mercedes crap?

[yorkshire1]

posted this earlier in the month

son,s 2011 70,000 mile C200 CDI front wheel bearing failed on his way to work this morning, no rumble prior or anything untoward just a loud crack and pulled to the left,trailered home and had to gas axe the outer cone off the stub ,wouldnt shift and the wheel flange isnt strong enough to withstand much pulling either!

yorkshire1, May 5, 2017Report

just been out to my daughters 2013 E Class 70,000 miles, nearly identical situation to above except she was doing 70 on a dual carriageway at the time ,another one to recover just hope its not seized on like the last,also checked my sons other side bearing which had already been replaced!! what kind of crap are they using nowadays... so much for using "quality parts" certainly not worthy of the star nowadays

 

[turbopete]

70k miles is pretty poor for wheelbearings nowadays. even in the 1990s when i was running around in 1980s escorts etc it was rare to have front wheelbearings fail at sub 100k miles (at least it was in the dealership i worked at!)

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

Well, I haven't done any front wheel bearings on the W204 or W212 yet...but thats because we always advise adjustment and repacking at service, and most garages dont...

 

[yorkshire1]

Still they must be a lot lower spec nowadays though Steve , and not what youd expect

from what was a prestige brand. the bearings are either not up to spec or not lubed properly from day 1

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

Well, there is 2 ways of looking at that...like I said, I see 204's and 212's everyday, and we have not replaced a wheel bearing on any yet, I had 3 in for service yesterday and have another 4 here now, one I have just checked over which has done 140k miles, no sign of wear, but there is play in some and they need repacking/adjusting.

The front wheel bearings are taper bearings, as they are used they require maintenance. If a bearing isn't greased, packed and adjusted properly, it will burn out and fail. Simple.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Aghhhhhh I keep on saying this.

The design standards haven't changed in 20 years. The "spec" hasn't changed in 20 years.

 

[L John]

son,s 2011 70,000 mile C200 CDI front wheel bearing failed on his way to work this morning, no rumble prior or anything untoward just a loud crack and pulled to the left

just been out to my daughters 2013 E Class 70,000 miles, nearly identical situation to above except she was doing 70 on a dual carriageway at the time

So both went in a straight line with no prior signs?
Surely you mean no signs noticed, bearings don't just collapse when they're within tolerances.
If there's bearing play on a taper bearing there's huge pressure on the edges of the rollers.
Maintenance is key, how long since MOT were they.
I don't think there's ever a good reason for a wheel bearing to fail catastrophically at normal miles between checks, they just need replacing when they're out of limits.
If the cars are serviced and MOT'd at main dealers I'd be having words with the manager.

 

[John Laidlaw]

Aghhhhhh I keep on saying this.

The design standards haven't changed in 20 years. The "spec" hasn't changed in 20 years.

Groundhog Day?

 

[turbopete]

i have to say, i thought they had moved onto the more modern, sealed for life, tighten to 'x'Nm and thats it till they fail like most other manufacturers! i thought adjustable taper bearings in hubs died with the mk3/4 Escort!!!

obviously it works (as a rule) or the countryside would be littered with 212's with collapsed wheelbearings!

 

[yorkshire1]

i have to say, i thought they had moved onto the more modern, sealed for life, tighten to 'x'Nm and thats it till they fail like most other manufacturers! i thought adjustable taper bearings in hubs died with the mk3/4 Escort!!!

obviously it works (as a rule) or the countryside would be littered with 212's with collapsed wheelbearings!

there,ll be a lot more tha you realise Pete I wont have coincidentally come across the only 2 in the country for sure, my daughter said hers had dealer history too,havent asked my son about his 204 yet though

 

[turbopete]

there,ll be a lot more tha you realise Pete I wont have coincidentally come across the only 2 in the country for sure, my daughter said hers had dealer history too,havent asked my son about his 204 yet though

quite possibly there will be more than we know about. its like those that say they have never had a 651 chain rattle (or worse) saying that it cant happen because they havent had experience of them (despite it seeming to affect average 10-12k per year mileage users)

im not sure if the bearings are the same part number but its possible that theyre a faulty batch? or just not properly maintained (in the hopes of selling new bearings rather than service them properly) bearings by the dealers? do the bearing caps fit correctly and are undamaged on the failed ones?

 

[Craiglxviii]

Cars aren't designed in the hopes of selling spare parts. They're designed for a specific service life. Nowadays that is 8.1 years.

 

[Craiglxviii]

i have to say, i thought they had moved onto the more modern, sealed for life, tighten to 'x'Nm and thats it till they fail like most other manufacturers! i thought adjustable taper bearings in hubs died with the mk3/4 Escort!!!

obviously it works (as a rule) or the countryside would be littered with 212's with collapsed wheelbearings!

The question is, which bearing type have MB's chassis engineering design team evaluated as the best match for their design standards? Both have their pros & cons. If they have an engineering case to move back to adjustable taper type then they'll do so...

 

[John Laidlaw]

I'm surprised at 8.1 years Craig. With the mass market lease/PCP funding it seems a lot of manufacturers aren't too bothered about their cars after the lease ends. Or maybe that's just my feeling. Certainly the mood on here is that MB dealers specifically don't seem that bothered and don't particularly want to know about cars more than even 3 years old. Of course why Indy's are successful
Anyway....

 

[Craiglxviii]

8.1 years is the typical time that a first owner will keep his or her car nowadays. That is across all makes, models, segments and countries. So, it is the standard for which cars are now being designed.

 

[John Laidlaw]

That's really surprised me, not knowing the numbers I'd have assumed that fleet/lease/PCP influences would have lowered that..thanks for that

 

[Craiglxviii]

That's really surprised me, not knowing the numbers I'd have assumed that fleet/lease/PCP influences would have lowered that..thanks for that

Yes it was completely counter intuitive and caught mainly Ze German OEMs flat footed...

 

[John Laidlaw]

Love it!

 

[turbopete]

Cars aren't designed in the hopes of selling spare parts. They're designed for a specific service life. Nowadays that is 8.1 years.

that being the case then, why do so many parts fail so far BEFORE this time, even on modest mileage cars? and im not talking brakes or tyres but actual components that are ESSENTIAL? for example, Iveco daily van. we have 3 at work and im pretty sure they will be replaced with other vehicles. the newest one, 2 years old, 35k miles has had to have a replacement rear door (spot welds broke and the sheet metal near the hinges split) and it has what sounds to my ears to be a mild diff whine ALREADY.
why do suspension springs never see much past 4 or 5 years old? my 203 snapped one at 4 years/40k miles and that car had been UNUSED for 12 months when we bought it!!!! so in real terms thats 3 years of use! timing chains rattling on OM651 engines at pretty modest mileages (like IIRC C350 Carl's E class did, for example and it wasnt an isolated incident) and thats just a couple of simple examples, im sure i could remember more if i needed to

 

[Craiglxviii]

A) the Japanese were the first to realise and pay attention to the 8.1 years, followed by the Americans.
B) Ze Germans tend to trade on their perceived value as much as their actual performance.
C) every car model made, ever, will have parts fail during its production lifetime. For the industry the accepted failure standard in general is 0.2%, as in two parts in every thousand will fail in their specified service lifetime. That is significantly better than what was achieved in (Western) car production until the adoption of Japanese quality standards in production and design in the late 70s and early 80s.

Now MB make just under two million cars per year, so of those they could expect that four thousand will see some form of failure resulting in customer feedback. Last year there were 4,081 failure feedback items...