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Anti roll bar snapped

Worcestershire

New Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2019
Messages
29
Location
Worcestershire
Car
W213 E220d SE Premium Estate
I thought Mercedes were supposed to be reliable ?
2012 E Class with 73k miles and the front passenger Anti roll bar has just snapped. Going around an island at slow pace and there was a bang and a scraping noise. I thought the exhaust had fell off, but when I immediately pulled over I could see the offending item was near the front suspension. RAC came and removed item (and link bar) so I could drive it to the garage.
They have checked with Mercedes parts and there are none in the country and none in Germany !!!!!
I need this car to earn a living, and now I am told it could be months (worse case scenario) before I get the part. A2123231665.
Mercedes customer service have raised a job but have up to a five day turn around to reply to me.
How do I earn a living?
Why aren't ALL parts available?
 
Must be a German thing as I had an Audi rear anti roll bar snap in half last year
 
Be careful if you are still using the car. Anti-roll bars have a profound effect on the handling and losing the front will bias the car toward oversteer - probably at its worst on over-run entering a corner.
 
Be careful if you are still using the car. Anti-roll bars have a profound effect on the handling and losing the front will bias the car toward oversteer - probably at its worst on over-run entering a corner.

Very good point.[emoji1303]

Driving with the rear inoperable also doesn’t do the handling any good either


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Brother had to replace the one on his 2004 CLK last year. It has never ever ever happened to me in Texas and I've probably owned 200 Mercedes in the last 15 years. Must be a rust thing
 
Yes that does sound rather unusual.

Might it have been damaged/weakened at some point of time in the car's history?
 
Be careful if you are still using the car. Anti-roll bars have a profound effect on the handling and losing the front will bias the car toward oversteer - probably at its worst on over-run entering a corner.
I drove it to the garage but its currently off road
 
Thats just crazy....surely there are plenty of front end crashes involving this model. They can't all be right offs for the sake of a replacement not being available.
Although a quick search revealed several.
 
Being a hollow tube won't have helped! My guess would be its the same problem as the coil springs ---cold forming leaves residual stress in the steel which should be relieved by heat treatment - but frequently isn't. Once any protective coating is damaged surface corrosion begins and minute surface cracks develop which act to concentrate/focus the residual stress leading to premature failure! The signs are usually corrosion together with the appearance of a metal stress fracture
 
I thought Mercedes were supposed to be reliable ?
2012 E Class with 73k miles and the front passenger Anti roll bar has just snapped. Going around an island at slow pace and there was a bang and a scraping noise. I thought the exhaust had fell off, but when I immediately pulled over I could see the offending item was near the front suspension. RAC came and removed item (and link bar) so I could drive it to the garage.
They have checked with Mercedes parts and there are none in the country and none in Germany !!!!!
I need this car to earn a living, and now I am told it could be months (worse case scenario) before I get the part. A2123231665.
Mercedes customer service have raised a job but have up to a five day turn around to reply to me.
How do I earn a living?
Why aren't ALL parts available?

Perhaps the failure rate for these parts is so low that stock levels are not kept particularly high, possibly due to overall reliability? ...................

There may be stock but possibly already assigned to production vehicles if this part is used on other models.
 
Being a hollow tube won't have helped!

I was surprised to see it hollow - didn't think the weight saving was worth the complication on a large saloon. Is hollow the norm for larger bar diameters?
 
I was surprised to see it hollow - didn't think the weight saving was worth the complication on a large saloon. Is hollow the norm for larger bar diameters?

A3 Audi ones are hollow too. I think you’ll find most modern cars bars are hollow to save weight


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I thought Mercedes were supposed to be reliable ?
2012 E Class with 73k miles and the front passenger Anti roll bar has just snapped. Going around an island at slow pace and there was a bang and a scraping noise. I thought the exhaust had fell off, but when I immediately pulled over I could see the offending item was near the front suspension. RAC came and removed item (and link bar) so I could drive it to the garage.
They have checked with Mercedes parts and there are none in the country and none in Germany !!!!!
I need this car to earn a living, and now I am told it could be months (worse case scenario) before I get the part. A2123231665.
Mercedes customer service have raised a job but have up to a five day turn around to reply to me.
How do I earn a living?
Why aren't ALL parts available?
I'd be interested to know why you thought MB would be reliable?
 
I agree with Grober regarding the cause of the failure.
The problem is known as stress-corrosion, and has been responsible for the increasing failure-rate of coil springs in recent years.
The springs (or in this case - the ARB) are cold-formed and then are not stress-relieved properly.
Surface corrosion gives rise to a stress-raiser in the material, which quickly becomes a crack which propagates thru the section.
You can see the surface-protective coating cracking in the photo.
I have experienced it on my late E430 (W210).
This year, I had to replace both rear springs on my partner's Peugeot 307.
The bottom ring on both springs had broken where the corrosion had penetrated.
We have the technology, but today's car builders are too penny-pinching to employ it ... even on "reliable" cars on safety-critical suspension parts.
 
I was surprised to see it hollow - didn't think the weight saving was worth the complication on a large saloon. Is hollow the norm for larger bar diameters?
Steel hollow bar is a common product in all diameters.
Depending on the diameter and the intended use, it can be seamless or seam-welded.
Round-section hollow bar can be hot-rolled - OR - cold-drawn and annealed.
 

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