Mercedes Benz rust & corrosion warranty

[mav01987]

Hi everyone

Hopefully someone will be able to advise me with this, I have been offered an 04 S500 very cheap but it’s rusting, now I have read that Mercedes Benz offer a 30 year warranty on rust & corrosion, so hence should be covered by the warranty, I say should with a pinch of salt because I feel mb will try anything to wiggle there way out of it. Has anyone had any experience in claiming this warranty? And has anyone been successful with there claim?

Thanks in advance


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[55AMGCLK]

If I recall correctly, if you have a full MB service history (and hence Mobilo) then you should be fine. I claimed the warranty 2-3 times on an ML but that was many years ago. I did not have any issue with MB and the replaced both front wings on separate occasions. The car did have full MB service history.

Although it is not mandated to have the MB history, I was told that an annual paint inspection is carried out as a part of the service and this is one of the conditions of the warranty.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Don’t buy a rusty car thinking that Mercedes will fix it for free, they won’t.

I’m not aware or anyone who has claimed successfully. I know plenty who have had a goodwill gesture which covered some or all of the cost of repairs though.

To successfully claim you will need an impeccable Mercedes-Benz service history and the corrosion must start from the inside and work outwards. There aren’t many cars of that age which will qualify.

 

[tonysmb]

You'll be extremely lucky. I can't recall for definite but I think it also had to be recorded that the annual bodywork inspection had been done (it certaimly is for some other marques). Yes, some have had repairs but on the balance if probabilities you'd be best to assume that there would be sort of non-compliance over the previous 16 years. Decide on the basis of what you see but don't let the 30-year warranty sway you would be my position. Why not ask the seller to get MB fix it all as part of any deal

 

[mav01987]

You'll be extremely lucky. I can't recall for definite but I think it also had to be recorded that the annual bodywork inspection had been done (it certaimly is for some other marques). Yes, some have had repairs but on the balance if probabilities you'd be best to assume that there would be sort of non-compliance over the previous 16 years. Decide on the basis of what you see but don't let the 30-year warranty sway you would be my position. Why not ask the seller to get MB fix it all as part of any deal

I would get him to do it but his offer is only this good because I’ve helped him in the past and he just wants it gone


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[mav01987]

Don’t buy a rusty car thinking that Mercedes will fix it for free, they won’t.

I’m not aware or anyone who has claimed successfully. I know plenty who have had a goodwill gesture which covered some or all of the cost of repairs though.

To successfully claim you will need an impeccable Mercedes-Benz service history and the corrosion must start from the inside and work outwards. There aren’t many cars of that age which will qualify.

You wouldn’t happen to know how they went about getting a goodwill gesture etc, did they enquire through head office, did they go through a random dealership or the dealership that the car was purchased from originally?

Also spoke to a few people who work in body shops and have been told it is quite common for the arches to rust on Mercedes of this time and they’ve had quite a few Mercedes come in for the warranty work.


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[Harrythedog]

You'll have to prove that the rust has suddenly appeared since last years's body work service inspection so good luck with that one

 

[mav01987]

If I recall correctly, if you have a full MB service history (and hence Mobilo) then you should be fine. I claimed the warranty 2-3 times on an ML but that was many years ago. I did not have any issue with MB and the replaced both front wings on separate occasions. The car did have full MB service history.

Although it is not mandated to have the MB history, I was told that an annual paint inspection is carried out as a part of the service and this is one of the conditions of the warranty.

How did you go about claiming, through a random dealership,head office or the dealership that the car was purchased from ?


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[pmcgsmurf]

You will have zero chance on a 2004 car of getting Mercedes to do any warranty work for rust.

If this was going to be done it would have been when/if they serviced it

 

[Deleted member 37751]

You had to fight tooth and nail back in the day when the cars were only a few years old never mind 16!

 

[C240Sport97]

do you feel lucky

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

You wouldn’t happen to know how they went about getting a goodwill gesture etc, did they enquire through head office, did they go through a random dealership or the dealership that the car was purchased from originally?

Also spoke to a few people who work in body shops and have been told it is quite common for the arches to rust on Mercedes of this time and they’ve had quite a few Mercedes come in for the warranty work.


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I had goodwill gestures on 3 cars between 3 and 6 years old. I spend far too much money with Mercedes and it was a pain in the rump for me on relatively new cars which I’d owned for most of their life and had a service history like you would not believe.

They point blank refused on car that I had owned for 6 years and was just under 8 years old at the time, and was incredibly well cared for by the same dealer. I gave up trying and sorted it myself.

This never affected me but there was a restriction which meant that you must have owned the car for at least 6 months before they would even entertain the possibility of a claim, to stop people buying cheap cars, getting Mercedes to sort them, and then sell on at a profit. I suspect they’ll be even tighter on that now.

Even if it later turns out to be goodwill, the claim process is the same - you take the car to your dealer who will assess it or refer you to their approved body shop for assessment. They take photos and submit it for claim. It takes ages and the dealer and Mercedes UK will try to put you off and try not to proceed. If the bodyshop are responsible for submitting claims then they will try to put you off, because it’s a big burden and rarely results in approval.

Give it a go but expect the worst.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I forgot to say, the goodwill gesture is not a favour - it’s so that it minimises the number of warranty claims for reporting purposes.

Ask Honda how many warranty claims they’ve paid out on their VTEC systems. They’ll say none but it’s not because they’ve never ever had one break!

 

[wongl]

I have managed to make 3 rust claims from Mercedes on my (now traded-in) W210. I was the third owner and the first claim were handled smoothly without any fuss. But the rust came back and the second claim took a while to be approved but went through without any fuss either.

The rust came back again and the 3rd claim took ages to secure approval and I was told that as the car is now 10 years old, this will be the last claim that Mercedes would entertain!

So after that my W210 just rusted away and I traded it in for the grand sum of £800 in 2016 for an approved W205 hybrid.

Good luck with your rust warranty claim.

BTW, I was advised by an MB mechanic (who frequented this forum) to choose the dealership very carefully. I ended up taking my London base car down to MB Maidstone because I was informed that they were extremely successful at securing approval of said claims from MB UK. (They did own the MB approved Bodyshop next door to the dealership!)

Oh, and my W210 did not have a full MB service history when I made my first rust claim as it was already 8 years old by then and the previous owners had stopped servicing at MB after the 4th anniversary of the car.

 

[markjay]

Just to add to the above, to qualify for warranty repair, the rusted panels should have no previous repair made to them and no respray (unless done by an MB approved body shop, and recorded to that effect), and no stone chips. Most likely the dealer will check the paint thickness as well. And if you buy a 16 years old second hand car, it can be very difficult to be sure that this is the case...

 

[beachcomber31]

Hi everyone

Hopefully someone will be able to advise me with this, I have been offered an 04 S500 very cheap but it’s rusting, now I have read that Mercedes Benz offer a 30 year warranty on rust & corrosion, so hence should be covered by the warranty, I say should with a pinch of salt because I feel mb will try anything to wiggle there way out of it. Has anyone had any experience in claiming this warranty? And has anyone been successful with there claim?

Thanks in advance


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Beware! On no account trust Mercedes to honour their guarantee. I was offered a 'goodwill' repair on only half of the 17 points of rust they themselves conceded on my 'flag ship' S Class five year old car. Only snag was that they communicated this offer to the assessor and dealer who did not communicate it with me. When I chased this up Mercedes refused to do any repairs claiming that I had been given three weeks to take up the so called goodwill offer. Talk about bad faith. I now buy Porsche and never have a problem. Mercedes blamed their poor quality cars on plants in 'Eastern Europe'. Porsche builds their superb Cayenne near Dresden.

 

[beachcomber31]

Beware! On no account trust Mercedes to honour their guarantee. I was offered a 'goodwill' repair on only half of the 17 points of rust they themselves conceded on my 'flag ship' S Class five year old car. Only snag was that they communicated this offer to the assessor and dealer who did not communicate it with me. When I chased this up Mercedes refused to do any repairs claiming that I had been given three weeks to take up the so called goodwill offer. Talk about bad faith. I now buy Porsche and never have a problem. Mercedes blamed their poor quality cars on plants in 'Eastern Europe'. Porsche builds their superb Cayenne near Dresden.

 

[glojo]

My own thoughts are that if we buy a second-hand car that has rust issues and then try claiming from the manufacturer to repair those issues, are we being cheeky, or do we expect something for nothing?

Can we truthfully prove that a second-hand car has not been thrashed on a beach or through sea-water? Do we know if this car has suffered any accident damage?

If you buy a rusty car then to me, it is your problem. Apologies for being so negative but we all have our own ideas of where you stand. If my 2004 Mercedes started to develop rust from the inside out, them I would not stop screaming until Mercedes honoured their warranty.

Mobilo was deemed to be for the 'Life' of the vehicle but from memory, this was challenged and a legal definition was required, hence we now have the thirty year ruling. The courts decided that the life of a car is thirty years and please do not shoot the messenger, with stories like, I have a great, great aunt who knows someone whose car was one hundred years old!! Yup and my grand-daughter knows a multi-billionaire who wrote off his two day old car!!