzed them on.
A £50 donation to the Christmas drinks fund and they stored the summer wheels in their parts loft, which neatly resolves the "where the fuck am I going to put these" conundrum. I'll swing by when it's properly Spring and get them swapped back.
The winter tyres are now Pirelli Sottozero, replacing the Michelin Alpins, and they drive much more like normal tyres - the sense of squish is gone. Hopefully they're just as efficient at cutting through slushy frozen surfaces to find the grip underneath.
Changing the front discs and pads to OEM Mercedes has made a huge difference - the old discs were hunting when you braked hard, with the front being pulled left and right ever so slightly. It failed the MOT and so they had to be replaced - it was an advisory last year. I'd just driven around this problem, if you had a hand on the wheel it was fine. What I didn't realise was how much better everything felt with the tugging gone - the car now pulls up in a dead straight line and a major source of noise from one of the primary control interfaces has gone.
I'm a really big fan of this car, does everything I ask of it well, and then when I occasionally ask it be a drag car it does that too.
So of course something had to immediately go wrong to annoy me - and sure enough the backlight for one section of the headlight switch had failed.
The arc of symbols above the rotary control are meant to illuminate, but when they don't and you are driving at night it becomes rather interesting working out which detente is what function.
Who'd like to guess how much a new headlight switch unit is from Mercedes Benz?