Mercedes rant

Garry Edwards

Garry Edwards

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Garry Edwards
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The front wiper motor packed up a few months ago, so I got a new one (£115 + fitting) and all was well.

The same problem has come back and the Mercedes main dealer has told my garage that the problem is with the wiper linkage, which sticks and burns out the motor. Apparently it's a known fault that Mercedes haven't put right, leaving customers to pay for the poor design/manufacture.

The new linkage costs £500, so I have to pay a total of £615 + fitting to fix a manufacturing fault:'(
 
Gutted. Sorry to hear this. I feel for you as I'm suffering my own car problems at the moment.
 
good isnt it..

there is a design fault on their smart roadsters where the access panel for the ECU control box for everything electronic on the car is directly under an access panel underneath the skuttle panel. the panel has ZERO rubber sealing so if the drain in the skuttle becomes clogged it overflows and leaks in through the panel soaking everything underneath.

now mercedes/smart have a good will jesture repair on these, however decided that the other halfs roadster is a year too old (now you put a time limit on a design fault is beyond me) and wanted £1300+ for the work to rectify.

summary - DO NOT buy a smart they are riddled with design faults. since we had that fixed (we only paid for the new ECU not any of the new carpets they quoted for which still cost £650) the car now needs over £600 of other parts.
 
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out of curiosity Garry, what reg is your car?

one of the directors at my last place had exactly what you're describing on his C class. That was T reg. Sounds like its been an issue for a long time. As I recall his was a linkage problem burning the motor as some bushing had failed. It cost him / the company £600 to repair then and that was about 8 years ago.
 
Yep, this is the same model, same year...
 
£500 for a wiper linkage

Are they taking the pish?!
 
you might be well advised to look at an alternative garage and get a quote from them. There are many garages that specialise in mercs other than main dealers
 
Richard,

That's the wrong model and the wrong year but I'll see whether they have the one I need too.

Many thanks for that
 
The worse car we ever had (for less than 3 months) was a Montego contryman, the 7 seater estate.

That had the same wiper mechanism fault, but Rover changed the linkage and motor design something like 7 times in 5 years and all you could buy were the latest parts, which again meant something like £600 just for parts (motor, linkage, engine bay wiring loom!). ****ing thing had a maestro engine in it as well, not a montego one as we found out when it blew it's head gasket after 6 weeks.
 
Hope it helps anyway - they are a good company to buy bits from.
 
Byker28i said:
****ing thing had a maestro engine in it as well, not a montego one as we found out when it blew it's head gasket after 6 weeks.
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The Maestro and Montego were the same platform, one had a boot and one didn't. Consequently the mechanical components were largely shared. The only engine difference was that early 1600 Maestros had the R-series engine which was never fitted to the Montego as by the time it was launched the S-series was ready. 1600 Montegos had exclusively S-series engines, as did Maestros from shortly after the launch of the Montego.

Didn't the Countryman have the 2.0 Perkins diesel?

>is an engine geek< :lol:
 
My Montego had a Perkins turbo deisel LOL

It could lay more smoke when cold than the average battleship trying to escape a submarine. Got me nicked one morning by the plod. LOL

Ahh those where the days when your new car was already rusty. Must admit it shifted and actually handled pretty well.

My mate has a Merc, he never takes his to a dealership any more because he reckons they are al ripoff merchants.
 
I seem to have started something here...
It seems that none of us are ever really happy with our cars or get proper customer support from the people who sell them.

I like my Merc because it's comfortable, nice to drive and as it's an estate it's ideal for carrying my lighting gear with me when I do location shoots.
But rear wheel drive and big tyres make it useless on mud or snow, and as my hobby is shooting I also drive a Landrover 110, which I love driving - but it's unreliable, noisy, very expensive to run and totally unsuited for motorway use.

Someone told me about a problem with his Bentley yesterday, apparently the high level brake lights have a design fault and it costs £2800 to replace them...

I used to have a BMW 320, it developed an engine oil leak and although it was covered by warranty the main dealer tried to get me to pay for removing the engine, as only the faulty part was covered by the warranty, not the cost of removing the engine to fix it...

For some reason car manufacturers seem to be able to get away with leaving their customers to pay for design faults.
 
If it is a T reg car, the design fault seems to have lasted 12 years without being an issue?

Not saying that to wind you up, all car manufacturers take the wotsit, your best using a good, non branded garage for work, and doing some of your own research online before getting any work done. £30 for a hire car for a day can be well spent cash if it means you can cut £200 of a repair bill with internet sourced parts and cheaper labour that the first garage you take it to.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I seem to have started something here...
It seems that none of us are ever really happy with our cars or get proper customer support from the people who sell them.
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:plusone:
 
Guess what, I have a T reg C-Class (C43). My wiper motor has failed twice now. Do not buy the cheap wiper motors from German Swedish French or possibly Eurocarparts (made by Flosser).

The linkage can be greased if necessary. Most of the time its a plastic gear in the motor which chews itself up.

For those that are not familiar, the car has a single wiper, but the mechanism pushes the blade out as it sweeps past the drivers side upper corner, but when it reaches the middle of the screen it gets brought back in, then out again for the top passenger side corner, then back in again for the bottom left, then it reverses direction. Too clever for its own good.

I'm a dab hand at swapping motors now!
 
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lawrie29 said:
If it is a T reg car, the design fault seems to have lasted 12 years without being an issue?

Not saying that to wind you up, all car manufacturers take the wotsit, your best using a good, non branded garage for work, and doing some of your own research online before getting any work done. £30 for a hire car for a day can be well spent cash if it means you can cut £200 of a repair bill with internet sourced parts and cheaper labour that the first garage you take it to.
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No, apparently that problem started with a change to the wiper linkage in about April 99, they found it had an inherent fault and then changed it again, leaving people with cars made with the fault high and dry and having to replace the wiper linkage, at a cost of about £700 including labour, every couple of years.

I took my car to my local garage, who I trust - I'm not over impressed by my experiences of main dealers over the years...

Right now I'm not happy because I can't even get the expensive new linkage because Mercedes don't have it in stock, so I'm stuck with a wiper that only works at max speed, which doesn't park and which might pack up at any time...
 
The linkage can be greased if necessary. Most of the time its a plastic gear in the motor which chews itself up.
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With mine, it's a metal gear in the linkage itself. It's only supported on 1 side so as the bush starts to wear the gear goes out of square and the linkage locks up, burning out the motor.
Parking issue is often a motor issue rather than a linkage.
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Yes, the motor has been damaged by the linkage
 
Dont mean to be rude here but if the car is similar to http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif..._old/model/c_class/make/mercedes-benz/page/1/ then because its gonna cost about £700 to fix then surely thats nearly what the cars actually worth.

What im trying to say really is if its gonna cost so much to fix what about trading it in ?

I could be totally wrong here as you may have a much better model than that and it is worth repairing but if that was mine and it was gonna cost that much to repair i think i would be chopping it in.
 
I had a c class 280 sport of around the same age, and had exactly the same fault on it. Cost me a bloody fortune to change it not once but twice.....

Also had the airflow filter, fuel flow filter ecru and coil packs changed on it
 
all your cars are too expensive = therefore expensive to fix

a car is ONLY a tool to transport people, stuff, dogs etc
buy what taxi drivers drive - Skoda - before that Vectra
257,000 on my Vectra - traded in, still running well, no smoke

ok you want some fun - get a sports car too - but dont put lotsa mileage on it
 
Yardbent said:
all your cars are too expensive = therefore expensive to fix

a car is ONLY a tool to transport people, stuff, dogs etc
buy what taxi drivers drive - Skoda - before that Vectra
257,000 on my Vectra - traded in, still running well, no smoke

ok you want some fun - get a sports car too - but dont put lotsa mileage on it
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I see your point but don't agree - or at least your answer isn't right for me personally.

I like so-called prestige cars because I like comfortable cars that perform adequately and that are well engineered (except for the Bl**** stupid wipers in this case).

I have to park my cars outside my studio at work so no longer buy new cars, to cut down the risk of mindless vandalism, kids on bikes and pushchairs scratching it.

Once I've got a car I like I keep it for a long time, have it maintained perfectly and I don't mind spending money to keep it looking and performing well.

Yes, I could probably by a similar year/model for about twice the cost of the wiper assembly, but it would likely cost a lot to get it in good condition.

And I like my rear wheel drive cars, which rules out most small/cheap cars. We're all different I suppose
 
barneyrubble said:
I had a c class 280 sport of around the same age, and had exactly the same fault on it. Cost me a bloody fortune to change it not once but twice.....

Also had the airflow filter, fuel flow filter ecru and coil packs changed on it
Click to expand...

Contrasting this with my BMW 1 series, the BMW is superb. Havent had a single issue with it in 2 years of motoring (bar tyres) no part has needed replacing.
 
BMW is another make I really like, but I've been very unlucky with head gaskets, which cost a fortune to fix.
I bought a new 3201 in 1990, it blew 2 in 5 years, both out of warranty.
And a second hand 530i replaced the 320i, that blew the head gasket too, and it wasn't worth the cost of repair.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I seem to have started something here...
It seems that none of us are ever really happy with our cars or get proper customer support from the people who sell them.
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I must have been lucky then! We've had our Astra for about 7 years with no major problems and when anything has gone wrong, the garage we bought it from has been fantastic.
If needed we can have a courtesy car and the last problem we had was something to do with the water pump, which they charged us a lot less than they originally quoted as the job didn't take as long as they anticipated so labour charges were a lot less!
 
Yardbent said:
all your cars are too expensive = therefore expensive to fix

a car is ONLY a tool to transport people, stuff, dogs etc
buy what taxi drivers drive - Skoda - before that Vectra
257,000 on my Vectra - traded in, still running well, no smoke

ok you want some fun - get a sports car too - but dont put lotsa mileage on it
Click to expand...

Before the accountants started running the company, Mercedes was the choice of taxi drivers the world over. Last time I was there there were plenty of old W123 diesel estates still in use on Tenerife, many with 1 million plus kilometres on the clock and going strong.

Octavias and Superbs are now the cab of choice there too though when it comes time to replace them...
 
For general transport duties, no-one needs anything more sophisticated or expensive that a 2ltr Mondeo Mk3...

...says the man with a Ford Mustang in the garage...lol
 
Arkady said:
For general transport duties, no-one needs anything more sophisticated or expensive that a 2ltr Mondeo Mk3...

...says the man with a Ford Mustang in the garage...lol
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For general transport duties no-one needs more than a Tata Nano......


Back to Garry's car though, I'll bet it hasn't seen the inside of a Mercedes dealership's workshop for 8 years or more, so ultimately a complaint about not getting "good customer service" from them doesn't hold water
 
Yeah - like I'm really going to spend 12 hours driving across Europe in a firkin' TATA...lol
 
Arkady said:
Yeah - like I'm really going to spend 12 hours driving across Europe in a firkin' TATA...lol
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I think you'd need longer than 12 hours to drive anywhere in a Tata - especially as you'd be wanting to do it under cover of darkness :lol:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
For general transport duties no-one needs more than a Tata Nano......


Back to Garry's car though, I'll bet it hasn't seen the inside of a Mercedes dealership's workshop for 8 years or more, so ultimately a complaint about not getting "good customer service" from them doesn't hold water
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You really do know every car don't you LOL .... First guessing that perodula i put up thinking no one would get it and now the TATA brand that i thought no one but a few people here knew about.

If im right you can drive the TATA's on a moped license cant you ? as the engine is that small.
 
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roastchips said:
You really do know every car don't you LOL .... First guessing that perodula i put up thinking no one would get it and now the TATA brand that i thought no one but a few people here knew about.

If im right you can drive the TATA's on a moped license cant you ? as the engine is that small.
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You might remember the Tata Indica...

tata-indica-ev-1.jpg


Better known in this country as the CityRover

BMR-1103-1411-.jpg


One of the main Rover dealers in Glasgow only managed to sell a single example of it in a year and that was their demonstrator :lol:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
One of the main Rover dealers in Glasgow only managed to sell a single example of it in a year and that was their demonstrator :lol:
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Grief!! I know Glasgow is poor, but I'd have thought someone, somewhere in the city could have stretched to a new car!! :lol:
 
barneyrubble said:
Contrasting this with my BMW 1 series, the BMW is superb. Havent had a single issue with it in 2 years of motoring (bar tyres) no part has needed replacing.
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Yet my BMW 325ci needs pretty much new suspension all round and it is 9 years old. They go through front wishbones and rear springs like the are going out of fashion! So over the next two months I have about £600 in parts to fix most of the issues (Doing the work myself).
 
Yardbent said:
all your cars are too expensive = therefore expensive to fix

a car is ONLY a tool to transport people, stuff, dogs etc
buy what taxi drivers drive - Skoda - before that Vectra
257,000 on my Vectra - traded in, still running well, no smoke

ok you want some fun - get a sports car too - but dont put lotsa mileage on it
Click to expand...

For you maybe. Personally I want to enjoy my drive and having a vectra for 2 years shows me that cheap generally does not mean an enjoyable drive. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.
 
RichardtheSane said:
For you maybe. Personally I want to enjoy my drive and having a vectra for 2 years shows me that cheap generally does not mean an enjoyable drive. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.
Click to expand...

:thinking: well I'm in my Vectra 6-8 hours a day, comfortable, A/C and cruise control

purchased 18months ago with 22,000miles - Not a single repair bill to date

My suggestion was use an everyday car for its minimum upkeep - and a fun car for fun.....mine..........:cool:
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