Mercedes Paint Warranties/ problems

[Anonymous]

OK so i know there is no custom shot of this :P but my dad owns a T reg (1999) Mercedes E Class saloon. He's been pretty happy with it until recently when rust began to come through on all four wheerarches on the inner edge (particularly bad on passenger front), and is bubbling through around the boot lock. Now i've heard of problems on certain models/ years but am having trouble finding the magazine articles/ websites so we can look at other cases of this.

Mercedes have agreed to look at it but we are expecting them to try and duck their responsibilties. This has been an extremely well cared for car and really after 6 years you wouldn't expect such problems, its a merc not a Mini! !! :P

Anyway any info you guys can help with would be very much appreciated, want as much knowledge before we take it in to mercedes, their service thus far has been the only negative, really is in our experience as bad as the media say.

[ZfrkS62]

well, talking to one of the Mercedes techs here at the shop, you're looking at a 50-50 shot of getting it warrantied. We aren't sure how the policy differs from the US to England, but he says that on a 99, Benz would most likely take care of it providing it hasn't been wrecked.

I also don't know how the salt situation is over there either. If they salt the roads, that would definetly be a leading cause of the problem, however it kind of depends on wether the warranty rep is in a good mood or not :lol: Seriously though, there is a decent chance that it will be covered. At least it probably would be here. Like i said, it depends on how the policy differs between the US and Europe. :|

Sorry i couldn't be more of a help.

[Anonymous]

well, talking to one of the Mercedes techs here at the shop, you're looking at a 50-50 shot of getting it warrantied. We aren't sure how the policy differs from the US to England, but he says that on a 99, Benz would most likely take care of it providing it hasn't been wrecked.

I also don't know how the salt situation is over there either. If they salt the roads, that would definetly be a leading cause of the problem, however it kind of depends on wether the warranty rep is in a good mood or not :lol: Seriously though, there is a decent chance that it will be covered. At least it probably would be here. Like i said, it depends on how the policy differs between the US and Europe. :|

Sorry i couldn't be more of a help.

thanks for your trouble :D , yeh the car is pretty well taken care of, and these are common trouble spots apparently. As for salt yeh thats most likely a contributing factor, but that really doesn't excuse reducing quality regardless of the climate where the car will be used. Its not even had a hard life, my dad didn't even use it as his main car for work etc. Trying to find out more on the policy but it seems deliberately fuzzy and open to interpretation of course. from what i have been reading alot does indeed rely on goodwill, put it this way i think they lost another customer. Needless to say he's pretty pissed off reading others expereinces, i doubt he'll buy again

Check this thread I found for example http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/showthread.php?t=5824&page=1&pp=10

haven't had time to read it all yet though!!

[evoWalo]

I wouldnt bet the farm on getting Benz to fix your problem. they'll probably cite warranty expiration for not fixing the paint job. MB Singapore couldnt get their local Philippine distributor to refund my broken automatic window. MB Singapore said our humidity screws up the auto windows which is so much rubbish. Why does a Civic's auto window work well for years while a Mercedes breaks easily.

Clarkson said it right that he'd get a CLS if build quality of Mercedes Benz was just better.

[SPEEDKILLAR]

LOL, I have a '99 class, for the members that remember, it was a long time ago in the 'what you drive' section, SPEEDKILLARS tank.
Anyway, I don't wash the car much(maybe 5 times a year, only interior, but never had a problem with rust..............untill I had an accident, where the person didn't brake on time, blablabla, his insurance took care of it, so I bring it to MB.
New bumper, protection plate, etc,... and the repainted the bootlid.
So now after a year when finally washing the car, I see a big ass spot where the rust start to 'lift' the paint, I mean WTF, instead of making something good, they just made it worse :x :x
I love MB, but I am disgusted the way they treat customers, DAMNIT, I don't even want to talk(typ) about it :x

Sorry Al, but I think you guys have to be lucky in order for them to do something about it :|

[Anonymous]

LOL, I have a '99 class, for the members that remember, it was a long time ago in the 'what you drive' section, SPEEDKILLARS tank.
Anyway, I don't wash the car much(maybe 5 times a year, only interior, but never had a problem with rust..............untill I had an accident, where the person didn't brake on time, blablabla, his insurance took care of it, so I bring it to MB.
New bumper, protection plate, etc,... and the repainted the bootlid.
So now after a year when finally washing the car, I see a big ass spot where the rust start to 'lift' the paint, I mean WTF, instead of making something good, they just made it worse :x :x
I love MB, but I am disgusted the way they treat customers, DAMNIT, I don't even want to talk(typ) about it :x

Sorry Al, but I think you guys have to be lucky in order for them to do something about it :|

well all we can hope is that they are nice, i remember it being a 3 or 4 month wait for an MOT there though :lol: If anyone finds other articles online they can only strengthen our case IMO, these are known manufacturing problems, looking at the posts in that MB forum thread i posted, when they actually get inspected the merc techs know exactly what the problem areas are. Anyway i'll let you guys know what i hear.

[Anonymous]

then again a bumper to bumper warranty is usually only good for 1 year usually.

But we're talking about the MB perferation/ paint warrantues here though, the dealer said it was still covered I believe but the way the thing is worded we are expecting them to be arsy about it. Read also that instead of replacing badly rusted panels on fairly new cars MB is making it policy to give it a quick blast and coat of paint, hardly a long term fix :roll: and the repair would be of course covered by a much shorter warranty. We'll wait and see what they say. Probably have to wait 6 months for a proper inspection judging by our previous dealings with them :P

[RC45]

Wow - quite shocking.. You won't even find a generic US domestic 4 cylinder slug that rusts as badly as those guys cars on the forum.

So much for Mercedes build quality I guess.

I could not imagine a 2 or 3 year old car with rust - even in then snow belt - unless you store it under a pile of salt.

Hope you guys get it sorted out.

[TransAm]

Al, I am sure the Benz has a 10 year corrosion perforation warranty and I'd be very surprised if Benz did not honour your claim.

As for if the car has been in an accident - again, assuming the repair was carried out at a Benz shop then the bodywork warranty should be intact. Point in case - when my Z3 got rear-ended by an aptly-named Dodge Ram, I insisted the local BMW bodyshop were the only people that could touch it. Unfortunately, the level of quality of the repair was somewhat lacking in terms of the rebuild and I ended up in a battle with the BMW Dealership over their awful work. I wouldn't be surprised if the rear quarter of that particular Z3 ends up rusting through like Speedkillars MB after a few years.


My Grandad had a 1987 Sierra years ago and the tops of the doors rusted through when it was about 5 years old - I pointed out to him the 6 year Ford warranty, and the local Ford dealer sorted it for free.

[RC45]

It seems the devil is in the details - "rust perforation" vs "surface rust" - and these folks all seem to have surface rust.

Be that as it may - one should not have such a proliferation of rust-related probloems from any manufacturer, especially not MB.

[Anonymous]

It seems the devil is in the details - "rust perforation" vs "surface rust" - and these folks all seem to have surface rust.

Be that as it may - one should not have such a proliferation of rust-related probloems from any manufacturer, especially not MB.

yup thats where they've been clever with their guarantee's :roll: i would not expect that kind of rust from any car under say 10 years old these days and more for so called premium brands like MB. We'll see if anyone has taught them customer service yet :roll:

[TransAm]

Can 'perforation' not by encouraged using a screwdriver?

I'm not suggesting you do this unless it's almost rusted through!

[Anonymous]

Can 'perforation' not by encouraged using a screwdriver?

I'm not suggesting you do this unless it's almost rusted through!

HAHHHHAH good idea!, it really looks like surface, though its worst on the passenger front arch i don't think its bad enough to go through, but haven't had a close inspection myself, but for the over 3 arches and the bootlid (oh and a few small spots under the door seal) its no where near that bad. need a digicam!!

[BADMIHAI]

Fuck! I remember JC driving a classic 280 SL and saying it comes from a time when MB was still building its cars properly. He said the paint on it weighs 20 kg. Now that's MB quality, not this shit that we've seen in the last 10 years. It's really sad to see that Mercedes has reached such a low.

[Anonymous]

dad took it to the dealers today, and of course they are trying to say BS that at least some of it is cause by stone chips :roll: But we'll see the local MB bodyshop are going to look at it properly soon.

[Anonymous]

Bloke from the local Merc bodyshop came today, seems he was quite a nice guy generally (i was at work) Apparently he is going to try and force through replacement wings under warranty on the front, not sure whats happening wit h the rear. Anyway all they were talking about when i got in was what to replace it with :lol: