W205 Door handle LEDs broken

[elan362]

Really peeved.
My car is is 3 years 2 months old, and 3 of the door handle LEDS have stopped working. They stopped working when it was under full warranty, but this was the first chance I had a chance to get it in. I've dated photos that show they were out whilst under full warranty.
The car is still under approved car warranty until March this year.
Put it in to Stratstone Mercedes in Gland they are saying the failed Door LEDs are not covered by the extended warranty...
Not happy.
Any suggestions on how to take this up?
Thanks

 

[ioweddie]

Take it to another dealer..they are a known problem....you should at least get goodwill

 

[slade1]

Another useless gimmick? i never had problem finding the door handles on my cars.

 

[Farmer boy]

My car is just coming up to 4 years old. Two handles are on their second led unit and the other two on their third. MB do replace the units within the 3 year warranty but shy away afterwards. This year I replaced the two rear door lEDs myself what a faff. The units are about £17.50 each but fitting them is a pain with full door interior removal. Took me about 25-30 minutes to do the second door once I had worked out what to do on the first one.
So with three lED units out 1.5 hours labour plus parts would come to a big bill no wonder they are trying to dodge the job.

 

[Farmer boy]

For those who want to tackle the LED change I posted details on this thread a while ago:
GLC exterior handle LED light colour

 

[Farmer boy]

Would be interesting to learn if the problem still exists on 2019 cars onwards. The lED units I fitted before Christmas had revision 13 on their casing. They seem to have more waterproofing material over the LED. 13 revisions on a simple component over a 6 year production period seems a lot.

 

[elan362]

Mercedes dealer came back to me with an offer from Mercedes that they would pay for 75% of cost of replacement.
They replace all 4 for £175 all in.
That seems like a reasonable outcome.
If MB are like BMW, if you pay anything you get the benefit of a 3yr part warranty, but if they replace something foc, the warranty on the repace part only lasts for the remaining period of the warranty

 

[Farmer boy]

That seems a fair deal to me. Parts are about £70 then at least 90 mins labour on top of that.
Let’s hope the latest version has finally solved the reliability problem. As you point out you should get 3 years warranty and by then the car will be over six years old and may well be the only one of its age with a full set of working lights.

 

[rf065]

Mercedes parts only have a 2 year warranty, except for batteries which get 3 years.

 

[elan362]

ok, car back from MB this evening - with all 4 door LEDs replaced (3 failed and one was recorded with a colour issue - I guess on its way to failure - with 75% goodwill contribution from MB - so I had to pony up £160 which I think was OK, considering what a reported Ball ache they are to replace. fingers crossed they last.
plus the aux battery was replaced FOC under warranty