W204 Saloon Sport with Advanced Agility Package Advice

[mbenz1]

Hi All,

Hope you are well.

My brother is looking to buy this weekend a pre-facelift C320CDI Sport 2008 (58) Sport with Advanced Agility Package (with the Sport button above the climate control).

How reliable is this system and more importantly, do the struts need to be replaced at a specific time-interval like with standard shock absorbers? In other words, if the struts leak, is it a case of replacing seals and topping up fluid or replacing the whole strut?

The reason I ask is because I just rang MB and they quoted £650 per strut (front) and £350 per strut (rear)! This is unbelievable! Bilstein are selling MB Equivalent strut for 950 euros!! WTH!! Standard suspension gas shocks can be bought off ECP for around £100 (decent brand like Bilstein). MB quotes £180 per shock front and £140 per shock rear.

Can't find much info on the UK MB Forums or international MB forums.

Thanks everyone.

 

[mbenz1]

Another thing, is it possible to do a delete on this option? I.e, disconnect sensors, install standard sport shocks and possibly de-code the option to remove it from the ecu?

Will standard Sport trim shock absorbers fit in place of the struts?

Thanks,

 

[mbenz1]

Hi All,

No response from this forum but I had been doing more searches on the net using different words.

Basically, from what I have seen, the most common issue with this optional package is the car going into Sport mode on its own and cannot be taken out of Sport mode until the car is restarted....And then the problems re-appears again.

The 99.9% cause for this problem is common and simple: The rod on the vehicle height/level sensor breaks due to rust, hence causing a disconnection between the wheel and the sensor. Most people end-up getting a new part from MB circa £150 + 1 Hr labour to fix it and errors never comes back until another rod breaks on any of the other remaining 3 wheels.

I have seen aftermarket rods being sold on eBay for under £30 and even heard of some people glueing back the rod together and the error disappearing.

However, I have not seen or received any advice regarding the struts themselves, but did come across one post where the chap mentioned that they never leak because he has a W204 with this package and has done 150,000km and still going on but no leaks from the struts...


Hence my conclusion is that the only common issue in this package is the rod breaking, causing the car to default into Sport mode. The general consensus seems to be that the struts are pretty reliable as I can't find any threads talking about failing/leaking advanced agility struts.

In the worst case, if the struts were to fail, MB charge £650 approx for one front strut (yes, just one!) and £350 approx for one rear strut, so to avoid that huge price, it is wiser to buy MONROE oem struts instead for roughly £200 each (front) and £250 each (rear), which is a big saving off the MB prices. I think the Monroe part number for a pre-facelift W204 is C2508R (front, right) C2509L (front, left) and C1510R (rear, right) C1510L (rear, left), but don't quote me on these part numbers.

I hope this helps anyone who is looking to buy a used W204 with the Advanced Agility Suspension aka Dynamics Package in the facelift W204.

 

[markjay]

Thanks for the useful info.

 

[mbenz1]

No problems markjay.