W204 C220 CDI vibration problem

[Kobus Louw]

MB South Africa has now responded to the Motor Industries Ombudsman with the following statement:

"It must be remembered that this MB has a Adaptive Gearbox ,which means that the gearbox adapts to the driving style of the driver, which has been explained to Mr. Louw by MB dealer and our Product Specialist"

"As per our letter dated July 7th 2008 Mr.Louw's vehicle is 100% with in MB specifications and is performing as designed"

Now I need some urgent help from somebody to teach me how to drive an MB as I am clearly useless and cannot get my gearbox to adapt to me!!

Secondly I need someone to tell me how long does it take for the gearbox to adapt to anyone's drive style as MB cannot give me that answer??

It seems like MB is quite content in trying to convince everybody that this vehicle is performing as designed and that I will have to accept this sub-standard vehicle.

It is with sadness that I have now accept the fact that it seems to be the end of the road for me and my MB as I am clearly not capable in driving a MB as per MB as the gearbox and me are not compatable!!

Greatings from SA.

 

[SEM]

Have you tried this?

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=49304&highlight=gearbox+reset

 

[Rory]

"As per our letter dated July 7th 2008 Mr.Louw's vehicle is 100% with in MB specifications and is performing as designed"

This reminds me of the drift to the left thing that many W203's do in the UK - Mercedes insists its a design characteristic, and my dealer won't even align my car, insisting that its fine.


In the UK we have "fit for purpose" legislation which would enable you to sue the dealer who supplied the car and force them to replace it. Although you would have to prove to satisfaction of the court that the vehicle was not og sufficient quality. Normally that's done with an engineers report but finding one with the right qualifications who can stadn up to the might of the manufacturer isn't easy.

Do you still have any kind of relationship with the dealer? Maybe they could do you a good deal to change the car?

 

[Kobus Louw]

After more than a month since my last complaint, I went back to the dealer to see if I could possibly change this car for a manual or what they could do to accommodate me? Needless to say I have not heard from them for more than 3 weeks now!!

I then contacted the head office in RSA and spoke to the technical head, the responds was they have re-programed the car with new soft ware from Germany which was done yesterday. It seems like there are some improvement but I will have to drive a bit longer to "adapt" and see what the performance will be like now.

It seems like MB are constantly upgrading and or changing the programming which I find very strange as I would like to think that this sort of stuff should be sorted prior releasing a new vehicle!!

Let's see what next?

From a rainy RSA( Typical nice english summer day)

 

[miro]

fuzzer, I've been contributing to the thread linked by Rory on the other forum and do not have the issue you describe with my W204. Rather than cross-post all my comments here, please take another look at my post #10 in that thread for details.After reading your post I took the car for another quick spin and let it settle at ~38mph on the flat just before an incline and engaged cruise. It quite happily pulled with no vibration until the incline steepened into a hill at which point it downshifted and continued - all with no vibration.

So, in summary I'd say that there was an issue with the demonstrator you drove and that it's not a characteristic of the car. However, it appears that there are at least three other W204's that are exhibiting similar traits (Paul Rickards', philb's and the bloke who posted on What Car's reader reviews), so the problem isn't unique to your demonstator. Either that or I've got the only good one and all the other W204's have a problem

In that event it is a software flash upgrade. If it was mechanical it would be making fault codes.