Buying advice for a petrol W212 E Class Coupe

[Jason1145]

The 350 petrol has an M272 engine, and in one of these will have been manufactured long after the M272 engine balancer chain issue. Decent 19" front tyres (Goodyear F1 Eagles) are about £150 upwards each.

Alas it's only a 250 with the 1.8 petrol engine so has the M271 EVO engine according to the Vin checker (Chipex) tool.

 

[Jason1145]

My C207E400 was written of due to rear subframe failure.My car was a 65 plate with a full MB service history.
The real annoyance was that the car spent of the winters off the road or in the Algarve in Portugal again in the winter.

The rear subframe was inspected by a well known specialist who told me the rear subframe appeared perfect.
The subframe rusts from the inside out !

My car covered 43000 miles and was perfect.

I really miss my C207 and have looking another but really have given up.

If you buy the car I am sure that you will enjoy your purchase

Sorry to hear your troubles with a well looked after C207 - really surprising.
From my reading around I have seen quite a few posts in the last year or so that MB are often replacing these subframes FOC as a gesture of goodwill..... looks like the issue need to have visible rust and holes showing it is about to fail. Ofcourse this is no comfort when the subframe can look perfect from the outside and you can't see what is inside, unless you take a borescope with a built in light to investigate - this is beyond most home DIY'ers and could you trust a MB dealer to do this for you unless you are there to watch them?
@Fastcar155 what year did your subframe fail and did it collapse on you or fail an MOT to get written off?

 

[Fastcar155]

Sorry to hear your troubles with a well looked after C207 - really surprising.
From my reading around I have seen quite a few posts in the last year or so that MB are often replacing these subframes FOC as a gesture of goodwill..... looks like the issue need to have visible rust and holes showing it is about to fail. Ofcourse this is no comfort when the subframe can look perfect from the outside and you can't see what is inside, unless you take a borescope with a built in light to investigate - this is beyond most home DIY'ers and could you trust a MB dealer to do this for you unless you are there to watch them?
@Fastcar155 what year did your subframe fail and did it collapse on you or fail an MOT to get written off?

My insurance company refused to repair the car so I had no direct with MB and I informed the MB dealer with and received an acknowledgement.

On separate times I wrote to MB to inspect the failure.No reply.

My insurance paid up instantly so I had redress as I no longer owned the car. ( Instantly )

I had a long conversation with the payout department who explained the reasoning to the refusal to repair :

Availability of genuine parts
Colour combination dark blue / tan interior that would generate a good price at auction
Well specified car
Service history not mentioned / The car had new Goodyear tyres /

I received an urgent reminder that the coolant level was low so glad I am not the owner

The car has been repaired as is on the road in the UK

I have been looking for the same car but have in reality have given up the search.

I really enjoyed the car and apart from replacing two catalytic converters ( not cheap it was a great car ) it ran perfectly

 

[E55BOF]

I'm assuming you did not have insurance against any sort of car problem, so how were your insurers involved? Did you have an accident due to rear subframe failure, or did the subframe problem come to light when the car was inspected by the assessor after the accident?