Throwing in the towel on my Mercedes ?

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vito113 said:
Tut, tut! Mr K, if thats the effect the rear of a Type R has what would this link do for you?

http://www.type-r.nl/wallpaper accord.jpg

Ah, the Accord Type R, yes please, but alas no automatic…

Andy
Now that's really is clever.

I dont know how the trick works, but if you look at the picture for about 5 minutes you can see a Honda accord :bannana: :bannana:
 
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :D
 
kikkthecat said:
Now that's really is clever.

I dont know how the trick works, but if you look at the picture for about 5 minutes you can see a Honda accord :bannana: :bannana:
Damn, I missed that :crazy:
 
John Peerce said:
I never thought it would come to this, but I have had thoughts lately of selling my beloved Mercedes.

I have had my Mercedes for one year, one month, and 11 days. Its a 1999 C43 AMG, with 64k miles on it (when bought had 59k miles). I have treated it with TLC from day one, and spared no expense:

- Took it to have a full B-Service at main dealer, paid ££££ to replace tensioner, belt, duo valve, leaking differential seal, water pump, and endless other things over and above the normal filters, and spark plugs change.

- Changed the engine oil on it twice since (every 2000 miles) and changed transmission oil at a merc specialist

- paid £££ few months ago to replace the air-con condenser which was rusted and leaking (and remember this is a 1999 car !!) , had the air con compressor replaced which was leaking too (although compressor was changed under warranty).

And then after all this, few weeks ago the engine starts cutting-out and stalling while driving every 10 or so miles!. Took to a specialist , had the Mass Air Sensor changed (anther £££), and the fuel pump relay changed, and it still stalls. More parts are on order and I am now staring at even more £££ spent to try and fix this problem..

This car was my first Mercedes. I bought it because I thought Mercedes cars last “till 250k miles with no problems” as people would say.

On “paper”, it looked like a fine buy: an AMG Mercedes with supposed “superior” components, one previous owner, full Mercedes service history, and after all, it was only three years old !

forgive me for turning into a cynical and bitter person, but I have had nothing but grief from this car. Every time I think about cutting my losses and selling it, but then I tell myself, “well hold on, maybe just spending another 100 pounds fixing this component, and the car will run fine!”. But it never does, there is always been another problem waiting for its turn.

The car stalled on me twice on yesterday. I am finally thinking of throwing in the towel, and bringing to an end my miserable, short lived, experience of owning a Mercedes.

PS. To top it up, some lowlife decided last week to key my car, leaving a spaghetti shaped mark above the rear wheel arches.
“When it rains... it pours...”
Tell me about it I had my bonnet keyed by some low life scumbag. :mad:
 
Sorry to hear of you trouble. I posted this a few days ago and whilst it is of no comfort, perhaps it may help explain how some MB cars of that era got to this state. Hopefully they are clawing their way back, but it is a sad tale.

"Trying to turn around a heavily loss making and debt laden company, the head of Mercedes Benz, Helmut Werner, announced to analysts in 1993 that his cars were "over-engineered" and described the steps he'd taken to avoid this in future, reduce production costs and extend the model range down market. At the time this was thought of as a good idea because there was seen to be little alternative.

But an expectation of over-engineering is exactly why people buy Mercedes-Benzes. So it is unfortunate that Herr Werner's crusade started to be especially successful from 1994/5 onwards: serious rust on certain models dating from then (W210 for example) and other quality issues have given MB a real legacy problem and it is going to cost for some time to come.

It was not as if he did not know about quality issues having previously run the MB heavy truck division from 1987, but it shows what long term problems you can end up with if forced into taking a short term approach.

Werner got kicked out in 1997 and the policy started being reversed but the damage was done. He died in February 2004 so rusty W210 owners are denied even the limited pleasure of sending him a rude letter"
 
I posted my message at the top of this thread "throwing in the towel" last October... at the time the car was real money pit. In the end i kept the car and still drive it for the following reasons,

- At the point of posting the message i had spent so much money on it , had i sold it it i would have not only lost on depreciation but also thousands of pounds worth of repairs and maintainance spent over one year. So i continued to gamble that if i kept it, nothing more serious would go wrong with it ,,

- Having discussion on this forum also made me accept that while there is no denying that MB quality has defenitely gone down, my car was a particular case of a lemon. I have learnt the mother of all lessons in giving a used car a thorough checking before parting with my hard earned cash.

- What also added to my costs was the failure of the MB specialist to recongnise what the problem was early on (car cutting out problem mentioned in my original post). It turns that the spark plug tips were completely worn out.. how on earth this could have happened when few months before (5k miles before) i had a main dealer B serivce in which all the spark plugs were changed, is a mystery to me (unless ofcourse MB didnt change the sprak plugs even though they charged me for it!)

So in the end, i have kep the car.. still drive it.. it stil brings a smile to my face everytime i hit that V8 throttle.. it seems the gamble of keeping the car has partly paid off as i havent had major problems with it since (well except for the car horn sounding a bit farty (i think one of the two horns equipped with the car had died!).
 
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I find it totally believable that MB did not change the spark plugs. Otherwise how can they wear out in 5k when they are supposed to last 60k miles??


John Peerce said:
It turns that the spark plug tips were completely worn out.. how on earth this could have happened when few months before (5k miles before) i had a main dealer B serivce in which all the spark plugs were changed, is a mystery to me (unless ofcourse MB didnt change the sprak plugs even though they charged me for it!)
 
C240Sport97 said:
I find it totally believable that MB did not change the spark plugs.

Nothing new there! Just had a local independent look at my 2001 E320CDI because of lack of cooling from aircon - despite full MBSH, he says the pollen filter has never been changed!
 
It has been interesting reading this post as the story is identical to my AMG experience at the end of last year when I had to replace the ECU, wiring loom, head gasket, waterpump, radiator etc........................
I nearly put the car up for sale and bought a Focus but kept it for same reasons - good drive , not much else could need replacing.
The gamble also seems to have paid off .
I use an independent - John Haynes in Worthing and their customer service is great.
 
Pringles said:
I use an independent - John Haynes in Worthing and their customer service is great.

I have heard good things about John Haynes aswell. Never used them due to warranty issues but will do if I keep the car beyond its warranty.
 
I remember reading your post in October last year b4 i bought my Mbz. I ha doubts in my mind about Mbz cars since i had never owned one and had always driven Jap cars like Toyota and lately Honda. I gave Mbz the benefit of the doubt and bought a used W211 /demo with low mileage.

The car has been received well my all my friends/family and it drives well. I had to adjust to the size of the car and the weighty steering. It however does pull to the left and has done since i bought it. I realise this bcoz the Honda civic i bought only 2 weeks ago goes straight as an arrow while the Benz needs a slight force towards right to make it go straight...the wheel is never centred.

Anway I've had many stories to tell about Mbz dealers and I' wouldn't be suprised if the spark plugs were not changed or more liikely swapped to leave you older ones....my alloys and tyres were done that way...


When you buy a new car....your supposed to like it.....i did for 3-4 months until i left it to the dealers...thats when things changed....I tried to trade it in for another car...a 5er or a LC5 or the Verso....the list was endless...any car but this i thought...keep away from Mbz. But the financial loss in just 6 months of ownership were over 5K which i couldn't not justify.

In the end i kept it like u and have decided to hold on to it until something else comes out and then i will trade it in....I'm thinking about the New ML but if its made in USA..forget it....I may go back to Honda FRV ..as i need a people carrier. The car is a joy to drive and be seen in...it looks very nice and is extremly comfortable....so holding on to it isn't very hard.

I should get new alloys soon and tyres so that should be nice.
 
Ok after a month of owning my new Passat Deisel I have to say that it is superior in every way to my C240. It only has 130bhp but as it is a deisel pulls harder and is just a better ride/drive. I loved my V6 but the cost of ownership is just too high when weighed up against other brands that have not tried to trade only on there "quality" image. That is not to say I do not love the new SL but for the every day cars in the price range of mortals I belive MB have a lot of catching up to do.
 

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