UK mercedes warrenties vs. US

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John Peerce

Active Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2003
Messages
176
Location
London, UK
Car
C43 AMG
Are mercedes cars covered for any type of defect under warrenty AFTER the standard 3year/60000 mile range ?

For example, has anyone here with a 4 or 5 year old car with say 65k miles or 75k miles on the clock got mercedes to fix engine problems on their cars under full warrenty, or perhaps with mercedes paying part of the cost of the repair ?

I know there is something called mobilo-life, for cars bought after 24 October 1998, but i am confused about what this actually covers.

In the US, apparently, mercedes engines and transmissions are covered up to 75k miles ! and warrenty period is (i think) 4 or 5 years, not three.

many thanks in advance for the replies.
 
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Not on a Mercedes but two years ago I had a full engine rebuild on my BMW 523 (don't laugh) at no charge even though the car was 18 months out of warranty. I didn't even need to ask they just picked up a problem during a service????

Gav.
 
Forgot to ask, what's the problem?

Gav :crazy:
 
mayoga, thanks for your reply.

Well i have recently taken my 1999 W202 c-class to the specialist to find out why it has been stalling. It turns out that the spark plugs are dead, causing cylinders to misfire the car to stall. However these spark plugs were changed only 6000 miles ago, as part of the B-Service, and they are supposed to last for 30,000 miles and more. On closer inspection, there were black oily deposits on the tips of the plugs, and you can actually see shiny oil on the rest if the heads of each of the spark plugs. The merc specialist said that this means the plugs have been "burning oil", in other words oil has been leaking into the combustion chambers of the cylinders. The Mercedes specialist was very surprised to see this, as my car is only four year old with 64k miles on it... he said this type of problem is normally found on 10 year old cars with 120k miles. His guess was that some rubber inside the engine (eg valve stem seals) have dried up or cracked and are letting oil through. He said the problem might be more serious than that if other parts (e.g. rings) are also affected.

Hence my questions about the warranty. A problem such as this on my car should not really occur so early on an engine (the car has full main dealer service history (2 B-services and 2 A- services).

Which is why I was wondering if this would still be covered by warranty. Sounds like BMW would have fixed this for free.
 
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John,

I guess you have few choices in going forward.

1) Speak to the MB dealer and ask him for advice/contact Milton Keynes.

2) Send a letter to the MD at MK stating a car of this age and mileage etc etc and that you expected more from a MB car.

3) Speak to Citizens Advice as maybe they got some ideas?

Forgot to mention that BMW rebuilt my engine 2 more times before they got it right :(

Gav.

BTW. Have you spoken to a Offical MB dealer yet?
 
mobilo life

hi john,

mobilo-life is not a warranty but a 24 MB breakdown service for cars registered 2000 onwards.

the car needs to be serviced by MB in order to be covered.

cover is provided by MB through their dealer service network.
 
Thanks for the further responses.

So far i haven’t really done anything in terms iof pursuing this matter. I guess i am still partly in shock, partly in denial that anything could be wrong with my car !.

Once i am out of shock I expect to pursue this with MB, but i am not holding out much hope.

For now i started using additives in my engine oil, such as Wynn's "Stop Oil Leak", and "Oil Treatment". They are supposed to stop leaks due to bad seals and also reduce oil burning. Not sure if these really work, but when your in denial you hang on any straw !

As a side point .. can anyone comment on the effectiveness of these oil additives, from example from experience ?
 
I used the Wynn's stop oil leak on my previous car, an '86 190E, it was really thick gloopy stuff, clear but straw coloured a bit like cooking oil. Made no visible difference what so ever. The car used to produce smoke from the exhaust when cold, it was clear as a bell when the engine had warmed up. The treatment had no effect. I was subsequently told this was due to worn valve stem guide seals, a common problem on those engines. Looking back on it, I'm not sure whether the above product was meant to have cured the problem or not, at the the time I thought it should as the car was burning oil when cold.

S.
 
Steve, did you change the valve stem seals in the end ? the merc specialist is not sure, but one of his suggestions is to replace these in my engine. He did say that the valve covers sould have to be lifted for him to get a good look before confirming that this would be the right solution, as if there are other problems then this would not be enough.

P.S. what was the colour of the smoke that came out of your car's exhausts... was it grey, blue-ish, or white?. I was under the impression all cars produce a bit of white smoke when engine started from cold, and that stops when its warm enough. Even new cars do that (yesterday was a cold morning in London, and i noticed several '03 registrarion cars with some white smoke/cloud out of the exhausts.)
 
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John, I'm no mechanic mate but I would have thought a simple compression test would show up worn stem seals.

AFAIK, its not an expensive job, I don't think its a "head off" job.

ATB,

Greg
 
Greg, thanks for the suggestion. I am going to look into this with the merc specialist, its sound logical to do a test such as this in order to pin point the problem better, and without much cost.
 

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