2007 C55 Estate, laundry list

[Tezz]

I just went back through my history of the car (which I've tried to keep as complete as possible), my expenditure on the car to date has been £11,800 purchase price, then £11,900 on maintenance and so forth. I bought the car in March 2018.

I gobsmacked, I cant believe you did not just scrap car

 

[Petrol Pete]

Tezz. If you read the OP earlier posts he has a 'open cheque book attitude' to this car..his words, based on that I am surprised the cost has not been higher. That is his decision and it will help to keep a fairly rare car on the road for much longer. Most of his spend has been on what some might call 'non critical' things.

No one in their right mind would scrap a UK model C55 AMG estate , unless it had been in a serious crash, even then' depending on which end had been mashed up (presuming only one end is toast) the wreckage would still hold some rare and valuable part's .

It has long been known the cheapest way into a 'real' AMG for a while been a C55. Not cheapest to buy , but much cheaper to run as a daily drive than any other V8 AMG . The earlier C32/45's excepted , but they are becoming real classics , as the C55 might be one day.

 

[Tezz]

Im sorry I just don't get it on a newish car, they are made to be disposable and throw away, they are made to extract as much money as possible from owner BY MB, if they weren't then maybe MB would take a bit of pride in there builds, How do you accept water ingress as normal, electrics only work if plugged in, just take a look at volume of engine and electrical issues posted on this forum, you need a degree in star diagnostics to own one, its meant to be disposable only reason it not been disposed off is an emotional one

Now if it had the craftsmanship of a real car I could kind of understand, but a pressed steel robot made time limited electrics I don't get. I think Nor do MB or they would not make such crap


Tezz

 

[Tezz]

that said my dads 500sec with bonnet grill badge I could see why I would want to keep it, but a modern merc ?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Im sorry I just don't get it on a newish car, they are made to be disposable and throw away, they are made to extract as much money as possible from owner BY MB, if they weren't then maybe MB would take a bit of pride in there builds, How do you accept water ingress as normal, electrics only work if plugged in, just take a look at volume of engine and electrical issues posted on this forum, you need a degree in star diagnostics to own one, its meant to be disposable only reason it not been disposed off is an emotional one

Now if it had the craftsmanship of a real car I could kind of understand, but a pressed steel robot made time limited electrics I don't get. I think Nor do MB or they would not make such crap


Tezz

No need to apologise. The reality is that the majority of people who join forums do so for a specific reason and it’s often because they have an issue of some sort.

Few people join to say “I have no issues”, and so there’s a disproportionate number of issues on forums, and there’s a bigger concentration of serious issues.

 

[Dammit]

My spend would have been a lot less if:
1. I did the work myself, but I use a garage
2. I was prepared to let things be less than perfect
Right now the car has a small ding on the drivers side wing (tiny, but I know it’s there) and a small blemish in the paint on the rear drivers side door. That’s it- everything else (bar the sub-frame and it’s rust status) works as it should from new. I won’t accept things being less than perfect, which has a cost.

These are rare cars, but I think I need to made a decision in the next 12 months as to what I’m going to do - it is on 94k now, and I always intended on moving before 100k. I will obviously lose a lot of money on it, but then I did get to drive a fun, fast and rare V8 AMG with everything working, so I don’t feel short changed.

 

[Dammit]

Anyone know of a decent mobile air-conditioning re-charge person who would cover the South East of London? Mines cool but not cold, so I think would benefit from some new gas.

 

[AltonAnt]

Anyone know of a decent mobile air-conditioning re-charge person who would cover the South East of London? Mines cool but not cold, so I think would benefit from some new gas.

Do it yourself with an EZ Chill kit from Halfords if it is just a gas loss from use rather than a leak.
A system in good condition can still lose 10% per year.

You need to buy the adaptor once and a bottle which is normally enough for two top ups or your other cars.
You get a refund on the bottle.

The price of gas has gone up drastically though in the last two years since I last did mine e.g. more than doubled.

AC Pro Auto Air Conditioning Recharge - Gas R134A | Halfords UK

Shop the latest Feeling the heat? Then you need this EZ Chill Auto Air Conditioning Recharge at Halfords UK

www.halfords.com

If you have an iCarsoft unit you can check the LP and HP values

 

[Will]

To be honest you can have the air con vacuumed, pressure tested and regassed for less than that Halfords aerosol can. That would be my advice.

Kwik-Fit/ATS etc regularly do deals on this, less than an hour - should be someone close by?

 

[unimog]

My view is that rust won't get better on it's own - therefore a rusty subframe is going to have to be tackled at some point, and I'd always rather tackle it sooner than later. I had all four wheel arches attended to on my car shortly after I bought it, and had them paint the bonnet and leading edge of the roof at the same time.

Not a C55, but my 2006 C350 Elegance SE is also a rare beast, and its going a similar way. Its last MOT had an advisory on rear suspension component corrosion, I'm just doing discs, pads and rear parking brake and its in definitely in need of attention. It looks like the roll bar is wasting away, so I'm going to get a new roll bar assembly, springs, shocks and all link arms.

The front components were generally much better, but new coil springs and a set of Meyle HD drop links are getting installed anyway.

The car has only done 43500 miles in its life, topsides are immaculate and it was always washed before being put in the garage by its one (all be it older) meticulous owner. Alas, that might be what has not helped its under body age, being stored damp perhaps. Car is mint otherwise.

You do hear of 10 year old W204 being scrapped because of sub frame failure, but apparently Mercedes admits to a design flaw and has been replacing them FOC.

Let me know how you and PCS get on with the sub frame refurb.

 

[Dammit]

I took the C55 into Mercedes to have the sunroof recall attended to, they sent me the following:

And also this, annoyingly:

 

[Dammit]

I spoke to PCS, they won’t refurbish the sub-frame as it would tie up a lift for too long to be commercially viable for them.

I am therefore very much open to suggestions as to a place that will remove and recondition the sub-frame, or somewhere that can source a second hand one.

 

[Dammit]

Booked the car in with DynoTorque for the rear subframe to be fully refurbished. A weight off my mind.

 

[Dammit]

I’ve been exchanging emails with Mercedes Benz customer service over this- asked them specifically about stopping selling critical parts for cars that are under 100k miles, and their answer is (paraphrasing) “oh no, so sad, sucks to be you, we’ve had your money though”.

 

[bolidemichael]

Dammit, you're not alone. I too, have an open cheque book approach to my beloved do-it-all E500 and as of pre-COVID had spent an average of £433 per month on it, not including petrol over a period twenty eight months since purchase at 115k and forty thousand miles all over Europe.

It's my car and has never let me down and I love keeping it in tip top condition. Unless they bully us out of it, as per PetrolPete's scary news excerpt, I'll keep it for many years yet as it just does everything with aplomb.

 

[Dammit]

Behold!

 

[Will]

That looks pretty nasty for a 2007 car :-(

 

[unimog]

Wow! Xmas is cancelled for me then. I have no doubt my subframe will look similar.

Thanks for the update, let me know how (painful) it is. I was just looking at buying a W169 for the winter to save the W203 getting wet, might be wise....

 

[Dammit]

It looks grisly to me, but the chap who has pulled it (Craig of Dyno Torque in Birmingham) says he was pleasantly surprised at the condition of it - I guess he was expecting something that was 85% rust. He's going to strip it and blast it - that's when we'll see how much good metal is left.

My C55 is, I think, fairly low mileage - 94k now, so if anything I'd think that this example would be better than many. I would think that more and more of them will fail MOT's for rust, and be scrapped due to the subframes being NLA, which is a sad state of affairs given how unusual the cars are.

 

[Will]

Did you investigate getting that US frame over to the UK or was it no good?