its an 05 , i thought pre 04 had rust issues?
So did I... but BlackC55 runs an independent garage, so he should know. I guess the post 2003 cars are less prone to rusting but not entirely immune. In part this could be due to soft water-based paint that chips easily - allowing moisture to creep under the paint if the stone chip is not treated and sealed. MB do specify 30 years anti-rust warranty for this model - but it's a 'goodwill' warranty with some strings attached and the chances of successfully claiming (based on other members' experiences as posted here) appear to be about 50%-50% and depend much on how helpful your local MB dealer wants to be.
springs snapping?!?! is that over weight of car ????????
The car is actually quite light for its size, mine is 1,430 Kg inc the automatic transmission (my previous Vauxhall omega was nearly 1,700Kg). And your two-door coupe would be even lighter. I think that the issue with broken springs is endemic around the UK these days across all manufactures and has more to do with speed bumps, potholes, and poorly-maintained roads rather than a manufacturing issue or a model-specific issue.
and why would track rods wear out quickly?
I don't know the answer to that - I vaguely remember Tony Bones from WIM (the suspension guru) mentioning that MB stipulated very strict tolerances for the suspension setting that MB dealers are not allowed to exceed, he thought these were unsuitable for UK roads which have a pronounced camber and suggested that these settings needed modifying outside the official MB figures to achieve best performance of the car, so this may have something to do with that.
Having said all that - my 2006 car is parked on the street and (currently..) has no rust, and the only fault it had in 5 years was the faulty Front Passenger Seat Occupancy Sensor as mentioned above. So my car has so far been very very good and in fact exceeded my expectations.
One last note - my car was made in MB's South Africa factory, which in the early part of the previous decade had very bad reputation for making poor-quality cars. They have since resolved this issue as can be seen from my own experience. The point I am trying to make is that there could be issues related to where the car was made - and I don't know for fact if the coupes were built in the same factory as the saloons.
