Re: Membership is declining.
What about higher grade of bolt?In 45yrs of wrenching on pickups never had to do this procedure.
There is no free lunch.
MB could revise the design to eliminate the need for this re-torque.
but it would not be substitution of a higher grade "bolt"
a common misunderstanding is that higher grade bolts are "better"
they are different.
increased hardness comes with increased brittleness. which means for this application, that they would be faster to crack in half, instead of stretch a bit.
ask me which I would rather have, a maintenance item, or suspension fasteners which fall off.
it could well be that the new design we see in a couple years will not need this activity.
and thanks to Dennis for bringing this up.
(we are picking up an 18,000 mile 2015 3500 chassis with an LTV unity bolted to it next week.....torqueing these bolts will be on the list for the first couple days.)