Welcome back to legit street cars and welcome to another Christmas car giveaway. In years past I've fixed up and given a single mom in need a Lincoln a young guy taking care of his mother with cancer a Subaru and in this video I'm giving a U.S Marine combat veteran a Mercedes Now this Mercedes-Benz ML 500 SUV is kind of a big unicorn and it took me forever to find because this is the only year of this generation Ml to use one of the most reliable engines Mercedes ever made the almighty M113. The M113 is a single overhead cam V8 that produces around 300 horsepower and it came out in 1998 and was used for about a decade in various Mercedes models. It's widely known as being a bulletproof engine.

These things would run forever if you simply just change the oil. and just about the only issue you may see after a few years are various engine oil leaks of which we have many I mean we got a ton of oil leaks. This thing is leaking oil everywhere and it's probably why the previous owner wanted to sell it, but we can fix this now. The engine isn't the only reason why I picked this ML500 This is the best spec coming with heated Alcantara insert seats a Harman Kardon stereo a sunroof Factory by Xenon headlights and it doesn't have the super problematic power liftgate.

this one is manual. It also doesn't have keyless go which is a cool feature that gives you buttons on the door handles to lock and unlock the doors. but those handles are super expensive and they always fail. So Chris who you're going to meet later also has kids so there's plenty of room for them and all of their activities.

There's just there's just a lot of room in these. The ML500 also has all-wheel drive. These things are an absolute monster in the snow which is needed here in Chicago O and the Ml is going to keep Chris and his family super safe because these things scored a perfect five-star crash test rating in front and side impact. So the Ml will protect Chris and his family just like he was willing to protect us here at home after 9 11.

Chris Was born in Kentucky and joined the U.S Marine Corps in the year 2000. he was originally deployed to Southeast Asia but after 9 11, Chris and his infantry platoon who was part of the 3rd, Battalion fifth Marines were deployed to Kuwait as the first boots on the ground for operation Iraqi Freedom Chris and his platoon traveled through Baghdad under heavy fire for months and they were the first platoon to go through what was later dubbed Ambush Alley. His efforts and bravery in the operation earned him and his platoon a Presidential Unit Citation and the platoon Commander received the Navy cross. Upon Returning to the U.S and because of his extensive experience in in combat, Chris finished out his Service as an urban Warfare instructor training troops for battle before they're deployed.

After his service, Chris went to culinary school, became a sushi chef and moved to Chicago all while battling with PTSD Unfortunately and like many vets, Chris's PTSD resulted in him being hospitalized and during his treatment, his family reached out to salute. Inc Salutes a charity who provides assistance to vets in need and you may remember my salute Inc fundraiser video where I took my friend Dan a blind veteran for a leisurely Drive in my 1 000 horsepower turbo Trans Am During Chris's recovery, he decided to give back to salute Inc for helping him and he started catering sushi for salute fundraiser events and that's where he became friends with Will who later started the Road Home program that specifically helps veterans suffering from PTSD Hi I'm Will Byersdorf I'm the Executive Director of the Road Home program here at Rush University Medical Center and we take care of vets with PTSD military, sexual trauma and other invisible wounds of war and life. We've been open since 2014 helping vets and their families. Will hired Chris as his first employee and as an Outreach coordinator and for over 10 years Chris has been the first point of contact to Veterans suffering from the memories and traumatic experiences of War Many times vets who suffer from PTSD don't ask for help so Chris travels the country to VA hospitals and Veteran Hangouts looking for signs and to start a conversation with the men and women of our military and offer help that could save their lives.

Chris's boots are still on the ground today fighting for our country. but Chris is without wheels and gets around by Bus and Train and if anyone deserves a car, it's Chris Alright guys, so it's seven o'clock in the morning the day of the giveaway. We're just putting the final touches here on the Ml detail. This thing is going to look so good.

so we're just about loaded up and ready to go. Surprise! Chris But just like all of my car giveaways Chris doesn't know me, he doesn't know anything about the giveaway. This is a total surprise. so today is just a normal day at work for him or so he thinks now.

I've set this entire thing up with Will from Road home who you guys are going to meet a little bit later in the video. But not only are we gonna surprise Chris with the Ml 500, but my friends at Mods and Miles are giving Chris cash to cover an entire Year's worth of car insurance. So definitely check out their link down below. it's free to list your car there and I'm gonna give Chris cash to cover an entire Year's worth of gasoline.

So Insurance gas will be covered and that's about all Chris is going to need for the Ml. So let me take you guys back in time two days to show you everything we've fixed on this SUV to make sure that it takes care of Chris for many years to come. All right it is Monday morning and I'm ready to work good morning. SVT Cobra National SVT Lightning Mustang Bunch of other stuff and good morning Peter This is our 2006 Ml 500 and Peter what do you think of the hood? It's a little faded I think she'll come out I think she'll come out too.

So we picked this guy up a couple of days ago, drove it here to the shop and I was able to use the faded hood and a massive massive oil leak to negotiate the price of this super well maintained, clean title. ML500 down to 5300 which I think is fantastic. Wait till I show you guys the new parts that the previous owner just put on. But first we have to remove the underbelly engine panels and figure out the oil leak.

I think I have an idea of where most of the oil leaks are coming from, but we have to inspect this rear main seal the rear main seals in the back of the engine in between the engine and the transmission and it would be leaking from right around in there and it is bone dry. We would see it all over the torque converter as well and we're looking good and let's just double check. one more spot. Actually two more spots.

And yeah, here's the bottom of our torque converter. We don't have any oil on that and we can look in here and verify that the front transmission pump seal isn't leaking either. All right, Cool. So we gotta head back to the front with the Mercedes Beauty cover.

Off We found our first obvious oil leak, which is coming from the valve cover breather. so the valve covers are separated into two different parts. This is sealed with RTV runs all the way back here and the main valve cover is sealed with a normal rubber gasket and so those definitely need to be resealed along with some new PCV tubes as these get brittle and crack over the years. Foreign.

Let's see what we can see with this month's stressity out of our way. Well, right off the path. This has a very bad harmonic balancer. so this is the balancer at the front end of the crankshaft and it's supposed to have a piece of rubber inside here and that is all but gone.

You can see some of it over here, but this is going to completely come apart. This will cause an engine vibration and if they break apart, that's that's really, really bad. So we got to replace that. But let's see if we can figure out where the bulk of this oil leak is coming from and I suspect a lot of it is from this pressure port right here.

This is a very common failure point on these engines, so there's a seal and an o-ring in there that needs to be replaced and there's just a ton in this general area that leak on these M113 V8 engines. This is the oil cooler. There's seals in here, those leak as well and this power steering reservoir has an O-ring at the back that leaks. So we have a total of one, two, three, four, five potential leak spots right from this core corner.

and this is where all the oil is coming down and getting over everything on the bottom. So we definitely have our work cut out for us and this belt is destroyed. It's been flinging oil for probably months at this point. All right.

I Just sent a big parts list over to my friends at FCP Euro I Told them what we're doing with the ML and they are covering all of these parts for Chris. So Chris is going to get that awesome lifetime parts replacement guarantee. So a big thanks to FC P Euro I'll drop their link down below but for now we have to start taking everything apart and they're Expediting everything. so I should have it tomorrow.

Oh and let me show you guys all the new parts that the previous owner just put on this Ml. Alright, so he said last year they replaced the water pump. He did the front brake pads and the rotors at the same time. They did the rear pads and rotors and the airbags for the rear suspension and new tires.

The previous owner was super cool and he took really good care of this except it started to leak a lot of oil. All right, let's kick this party off by removing this nasty nasty serpentine belt. Get out of here. They very well could have replaced this with a water pump and then it got destroyed.

I'll pop this oil filter out. Oh yeah, good sounds. We'll let that drain for a little bit. All right.

This belt tensioner isn't bad, but we're gonna replace this in another common pulley that fails on these. It's been soaking in oil, which doesn't really ruin these, but we want it to be nice. Chris We're going to make this thing really nice. We're gonna replace this one too.

These can snap sometimes that happen to me on my Ml55. All right, let's drain out this oil. This thing's reading that it's past due on the service on the cluster. A lot of people just don't know how to reset these guys.

What do we got? Okay, that's engine oil, not the newest. All right. So you always want to replace this crushed washer in here. And I got a bunch of new ones.

All right Drain pan is in all right now. we can pop this guy out All right. We definitely want to replace all of these O-rings as well. And you know I'm using an awesome Amsoil filter.

These things are the best! I Mean look at in there, these are beautiful. If you guys haven't used damsoil filters I Highly recommend them. I'll leave a link down below. All right, that's done, but we're saving this for later.

All right, we're gonna get this air pump off and it makes it much easier to get to this. and it's just a bolt and a little connector and a clam shell looking thing There we go. All right, let's get the soil cooler apart All right. So the cooler moves back and now we can remove the housing.

except I can't find my 46 millimeter socket so Peter's taking the shop Caprice ppv to go get one Bernard Says nothing's a little loud, but it's not like we don't have a million things to do so we won't waste any time. Gotta get these coils off. Gotta get these leaking valve covers off. Get out of here.

come off plug. So we're gonna replace the spark plugs as well and they're not that difficult to do, but there are 16 of them so they're just kind of expensive. two plugs per cylinder. That was done for efficiency, but they did away with it in the following generation of engines.

I Guess Mercedes Figured out how to make it work with one plug like everybody else. Let's see how it. Loose Oh yeah, these plug wires got to go. Yeah, when they get loose like that, there just might not make a good connection when you replace the plug so we'll get new ones too.

with the coil packs off. you can see this side valve cover is not leaking at all but I don't care. I'm going to reseal this up for Chris Anyway, and to get this thing off, we just have a bunch of E10s all over the place. All right.

Max Edit this up into one of those zip Sam Zoo things where it just looks like I do it in two seconds. Here we go. All right. this should come off There we go.

All right. let's get this guy out of here see if they kept up on their oil changes I Think they did all right. I got all the Hardware off of this side. There we go.

keep on dropping one of the screws I Heard it hit the ground though, so that's good. There we go. Oh this one's nasty. Nasty tools.

Yay! All right. cool. Now we can take this off. You know what? Let's start.

Let's start a war. In the comment section: Peter What do you think the most reliable gasoline engine out of all the brands is? What do you think? I'm gonna go with the Lexus Toyota 1uz VA motor. Okay, I'm going GM I'm going GM 3800 Those push rod engines lasted forever. They had intake manifold leaks.

That was about it though. Uh, but let me know in the comment section, what do you guys think is the most reliable gasoline engine ever made? All right. So we had to get a 1 in 13 16 socket. It is a three-quarter Drive I Had to adapt down and she's held in pretty good.

All right there we go. All right. This guy should lift right up. Like so.

Oh, there's our leaking seal. This guy right here. Flat as a pancake, Hard as a rock. It's a pancake.

Rock That's that's what it is. It's an expensive. It's a very expensive pancake. Rock to fix that, but not if you do it at home.

I think the seal is probably like five bucks. Oh, and here's some more pancake rocks. right here. These guys leak.

That's where the cooler attaches like so and you can see they are super flat. They're going to be rock hard. Let's get these out. Oh, she's crispy.

Oh yeah, there we go. Yeah, this is supposed to be a lot more flexible and yep, more of the same here. Replace me. Replace me now I Feel like it's like more like a crusty old man voice.

Oh yeah, that's true. You better not replace me. I'm still working. They don't make me like they used to get out.

Shut up Harold you crusty old man. You don't know what you're talking about Esther All right, we're almost done disassembling everything. We gotta suck out our power steering fluid because I'm gonna give Chris a new Reservoir So not only is this leaking, but there's a little filter inside the reservoir that you can't replace separately and when that filter clogs up, you start to get a groaning from the power steering pump. and so we're just going to go ahead and replace this now.

before it fails. Look at how nasty and crusty it is and here's the O-ring that leaks all the time. All right. Last part we have to remove is the harmonic balancer and I found this tool that may work.

It's not the proper Mercedes one, but we'll see what happens so it fits in here. We just need it to kind of jam up the balancer. Look at this guy. Hello, my name is ABBA halt I'm German This thing is held on by like 240 foot-pounds or something.

So it's it's my larger breaker bar versus Peter's tiny one. Ah, okay, this isn't working All right. Here we go. This is totally normal.

Oh, it's turning. Oh yeah baby. Oh yeah. okay.

these balancer bolts are really on there. Here's our little setup. It seems to be working just fine. Oh no problem.

I Don't even need that breaker bar. All right. So this tool is actually for like a Ford or a Mazda or something, but it works for Mercedes too. And it was only twenty dollars.

Yeah, we'll just take out our gigantic balancer bolts and this guy should slide right off. Look at this. Yeah, this was gonna let loose. Wow.

We caught this right on time. All right, All right, we're gonna take out some spark plugs too. What do we got? What do we got? Oh, we got crustiness. Wow.

these these original. I'm really surprised I am really surprised. these look to be original. Look at the Gap and this thing ran smooth as glass.

The M113 just doesn't care. You don't want to replace the spark plugs fine. You want to wait a couple years to change the oil. It'll still run.

It never dies. Last but not least, we have a pressure port and I'll show you guys what leaks on this. and here she is the crusty, crusty old man. We'll name this old man Clarence Get Away! Clarence You've been sealing the pressure for way too long.

So yeah, this guy right here leaks out. And there is also a washer in here. so this is where you would attach an oil pressure gauge to test your oil pressure so it's rarely ever used because the oil pressure is always fine because it's the best Mercedes gas engine ever. Alright, so with that, here is our parts table of Shame all of our old parts that are leaking and crusty and and about to explode.

and thanks to some very speedy delivery times from FCP Euro we have all of our new stuff. This is so so cool, so satisfying. We have it all. Our belt tensioner, pulley, power steering, reservoir seal, harmonic balancer that doesn't have rubber coming out of it.

Uh, we're gonna do the plug wires as well. spark plugs, air filter, yeah, everything. Everything. And we're topping it off with some synthetic European 540 from Amsoil So anyway, with that, let's clean some parts.

I Got the valve cover and the parts washer. We're gonna get some diesel all over it and let that soak in. Nice. Let's see what that looks like a little later.

Oh, but we can see what this looks like right now because I Want to get this back on the engine? Leave us grime. You can see the star again. it's silver. I thought it was black.

it was black. Okay, Oh, it's so shiny. I'm gonna lubricate this new one a little bit and then just pop it in the cover like so and look at that. It's protruding out a little bit.

It's nice and flexible. It's good for another 15 years. All right. I'm going to pressure wash this engine in The Wash Rack after we're done with everything, but we'll just clean up this gasket mating surface right now.

All right, then we're just going back together in reverse order. A little finger tighten first. Yeah, it's working this piece on and it looks a little out of place here. All right with that torqued on.

We can actually now replace this copper washer too. It's being held in by our engine, all right. out with the old and in with the new and we just thread this guy back on. You get the idea.

Next up is our new harmonic balancer and we're going to use a new bolt as well and this is key weight so you can't mess it up and it's not press fit or anything, just slides right on and we're going to thread it on this. Bolt All right ready? Yep, All right here we go. We are torquing this down. Uh okay.

all right let's see if we can get this guy to torque. That's 150. We got to go up though. There we go.

she's on there Chris that balancer is there for Life Next Up we have our new belt tensioner going in. It does feel weird putting these nice shiny Parts on an engine that looks so so dirty. But don't worry, it'll all make sense soon when we pressure wash it. Honestly, if I could go back in time I would have, uh, pressure washed this first I don't know what I was thinking there.

all right on the oil filter housing. We went from this nastiness all the way to this and let me show you guys the difference with the seals. This is old, this is new, so much more flexible and then we're just gonna pop it in like this. It protrudes out a little bit and that's what's going to make our seal.

Before we reinstall that, let's get our power steering reservoir on. Clean this guy up a little bit. All right. New Reservoir Seal gearing in just like that.

That's all that really leaks on these. All right. Then we just go ahead and slide this back onto the pump like so and we just snap in a little retainer, put on a hose, tighten it up, and zip in our Bolt and with everything cleaned up and our oil filter housing seal lubricated, we can install it like this and then install the housing like this and this gigantic thing goes in. Then believe it or not, this thing gets torqued to 70 newton meters.

It's a lot. All right with the torquing of these. our oil cooler and filter housing is all sealed up. Oh, wait a minute, we got to top it off with this guy.

All right. Awesome! Five Guys We're at the 24 hour Point here, so it is day two of fixing up the ML and I got Peter over here minting out our valve covers I have to reseal the upper breather Chambers though and I've already installed this Bank of spark plugs I Just have three left on this side so that'll be done so we should be done with the mechanical repairs in the next roughly three hours. And then we do have to get two tires installed in the front to match the new ones in the rear, and do a bunch of detail work. so it's definitely coming down to the wire here, that's for sure.

All right outside of the belt. This is our last part of the front of the engine puzzle and the previous owner said they replaced the thermostat as well, so we don't have to do that. All right. There's our new pulley right about right about right about.

Stop turning trying to end this scene. Okay, right about right about there. This scene isn't over yet. I Need that click? Now it's done all right.

So I just got done replacing all of the ignition wires and I found this. We have a severely cracked coil. It's even worse here. No misfires though at all because M113.

but luckily I blew up the transfer case on my Ml55. so this guy's down. Let's steal a coil. Oh yeah, she's a little a little dirty.

We had a ton of fun with this guy, but the transfer case chain did not make it. The coils did though. man. I need to reseal the valve covers on this guy too.

Okay, got it. Oh, it's just like new now. put me in coach. I'm ready to play all right.

So the valve covers are looking pretty awesome and now we're gonna take the breathers off which are just a couple of little screws and then these guys are glued on. glued on tight. All right. Cool.

So now we gotta scrape all this stuff out of here. This is the one that was actually leaking. There we go and there's glue everywhere. It takes forever to clean these.

We had to clean out where all the screws and bolts go all the way around both sides. This takes a long time. Anyway, this is what it looks like now. All goopy and nasty and after about an hour of cleaning, this is what it looks like.

after removing all of this. just just make a gasket. Mercedes Or better yet, why is this even a removable part? There is no reason for this chamber to be removable. They could have just built it as part of the valve cover and called it a day.

It makes no sense. Peter What's that? What's that called? It's German Engineering right? Das German Engineering. All right. we get to use my awesome Mercedes-Benz RTV Gun I Mean this is from Mercedes Mercedes part number and my name carved into it because of how expensive these were and the dealer guys would steal them on you.

But look at this. one of our tubes blew up so Peter came up with a really fancy Contraption here. it's nice. All right here we go making our own gasket.

Mercedes Please please. I Know this engine is long discontinued. You don't care about it, but can you just just make a gasket for this? This is so much work for no reason. I Mean it's kind of satisfying at this point to fill these little canals.

All right. here we go. Glue going down okay and yes, you want it to ease out just just a little, keep it nice and classy. and then with the FCP Euro kit they give you new screws and Hardware it's really nice foreign feel type deals and click and click there we have it resealed breather chamber all right before we put the valve cover on.

We're going to pour our oil in because it's just so satisfying to do when you can see it just lubricating engine parts. Look at this chain. this chain is like wow, this is the most oil I've ever had on me. Give me more and I will last forever even though it's going to last forever anyway because it's an M113 chain.

Look at that! Whoo There you go little buddy! And of course we are feeding the M113 our Euro 540 synthetic by Amsoil This is the best synthetic oil in the world I Use it on all of my cars European American Japanese as I point to Peter it's simply the best. There's a ton of third-party data showing this oil winning in almost every single category. so that is what I use in all my cars and I became an Amsoil Dealer a couple of years ago to pay for little things around the shop, insurance, and stuff like that. So anyway, I'll leave a link down below and if you sign up for one of my preferred customers, you're going to get 25 off of everything.

Amsoil So it gets shipped to your house. Their website is amazing and just know that every time you feed your engine the good stuff that you're helping support the channel too. All right, New gaskets. Of course this engine is finally going to be sealed up.

There should be absolutely no oil leaks after all of this we're gonna find out because I'm gonna pressure wash everything. We're gonna run it, make sure it's Tip Top All right. So I've also replaced these breather hoses as well since they were all cracked up and now we just plop on our valve cover like so foreign. Last piece to our mechanical puzzle is the reinstallation of the air pump that hose back on so it can.

Pump Air Oh, don't forget your ground. You need a ground and a connector and some Zippity zip. Okay, cool, let's go to The Wash Rack before we install the fan and the belt and all that stuff and wash. All right.

So Peter's cleaning up two of the wheels while they're off. We actually had to get some new tires installed on these. They were pretty much shot and the rears were in excellent condition so now we'll have them to match. These are a total pain to remove.

Things are rusted together. All you need to do to prevent that is just a very small amount of anti-seize That's enough. Do one of these. and now when you're broke down in the middle of the highway in 10 degree Chicago weather and you need to put your spare on, your wheel will come right off.

There we go. and you really barely need any of this stuff. So I actually give it a wipe too. That's it.

Just a light film. You're good. Something else that aids in removing a wheel is torquing it to spec. So right now the gun's on number one.

We're going to torque it after this and that'll prevent the rotors from getting warped. It'll make it easier for you to remove the wheel. It's just overall a good thing to do torque your wheels. This thing runs so so nicely.

Cannot wait to clean this engine! Peter You got no power steering. There's no belt on. it's actually not even that hard without power steering. Oh, and then while it's in the wash rack, we're definitely going to fix this.

Hood This is the only bad part of the paint on this Ml. Everything else is great. the roof, everything all right. perfect.

Okay, so we're gonna use a bunch of engine degreaser honestly in the front here and then we'll get all this. this is so bad. I'll have a really good before and after for you here in a moment. All right guys.

I'm gonna get dirty here I Have the mass airflow sensor covered up, but everything on these modern engines is sealed pretty well as far as connectors, so we can be a little bit generous with our pressure from our water, but still safe. We're not going to blast directly into connectors or electrical items I've gone through this a few times, but just just be safe. There we go. All right.

We've blasted everything and an important step here for safety is to then dry everything immediately. So we're going to run the engine. but first blow it off with this guy. All right.

So with everything dry, we're going to install our new belt and then run the engine, warm it up so it can dry everything right on there. Come on! Now there we go. They're gonna take this little pin out of the tensioner. This kind of looks cool though.

I wonder if instead of a toothpick I'm just hanging out with a belt tensioner pin in my mouth at all times. If you want iron intake here, I'll give you guys a really good before and after underneath the car when we lift it. After a quick drive, he's gonna go for a ride so we verify all the oil leaks are fixed. but I Just wanted to show you the front of the engine before we put the fan in.

That's going to block us from getting in here like this and showing you guys how clean this is. All right? So let's get this engine fan back in so we can run this engine for a while up to proper operating temperature. Right there she is. This guy always breaks so we have a good one.

All right. So we have everything together. We need to start this up and get it up to operating temperature. Awesome! No belt noises, everything looks good.

Cool! So what I'm going to do now is warm it all the way up. Go for a test drive, make sure we don't have any leaks, any other issues, uh. and then I'll pop it up in the air show you guys how dry it is. Hopefully hopefully there are no leaks, uh.

and then we can buff out the hood. Oh I Almost forgot we got to put new air filters in this guy! I Don't even know if these are bad, but we're just starting them off fresh so this shouldn't require any maintenance or anything for a long time. What do we got? Oh wow, these are actually really nice. They look like they've just been replaced.

well. whatever, we're gonna replace them anyway. There you go. Chris New air filters? That's done.

We gotta clean this guy! Beauty Covers got to look beautiful doesn't it? No One's Gonna See The engine block that we just cleaned. this has got to look nice though. All right. We just got done detailing everything, she is looking clean and the very last piece of the puzzle.

Under the hood are some cabin filters and don't pay anyone to replace these on the 164 chassis. Super easy. Oh yeah, look at this. Oh, and I'm so glad we're doing this.

Clogged up drains really. anywhere in your car can sometimes cause big issues. Literally, they can flood your car out. Fry Electronics We got to clean that.

Oh man. a lot of people forget about these. Don't forget about these. This is the air that you're breathing.

Nasty. Look at this. Oh my gosh, this is horrible. All right.

that's it. This thing is clear. cabin filters one at a time. There we go.

All right. New filters, cleaned out vent. Let's see, we found the cap here to the jumping terminal. Put that back on too.

All right. That just makes me feel better that Chris and his family aren't going to be breathing in that nasty, nasty air. Replace the cabin filters, people. Just do it.

It's like 20 bucks every five years or something would be good. All right. she's looking sweet. Wow.

Wow. these are probably original. The worst I've ever seen. Oh man.

okay. I keep on forgetting things that I've bought for this car. Wiper Blades: We're doing a very major service on this. We can't leave it without good blades.

Yeah, especially going into the winter. Now here we go. All right. In case you guys forgot from earlier on in the video.

This is how bad the oil leaks looked before. So we had about five different oil leaks. They had saturated pretty much everything underneath the car. It looked horrendous.

It was definitely dripping on this guy's driveway and then we fixed pretty much everything, cleaned it up I Just went for a test drive and this is what we have now and nothing is leaking. We fixed them all. The rear main seal wasn't leaking to begin with. it probably been done already, but this is beautiful I Love it! So here's a really quick one.

This is before and this is after so we are good to go. We've gotten this engine up to operating temperature at Ran for about a half hour. I Took it out for a nice long ride and we're Golden Chris You got a nice nice car I Hope you really enjoyed this Ml for many, many years to come because it is fresh! I Mean this is about as good as it gets for this year. ML And here is our graveyard of Parts which which we need to dispose of right now.

We even move this over as well. I've always kind of want to just clear my toolbox of Parts like this before so we're just gonna go for it. Very satisfying. Oh, we can use the wipers.

they're wiping away the toolbox. There we go. Everything made it right. Oh, we need the drill bit.

Nope, not anymore. Oh all right, we just washed the ML and drying the hood. We gotta try and fix this. Hopefully it'll come back to us because we don't have any time for a paint job right now.

This is a metallic paint, isn't it? Oh yeah, this is a metallic black. I Thought this was the normal black. Wow, this is going to look good. Hopefully this is the factory metallic paint.

It's code C197 so Zero Four Zero is just your standard Mercedes black. This was a very, very specifically optioned Ml to not have keyless Go or the electronic tailgate, but have the Alcantara seats, the metallic paint, the air suspension. It's almost. It's almost like a Mercedes Tac spec this out.

Well, except for the air suspension that can't fail. But this is all new. We found a new pump in there too so we're good. All right.

Anyway, let's buff this out. I'm going to use our fine polish and the fine foam pad. Let's go kind of gentle on it. To begin, let's see what we need to do.

All right? Okay, that's that's looking. Very very promising and nice. All right, let's keep going here. Oh, this is probably the worst of it right in here.

It's a layer on here. Look at that. We're cleaning it up though. Wow.

We are literally just peeling off a layer of oxidation is what it is. Yeah, it's not. It's not clear coat failure or anything. Wow.

this feels so much better. This is super slippery. Oh this is great. We are going to be able to save this.

Hood I Mean at this point we have to be able to save this! Hood because we're like 12 hours away from giving the car away and we can't do that with a with a bad looking Hood All right. So our Hood went from this completely faded out potentially irreparable all the way to this. She came back people. She came back.

the gloss is back and look at this metallic paint up close. It is a really really cool color and of course we ceramic coated the hood and the rest of the car while we were at it. I buffed out the headlights as well so those look nice and pretty. She's come a long way.

All right. After all this work we have to reset the maintenance indicator that is not correct at all. This guy definitely did all of his oil changes. We had a ton of service history so we just go into there and Dyno mode we'll we'll keep that off and Confirmation Full service.

All right. After all of that, here is our almost done ML500 We just need to clean up the interior but this is fully mechanically sorted now. we've driven it. No warning lights, no weird stuff.

Drive straight as an arrow and it looks beautiful I Can't wait to give this to Chris tomorrow! This is a very beautiful sight to see. No warning lights whatsoever. She runs beautiful. These things are very torquey, very peppy.

We just got to go get some gas. All right I got Max and Peter some Christmas gifts. Let's see, let's see if they see it right away. I'm gonna have them load up the Jack which you guys will see why we need that.

Jack's ready to go. All right. This is a ploy. It's a trick.

a deception if you will. What is this what the heck answers to? Peter Merry Christmas I wonder what it is Merry Christmas Yes, it's for the conquest it is. Oh, it's perfect. It's direct fit too.

So we're going to be working on uh Peter's Conquest soon. Max had a headlight bulb go out on his Subaru so I got him some LED headlights. dude are those Morimoto's Oh yeah, oh dude, thank you. You're welcome I reused the Christmas bags Max got us some presents and I stole the bags I'm not good at yeah I'm not that good at wrapping things.

so there you go. There you go. Max a unicorn umbrella I Love it. All right? I've set the cruise control and we got about a half hour ride.

This thing is so comfortable. Um, but here is what we're planning. Okay and with these surprise car giveaways, you kind of like never know what's gonna happen I Literally had one guy saying no to the car I was giving it to him on Christmas and he said no I'll link that down below. Um, but Will is going to lure Chris into the parking lot and we're going to be in the parking lot with the Ml with the red bow on the hood but a jack uh, just about to jack it up for a flat tire.

then I'm gonna see Chris in the parking lot I'm gonna call him over and ask if he'll help me I'll fake some kind of injury like my arm hurts so I'll have him start jacking up the car and while he's doing that, I'm gonna let him know what I'm doing I'm gonna say something along the lines of yeah man, this couldn't have been worse timing with this because I'm giving this car away and then hopefully he's like oh, cool and then I'll say yeah I'm giving it to a veteran and then hopefully he's like oh, sounds good and then I'm slowly gonna trickle in facts about Chris that a random stranger should not know. So Will's known Chris for over 10 years so he gave me a couple of little factoids about him. uh, like the fact that he's a really good Chef he was a sushi chef so I'm gonna start sprinkling and stuff like that until it gets weird and awkward and he and he maybe realizes what's going on I don't know. so we got Gabby she's in on this too.

She's gonna call Will. we're in the parking lot by the way, at Road home it's freezing out here. uh but Gabby's gonna call Will uh to what are you gonna say to like come like help him or something I don't even know loading thing oh perfect. Um so I'm gonna say like hey, I need I need a hand in the back parking lot can can you bring some extra help? All right Perfect.

So I am going to be here. uh yeah with this thing jacked up because you know it's got a flat tire I need a hand you can come down here and okay all right we got secret mic Max we got Peter he's gonna be hiding with this this camera. oh it'll take him three minutes. Okay oh I'm so nervous you never know how these are gonna go.

I mean I I was rejected once so there's no way I mean look look at how nice this is. So okay so we got Peter in the Tesla I don't even know where Max oh there he is Max is over there by the dumpster as per all the other videos where I'm surprising people I'm hiding behind a dumpster. all right dude I'm there I'm shaking all right I got everything I got the keys I got money? Where's the title I got the title Okay all right you know what can you roll down another window and try to like get them coming out the door because then I'm gonna go up to him and be like hey you think you can help me out then I gotta feel like I got a fake an injury hey guys, hey I'm Alex hey how are you Chris Chris good to meet you Uh, any chance you guys can help me with a flat, it's all set up I Set it up I just didn't set up Yeah yeah I just I couldn't physically. Thanks man! this is the worst timing for this.

Yes, yes, I'm actually giving this thing away like today. The guy's supposed to be coming through the parking lot so really nice guy veteran. uh he was in the Marines in like the early 2000s and I've never met him before so oh man thank you I gotta get the gun but yeah he's uh I think he's from like Kentucky and he was a sushi chef or something so what would you? What is my name is Chris oh you're Chris Merry Christmas Chris this is yours. What is going on? What's going on here is that you served our country and we're paying it back with a car.

So Will and I have been conspiring to do this for probably about a month now. He let me know how awesome of a guy you were and that you lost your car and we can't have that, especially because there's a blizzard coming tomorrow. So we got you an all-wheel drive. Mercedes-Benz ML500 Clean title and it is all for you.

All right you got. You guys could come out, you don't know what's right dude I Don't know what's going on? Oh yeah, that's Max and we've been working on this for about a month for you. Uh, we bought this thing and needed oh it doesn't have a flat. by the way, it's got new tires.

we just put them on yesterday. So we've been working on this for a while. Uh, we we bought it, used it, needed some work and I have a YouTube channel called Legit Street Cars and we fix up cars like we rescue cars and stuff like that and then every Christmas I I give up I give a car away for Christmas Um and kind of pay it forward and I've been wanting to do a veteran one again. We did, uh, some veteran stuff a few years ago and uh, we appreciate everything you guys have done and so we got you a car.

Oh and speechless and uh, Mods and Miles.com They are the best car auction site ever. Uh, they are throwing in a full Year's worth of car insurance money for you. That's all you man. And then I'm throwing in a full Year's worth of gas so you don't even have to put gas in it.

Take it, it's yours. Say let's see and look at the snow is coming right? It's time for Christmas it's gonna be a white Christmas Perfect for the all-wheel drive. Exactly Exactly too much. but yeah, we'll We'll help this out.

We uh I've been working with Salute Inc for a while and they turned me on. Come on in Will! Awesome! Come on Will Will told me everything about you I almost feel like I know you a little bit just he gave me a little bit of your backstory and and I needed I'm like I need factoids to lure you into this I was trying to keep it a secret, it just knew this is probably something that could that could help. Yeah yeah I think so. Yeah so he said you've been taking buses and trains to work for a little while.

Yeah cool. Are you in Chicago too? A.m Yeah Oh cool, cool cool. yeah so awesome. Yeah I was looking and he had mentioned you also had kids.

so I'm like all right we got to find an SUV all-wheel drive and I know it's a Mercedes A lot of people are intimidated but I was a Mercedes Tech and I drove them in the Marine oh you did? Really? yeah Mercedes trucks that we? uh oh cool. they're amazing. Then you know they're really good in the snow too, especially with the all-wheel drive. so we expect this one out perfectly.

It took me forever to find this but it's got one of the best gasoline Mercedes engines ever! They're really reliable and we fixed everything on it over the last two days which you'll see when you watch the video. This is gonna make my family's Christmas This is amazing! So I don't know what to do? You want to check it out? Let's go check it out. Yeah, oh dude, your girlfriend's gonna love me. You know you got brand new Mercedes and you're ready to mess up the tire? Oh no.

I was hoping you wouldn't pick up on the fact that it's really not flat. I was like should I do yeah I'm like should I deflate it and I'm like we'll make this quick. So here it is. It had a bunch of oil leaks and stuff that were really common so we fixed all that.

very clean interior. I Mean it runs and drives like brand new. It's awesome. Um, so go ahead and fire it up.

It's got a V8 It's got like 300 horsepower and like 340 foot-pounds of torque. Sorry we're car guys. Are you Are you into cars like at all? Yeah, that's why one of the reasons I joined the Marine Corps Really? So what did you do? What did you do in the Marine Corps Big trucks guns on top. Drove around a little stuff up Rambo with a truck.

Yeah. great stereo. It's got air suspension so it rises and lowers and that stuff has been fixed up. It's got the new compressor and the new bags and the front struts look to be in good shape too.

So speech. well I'm super happy for you. It was so great when I talked to Mary Beth at Salute Ang She hooked me up with Will and immediately he was like Chris is the guy Chris is the guy just talking to my friend earlier I was like I don't know what's going on you know I'm supposed to meet Will at 9 30 Sent me a message last night about what size shirt I wear. Oh yeah, that's oh, that's right there, that's what that is.

So my friend was like is everything okay fired well as a friend I've known him for you know, since I've since I'm so everything's gonna be okay I was talking about Will America Yeah yeah so we got you some merch too. Some legit street cars emerge. There you go. You got a t-shirt and a hoodie.

Give it some gas. we got to give it a little. Oh yeah, she's a beast. Harry Pepe Very torquey all-wheel drive.

Yeah, it's all-wheel drive so there's no buttons to press. You got your heated seat control it's got Sport and comfort suspension sunroof. it's got Hill descent so that might bring you back to your days in the in. the Marines it's it's it would probably do pretty good off-road Yeah! I Have the older generation of this and I turn it into an off-roading SUV It's awesome.

It's lifted with 35s and stuff. Um so I'm a big fan of the Ml. All right. Yeah, pick up the kids go down to yeah we're going down to Kentucky for Christmas now.

Oh, you're going to Kentucky for Christmas Yeah, well I was just you know I went over my budget yesterday and I was like I can't I'm not going to make it. we're just gonna stay here. So uh, not anymore. My family is my family's gonna be uh how? what's your age range of kids? Uh, 12 year old son and a nine-year-old daughter? Okay, cool, perfect man.

this thing is going to be so good for you guys. Yeah, hold on. check out the back. it's actually got good room.

So like one of the big failure points on these was they had a power liftgate that would fail all the time and this one being a 500 is one of the most well specked that you can get. But they specifically got the manual lift gate so it's almost like a Mercedes Tech like Speck this thing up because they knew that was going to fail so that won't break on you. Oh okay, so it's so it's good and then you get a ton of room back here for everything. So dude I'm so excited you get to go to Kentucky to visit your family for Christmas is like it's not going to happen I Told my sister maybe next year.

Dude, you should surprise them. Not a bad idea. Surprise people. just show up.

Hey Dad can you come on right? They're all full of air. but go ahead. We're literally about to get like a polar vortex right? now. So Will was saying.

There were even people here that are like going home early and we're gonna head back to the shop right now too. We gotta shuffle all of our cars around because they're going to get pounded on. So so what can I do for you guys? Absolutely nothing. You've already done it.

Subscribe to the channel like And subscribe. That's all we do. Chris you're getting a whole clan of Millers that we're all gonna. We're all gonna be liking it.

Awesome Awesome man! Well enjoy the car all right. Thank you again for your service I really appreciate it and uh I hope you guys enjoyed this one another. Christmas giveaway in the books and if you did, give it a big thumbs up, share the video with your friends and family. subscribe if you haven't already.

And most importantly Merry Christmas I'll see all of you guys in the next video. You ready for this? We gotta go find your parking spot now right? Have fun dude! Thank you! Thanks again! Thanks so much! Send some pictures from Kentucky I Will Foreign.