Hi
I am a new member and I very much hope that you might be able to give me some advice. I apolgise in advance for the long story…
I bought my 2001 C180 Sport Coupe (automatic) in Sept 2009 from a local independent dealer. It only had 46k miles with full MB service history and 1 previous owner. I contacted the previous owner who kindly gave me the full history of the car and it was clear that he had taken very good care of it.
After a few months, I noticed a droning sound when accelerating between 60 and 70 mph. The droning stopped when de-accelerating. The tone diminished slightly when accelerating past 80mph. I took the car to a well respected independent MB repairer and they told me that the gearbox needs replacing due to a well known radiator problem. The radiator was replaced and the gearbox re-conditioned by another local well respected gearbox specialist. This cost £2. The noise was still there! The gearbox specialist told me that the noise must be from coming from somewhere other than the gearbox.
As I was away for a while and only used the car for short local journeys, the problem wasn’t apparent very often. I then decided to move to Germany so wanted to make sure that the car was fixed completely as I was nervous of driving my family (and cats!) on such a long journey. As I felt slightly suspicious of the gearbox repairer, I decided the best (and most expensive) route would be to take the car to the MB main dealer. I explained everything to them and they replaced all the brake disks, pads ad bearings for £1k. They commented on the excellent mechanical condition of the car and assured me that the noise problem related to the brakes and was now fixed. They also told me that it cannot have any connection with the gearbox. I’m sure you can guess that the problem was still there! They had the car for 4 weeks and replaced various parts such as prop shaft, part of the differential (crown I think) and other minor parts. They didn’t charge me for this. Each time I drove away, the noise was still there. Eventually, they threw their hands in the air and said they can’t find the problem and it could be the gearbox after all but they were not prepared to assess it further. I did manage to get them to write a letter detailing the work they had done listing the parts they had replaced.
As I now had nowhere to go if MB couldn’t sort the problem and they assured me that the car was safe, we get off to sunny Germany. Another annoying factor was that MB Germany told us it would only cost a “few hundred” euros to “Germanise” the car but we ended up having to pay 1.3k euros including new headlights etc!
3 days after the car being converted and passing the German MOT, all appears to have gone wrong. When pulling away from a junction, there was a huge lurch and the computer tells us that the EPS and ABS systems have failed. The engine light is now also on. The gear change from 3-4 only works if accelerating sedately. If we try to kick down from 3rd gear, it just goes flat, ie no power.
We are dreading having to take the car to a garage tomorrow. The car only has 53k miles. Is it doomed? Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be? Maybe parts of my story are “red herrings”- I just wanted to give the whole picture.
Thank you very much for your patience in reading through all of this. I very much hope you can give me some advice.
I am a new member and I very much hope that you might be able to give me some advice. I apolgise in advance for the long story…
I bought my 2001 C180 Sport Coupe (automatic) in Sept 2009 from a local independent dealer. It only had 46k miles with full MB service history and 1 previous owner. I contacted the previous owner who kindly gave me the full history of the car and it was clear that he had taken very good care of it.
After a few months, I noticed a droning sound when accelerating between 60 and 70 mph. The droning stopped when de-accelerating. The tone diminished slightly when accelerating past 80mph. I took the car to a well respected independent MB repairer and they told me that the gearbox needs replacing due to a well known radiator problem. The radiator was replaced and the gearbox re-conditioned by another local well respected gearbox specialist. This cost £2. The noise was still there! The gearbox specialist told me that the noise must be from coming from somewhere other than the gearbox.
As I was away for a while and only used the car for short local journeys, the problem wasn’t apparent very often. I then decided to move to Germany so wanted to make sure that the car was fixed completely as I was nervous of driving my family (and cats!) on such a long journey. As I felt slightly suspicious of the gearbox repairer, I decided the best (and most expensive) route would be to take the car to the MB main dealer. I explained everything to them and they replaced all the brake disks, pads ad bearings for £1k. They commented on the excellent mechanical condition of the car and assured me that the noise problem related to the brakes and was now fixed. They also told me that it cannot have any connection with the gearbox. I’m sure you can guess that the problem was still there! They had the car for 4 weeks and replaced various parts such as prop shaft, part of the differential (crown I think) and other minor parts. They didn’t charge me for this. Each time I drove away, the noise was still there. Eventually, they threw their hands in the air and said they can’t find the problem and it could be the gearbox after all but they were not prepared to assess it further. I did manage to get them to write a letter detailing the work they had done listing the parts they had replaced.
As I now had nowhere to go if MB couldn’t sort the problem and they assured me that the car was safe, we get off to sunny Germany. Another annoying factor was that MB Germany told us it would only cost a “few hundred” euros to “Germanise” the car but we ended up having to pay 1.3k euros including new headlights etc!
3 days after the car being converted and passing the German MOT, all appears to have gone wrong. When pulling away from a junction, there was a huge lurch and the computer tells us that the EPS and ABS systems have failed. The engine light is now also on. The gear change from 3-4 only works if accelerating sedately. If we try to kick down from 3rd gear, it just goes flat, ie no power.
We are dreading having to take the car to a garage tomorrow. The car only has 53k miles. Is it doomed? Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be? Maybe parts of my story are “red herrings”- I just wanted to give the whole picture.
Thank you very much for your patience in reading through all of this. I very much hope you can give me some advice.
