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Mercedes-Benz C-Class Maintenance and Repair
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Comments
One of the strengths of our '02 C240 is how smooth it is - I take some precautions on that topic, i.e. I jack it up at all four corners when it is in the garage, because we often don't use the car for days or even weeks at a time, and this prevents the tires from developing flat spots.
Anyway, I can understand your disappointment and reaction. Wish I could understand what's going on. Good luck in the future - a BMW 3er might indeed be a good replacement choice.
Mine only made a noise when in the lowest two fan speeds. Once above those levels it was quiet. I could really hear the sound when shutting the car off as the blower assembly wound down the noise was obvious.
And yes, it sounds like it is coming out of the dash.
Hope this does the trick for you. Mine was cleared up immediately and worked just fine ever since.
Tire pressure can play a factor as well so with the new rubber keep the pressure to at least 32 psi. I tend to run my tires hard and they last longer. The sidewall pressure is just a starting point for most autocross / solo II drivers who tend to run them up to 42-45 psi for short periods of time. On my old C, non-sport, and the loaner C230 Kompressor Sport, I ran at least 32 and often went as high as 35 psi. Do drop the pressure down on long freeway trips or if in the heat of summer to 32 as extended operation at 80+ in 100+ heat can build up the tire pressure much further.
Your ride will get stiffer, the handling will improve, and your tires should wear better.
Next step, try switching tire brands. Go to a sports tuner or serious tire / wheel shop and they'll walk you through the options.
On a side note, to all the other anti-MB enthusiasts, not a single problem to date. Unless you want to count the two nails in one front tire and one rear tire, both on seperate occassions of course. No charge to fix from the dealer. Maybe I'll complain to MBUSA that I shouldn't have to be incovenienced because their tires allow nail penetration, causing me to be late to work. In the letter I'll also mention that they washed my car which prevented me from wasting time doing it myself.
By the way, were ALL your other cars equipped with Z-rated tires?
Not high performance? Then why did you buy ther "sport" package with the high performance low profile tires, Brembo brakes, and lowered suspension? Why not just buy a regular C-class with longer lasting standard performance tires?
I have a 1998 c220 CDI and had a vibration at about 60 miles per hour or above...went back to the dealer and got free new tyres etc etc eventually met a mechanic who told me it was the carrier bearing that held the drive shaft on its way to the back tyres.....went back to the dealers and told them to replace this....guess what - it worked....MB dealers and mechanics suck big time, even over here in Ireland !!
Hope you fix your problem.
Eric.
MB warns you specifically in the brochures that the sport pkg tires, that is the Z-rated, staggered size ones on the C230 SS, will wear very much faster and provide dicey traction in rain and snow, compared with the standard tires. It is in plain English.
I think the SS package is silly, and have said so many times. You want sedan refinement, then get or put on the standard wheels and tires, which is why we drive a C240. You want a "sport sedan", then do what you have to do. Lexus makes the same point about the IS300, and their equally silly decision to equip it with 45-profile, Z-rated tires - owners get to put up with a rocky ride, and wearout rates between 10k and 20k miles, but boy, they're "sporty"....
No one with the C230 SS should complain about poor tire mileage - it goes with the territory, period. Some owners have squeezed 20k miles out of these tires, but replacements between 10k and 15k are common. For one thing, you can't really rotate these tires - the staggered sizes mean you can't move them front-to-rear, and most models use unidirectional tread designs, which means you can't rotate them side-to-side, either. The Michelins will generally be better than either the Contis or Pirelli or Goodyear alternatives, but they all are designed to give max dry stick at the expense of everything else. If that's not what you want, put 4 equally sized wheels on it, either 16 or 17 inchers [to eliminate the need for staggered sizes - the car comes with wheels that are wider on the rear than on the front], get the appropriately sized H or V rated touring tires, and you'll be fine.
And I don't work at a dealership, but I have been buying MBs for 40 years. I KNOW what I want out of the cars, and thus avoid "sport pkgs" at all costs. To each their own...
(Finally, I'll observe that I rotate all 5 tires [I have the spare equipped with an alloy wheel] on my C240 at 3-4k intervals, because it's about a 30-40 minute job in the garage with four cheap floor jacks from WalMart. At 15k miles, it's hard to see that any of them are worn at all.)
My 1995 C180 Elegance has a strange fault that has developed, All my electric windows and the sun roof will only work with any door open, as soon as you shut the door nothing. this has only happend in the last few weeks, first two windows and then them all.
If anyone is looking for genuine parts you can get them from german & Swedish at 80% off the list price, they are available on line.
Please try to find a solution to my strange problem.
Many thanks
John
I had a 2002 C240 (purchased at the end of March 2002) that was involved in a serious car accident in Feb 04. I was stopped at a light and a drunk driver hit me going about 55mph and pushed me into the van that was stopped in front of me. Both the front and back of the car was severely damaged. The air bag did not go off nor did the seat belt restrain me during the impact and I hit my head on the steering wheel. The vehicle was totaled. Since then I have had continuous back pain and am in need of corrective surgery for the scar that is now on my forehead.
Mercedes Benz was contacted when this happened and they sent an inspector out to look at the vehicle. I received a letter that was very general back from Mercedes Benz stating " The vehicle's seat belt emergency retractors deployed as they were designed to for a belted front occupant when the system's first deployment threshold was reached in the accident. In the circumstance of a belted driver, an air bag will not deploy unless a second higher threshold is reached". Huh? Bottom line is Mercedes Benz denied that the vehicle's emergency devices did not work when they should have. Yes I understand that someone else hit me and the accident was their fault. However, the emergency items are suppose to work and be reliable in an accident. And how high does a threshold have to be for them to work.....the car was toast!
This was my third Mercedes and my last. The company treated me badly after I reported the accident to them and did not even have the professionalism or courtesy to spell my first or last name correctly on their correspondence. I spoke to several attorney's who informed me unless someone dies or loses a limb then it would cost over $100K to sue Mercedes Benz because they would drag it out through the court system.
I know that there is no guarantee with any car that you drive if the equipment is going to work but when you buy a car from a company that is suppose to be one of higher standards then you expect nothing but the best. Obviously Mercedes is no longer a company that is considered of high standards.......if they were then they would not mass produce them as they do now and would make a product of quality not a lot of non-quality products.
I hope that this does not happen to you all and hope that if you are thinking of buying a car from Mercedes or Chrysler (who owns Mercedes) then please think again.
Sorry to hear about your terrifying accident and subsequent injuries. I know you said that you have spoken with several attorneys regarding Mercedes liability without much success. In case you were interested, I wanted to recommend Krohn & Moss, a nationwide law firm that specifically handles auto manufacturer defects, lemon-law, and breech of warranty. I hope you haven't already exhausted this option. They can be found easily online. Good luck.
Thank you for this information. I will look them up. Talking to various Mercedes owners, I understand that Mercedes has had this problem with all models not just the C-class. Computer problems I understand is the biggest complaint. I have two friends who got rid of their Mercedes within 6 months of their purchase. One car was an ML and the other an E-class. I would not put down this problem as one isolated incident because Mercedes no longer makes a quality vehicle.
Thanks for your help!
IF you have an actionable case against MB in this situation, any reputable attorney willing to work on contingency should be willing to take it. Without seeing pictures of the vehicle, I can only guess at whether the threshold for airbag deployment was reached in this case. Any lawyer who is hesitating is probably hesitating for the right reasons....and here's why:
The car manufacturers have been beaten up lately [by the same legal profession] because of the deployment of airbags that caused MORE injuries than they were designed to prevent in the first place. For this reason, most car makers have set the deployment level quite high for any situation where the seat occupant in front is wearing a belt. You were, your injuries were minor in comparison to the physics involved, and the car did what it was supposed to do - crumple around you to save your life. IF the driver's airbag had deployed, depending on how close to the wheel you sit, you might very well have wound up with far more serious injuries than actually occurred.
I have been hesitant to comment on this, because there is much data that would need to be gathered to make a real judgment - but since you've made it clear that you think Mercedes did not take care of your safety in this case, I have to say....I doubt it very much. I do agree that it should be easy to find a competent attorney to take this case, IF you have a case. The fact that some people have already expressed reservations about doing so without charging you [what was it, over $100,000 ?], makes me wonder about how solid it is.
You've used this forum to tell us that MB makes an unsafe product and doesn't care; I'm using the same forum to disagree about as strongly as I can
And let me make one final point: it is not as if I am unfamiliar with your situation - in the late '80s, my wife and I, and my best friend [who was sitting in the back seat] were involved in a similar incident, with similar speeds and weights involved [a mid-'70s Toronado, weighing nearly 5000 lbs, hitting our '88 Camry from the rear, stopped, with the speed difference being at least 50 mph]. Injuries were minor, including a pretty serious head hit on my buddy against the glass in the back seat [no concussion, but a trip to the hospital anyway]. The car was literally folded up from the back window into a 12-18" clump of metal and rubber. We staggered away, but never thought to blame anybody but the driver of the Olds. I actually was grateful for the fact that Toyota had done its homework, and seemed to have produced a car that would keep us alive in that situation [no fire, no one permanently disabled]. I guess we missed something.
I had a friend who had a nissan that done this and it was part of the main wiring block. In your case I'd suspect the alternator or something is not charging the battery and then draining it when it sits idle.
Don't let others make you feel powerless or crazy, your seatbelt should have deployed and even Mercedes knows that. Unfornately, they also know the laws. They knew you would have difficulty in finding contingency representation. They had nothing to lose by telling you that your seatbelt operated as designed. If you do find representation, Mercedes will "deal with you" then. Again, good luck.
I disagree. Strongly.
And I wish that the uniquely American approach to this, i.e. immediately invoke the legal system to sue everyone in sight, were leavened with just a bit of common sense. That is another discussion.
Let's just say that if you are looking for a car that will be safer than any contemporary Mercedes-Benz, be sure you are asking the right questions. Apparently, in this case, the right questions would include getting an engineer to evaluate the airbag deployment thresholds for all four directions of possible hits, and making sure that whatever new car you pick will be BETTER than an MB in the particular circumstance described in this incident. BMW? Volvo? GM? Ford? Toyota? Honda? Which of these makes a car that will better protect you in this circumstance than an MB? Once you've answered that question, AND can cite the engineering data to back up such an answer, I guess you know what to do.
Acerbic? You bet. The more I thought about this incident, the more disturbed I got. We are being urged to boycott MB and Chrysler products because they "don't care" about safety. We can agree to disagree that this is an appropriate response to this case.
I am unaware that "we are being urged to boycott MB and Chrysler..." You are obviously an advocate of Mercedes and I respect your enthusiasm and insights. Unfortunately, there are those of us who have had bad experiences with the company through no fault of our own. I am sure the majority of automobiles manufactured by MB perform optimally, but they should accept responsibility when they do make the occasional error.
You can put your own spin on that statement from the original post. It sounds to me like advice not to buy their products.
I am most certainly NOT an "advocate" for Mercedes. They have made more than a reasonable number of mistakes lately, and should be [and are being] taken to the woodshed in the marketplace as a result.
I can't put this any more plainly: I do not believe MB is making an unsafe car. I would need a lot more proof than this one accident description to believe that. And I would want some equal proof that the competitive products [brands cited above] would behave differently in the narrow circumstance of this crash.
Here's my problem: we have here a single crash situation [ and they are all different, by the way ]; the victim says that the car didn't protect him properly; his description of what happened, and how it happened, leave me with a lot of doubts that this is true. We are asked to then draw the conclusion that he is being treated unfairly by MB because they refuse to pay for his injuries. You are willing to agree with him; I am not. I think he has every right to go after the at-fault party [the other driver], but am unwilling to blame MB for any aspect of this. [As noted, I think I would have been a lot more likely to be grateful for a car that protected me as well as this one did him in the circumstances]. I would feel this way whether he were in a Mercedes or a Hyundai, and that is why I challenge everyone reading this to find a safer car [in the described crash situation] than this one.
I just don't buy into the idea that his C240 had some defect that prevented him from walking away unscathed. The seat belt tensioners and the airbags both have thresholds for deployment - the former seems to have been reached, but didn't prevent contact with the steering wheel; the latter clearly wasn't reached, and it might have been just as well, or you could have added a broken nose or fingers to the injury list. I guess I don't believe these systems are going to prevent all injuries in every circumstance. No defect has to exist for this to be true.
I'll shut up, now. Too many of these forums get spoiled by verbal tennis matches. I respect your opinion, but just disagree.
My 1995 C180 Elegance has a strange fault that has developed, All my electric windows and the sun roof will only work with any door open, as soon as you shut the door nothing. this has only happend in the last few weeks, first two windows and then them all.
If anyone is looking for genuine parts you can get them from german & Swedish at 80% off the list price, they are available on line.
Please try to find a solution to my strange problem.
Many thanks
John
where can i get a manual on how to do that?
I have not tried to change the plugs myself. For all maintenance I go to the MB dealer. Wish I could be more helpful.
- Paul
Has anyone had any experience with this? I just bought a 1995 C220.
The previous owner was experiencing shutdown while driving. One
mechanic said there was a Mass Air Flow Sensor diagnostic code and
several oxygen sensor codes. Another mechanic said there was only a
Mass Air Flow Sensor diagnostic code. I bought the car and figured
out what kind of scan tool I needed, etc. Prior to getting the scan
tool I started the car just to run it a while so it would be easier
to start later. While idling there was significant vibration which
seemed to come from the right rear and the engine shut off. Wouldn't
start again.
I got the scan tool and when I ran it the Mass Air Flow Sensor
diagnostic code came up and this came up on the "freeze data": Fuel
System 1: CLSD.
I got a new Mass Air Flow Sensor and installed it. I erased the MAF
code and now everything checks out OK, no codes. When I go through
the "view data" feature I now get: Fuel System 1: OPEN.
It still won't start. I put a full charge on the battery to make
sure that wasn't the problem.
My question is this: I'm assuming that the fuel pump is programmed
to shut off if the Mass Air Flow Sensor problem isn't fixed within a
certain period of time and that this is what happened when I was
idling. Is that correct? Second part of question: is there something
I have to do in regard to the fuel pump once the Mass Air Flow
Sensor problem is taken care of? If no answer I'll probably have to
tow it in to a mechanic- I don't think I want to mess around with
measuring fuel pressure, etc.
Just to let you know of our first service reaction.
We bought the car new 11 months ago and May 19 2005 picked it up after completion of "A" service some minor trim warranty things. Primarily, my wife drives this particular car to support her Real Estate work and in the 11 months we've owned it, we accumulated 12,292 miles and took the car in for its first service 700 miles before the FSS computer said it was due. I had made my appointment 3 weeks in advance to guarantee a loaner since work in addition to the A service was contemplated, and was kind of concerned I might be told I had shown up too soon (because of some of the horror stories I've read elsewhere.)
Not one problem from the dealer regarding the fact that we hadn't reached the FSS magic number. Net cost to get out of the dealer after they had the car for threee days to investigate some concerns about minor squeeks and noises my wife had (loaning us a 2004 MBZ C240 "Sport" Wagon), $0.00.
Looking on the Edmunds site, before we went for service, I was able to find out exactly what an "A" service included, and that's exactly what was done to the car. Not once did they try to sell me other things.
But also, one thing surprises me. We didn't make one single complaint about the A/C, and they changed out a group of seals and did a recharge and evac. There aren't too many dealerships that throw around free maintenance. Is there any A/C related recall or tech notice out there that MBZ is working quietly?
Next I have a question: Checking through my receipts, I see that the dealer provided an oil change using Mobil One 0-50., while my book says MBZ recommends Mobile One 0-40 European Car Formula. I can't even find in any of the Auto Parts stores Mobile One 0-50. Did they use the right oil? I want to keep a quart in my garage just in case.
Lastly, the reset FSS computer calls for a B service in 10,000 miles. Kind of interesting since the same computer had us looking at nearly 13,000 miles before calling for the first service since the car was made.
Chuck
-Oil - no problem with what they used; the official MB recommended list changes so often that owners never receive updates as the list moves on - dealers do. Nothing to be concerned about.
-I know of no widespread service bulletin on the AC - obviously they found something of concern during the inspection, and took care of it. [Yes, that is the way it is supposed to happen, and yes, it's OK to tell us who this virtuous dealer is and where located. Lord knows the dealer body gets enough slams in this forum that a little positive feedback is good to hear.] Remember, if you have ANY questions at all about what they did to the car, and why, the time to ask is on the spot before you leave the dealership. A phone call later works, too, but if you speak up before you leave, you can usually talk to the Tech who actually did the work.
-The FSS defaults to 10k miles when the system is reset. After that, it will vary up or down depending on conditions and how the car is driven. Your initial service interval makes it sound as if the car gets optimum use, i.e. more miles on the freeway and not a lot of short trips or stop-go.
-Dealers rarely balk at an FSS-driven service once you get within 1k miles of the magic number. Much earlier than that, and they have to explain to MBUSA why, though lately, the dealers have been given a LOT of leeway to make the customer happy, in the wake of all the negative publicity that is sweeping over the company.
In case you're wondering, the FSS is programmed to chase you in for service at the 2 year mark, regardless of mileage. Our '02 C240 was purchased in Sept of 2002, a full 8 months after it had rolled off the assembly line in Bremen. It called for the first service in January of '04, even though we had covered less than 10k miles, and even though it had been [up to that point] predicting the service would come up at 12k or so.
In our case, I had to gently remind the Service Advisor that there were things that were called for at the 2 year mark [like brake fluid replacement] that should be done, notwithstanding the fact that the car had been "in service" less than 16 months. No problem, no arguments, cheerful compliance.
There are indeed horror stories out there about the dealers; our experiences at MB Sacramento and MB Portland [OR] and MB Reno have been quite positive for the most part. Knock on wood...