E CLASS W212 E350 TRANSMISSION FAILURE

[Mitch77]

We own a 2011 convertible E350 W212 convertible. In July under its service plan it was serviced. This included a transmission oil change.

It is now nearly November and the car has barely done 1000 miles in our ownership because either the transmission / torque converters have failed and been replaced. MBUK are replacing under parts warranty via MB dealer, however multiple attempt to rectify have not worked. On Thursday the car in less than 400 miles back in our care made the same noise and it is currently back at dealer getting another new transmission and torque converter.

MBUK and dealer do not know why.

So far MBUK customer service is the worst I have ever experienced. I have been told many things which all translate to we have logged the call but that is all we do...including 'our cars break' - 'our engines and transmissions can fail' - A car that cost £50k has been less reliable than our Astravan now on 211,000 miles - one clutch - one gearbox :/

The dealer has offered a trade in to a new e class which we have had to accept because even if we got our car back it has failed so many times we could never sell this or trade it into another dealer or person given the pile of rubbish it has become.

This is more for any one else who has or is being told that this is not a known issue, it is. We will definitely be selling the replacement Mercedes in 2 years so we can leave the manufacturer and not have to experience any oil changes because when it goes wrong you have no support from MB at all. The dealer have done their best to be fair, as they do not even have the option to ask for a site visit from a Mercedes UK technician.

 

[whitenemesis]

"when it goes wrong you have no support from MB at all"..

Seems you have had quite a bit of support, with warranty replacement of parts, multiple times!

Admittedly it's not confidence inspiring that they cannot fathom why it keeps 'breaking' but at least they are attempting to repair and have even now offered to trade it in for a new E class....

Seems they have tried their best to support you?

 

[television]

What a sad tale, yes one thing you mention is that Mercedes do not have any mobile engineers that can deal with these odd hard to fix faults. In my own trade the manufactures sent over an engineer from Japan every month to take car of the odd not so easy to fix faults. They wanted the information on what went wrong so that things could be improved on the production line. They have no help desk either that can talk over hard to find faults.

They can plough £50 million into formula 1

 

[Mitch77]

W212

"when it goes wrong you have no support from MB at all"..

Seems you have had quite a bit of support, with warranty replacement of parts, multiple times!

Admittedly it's not confidence inspiring that they cannot fathom why it keeps 'breaking' but at least they are attempting to repair and have even now offered to trade it in for a new E class....

Seems they have tried their best to support you?

They broke the car - It ran perfectly for 24,000 miles and so replacing parts and then replacing those parts because they have failed is the bare minimum they should do. It is actually the legal requirement nothing more.

Trading in the car was all the dealer not MB UK. This is costing £23,000 so it is the most expensive service for a car with low mileage. MB UK would not even give any goodwill for any of the last 5 months.

That is appalling.

 

[whitenemesis]

How did they 'break' the car? By doing an ATF change? Can you substantiate that?

MB UK didn't service the car, the dealer did. So, if as you suggest they broke it, why should MB UK pick up the pieces?

 

[television]

They broke the car - It ran perfectly for 24,000 miles and so replacing parts and then replacing those parts because they have failed is the bare minimum they should do. It is actually the legal requirement nothing more.

Trading in the car was all the dealer not MB UK. This is costing £23,000 so it is the most expensive service for a car with low mileage. MB UK would not even give any goodwill for any of the last 5 months.

That is appalling.

It would be near on impossible for you to break the car, sadly all mechanics are not always that good. There have been problems with the 7g gearbox with the speed plate and valve blocks, and most should be able to replace parts with a reasonable amount of confidence. Yes it is very hard to lodge any complaint with MB, the replies that they send out are all "We have never heard of this" even when we know there is a problem.

 

[brandwooddixon]

It's a sad tale indeed.
as always MB deny all knowledge of any known problems.

Are you having to pay anything for the new car? I would expect not.

As with anything that you buy today, the first port of call is the person who sold it to you as they are legally responsible, followed by the manufacturer.

 

[television]

It's a sad tale indeed.
as always MB deny all knowledge of any known problems.

Are you having to pay anything for the new car? I would expect not.

As with anything that you buy today, the first port of call is the person who sold it to you as they are legally responsible, followed by the manufacturer.

What we do not know, and what no one would admit to was the box filled correctly, did they try an update, and that went pear shaped. One would think that Mercedes would intervene at some stage before things got too far out of hand, but they never do, in spite of the fact they they appoint the dealers and train the mechanics.

 

[Jonny Moore]

TC broke on mine at 40k and they fixed it within 2 days.

 

[Irresistance]

Mechanical things break sometimes. Very rarely, they break in unexpected, weird ways where several things may break together, mislead who ever is looking at the problem, and so on. It would appear you are experiencing one of those. I don't imagine there actually IS a single brand of car maker that would handle these rare exceptions well. They all "follow protocol" and only after having done that for some time break with that. Sad tale, but you just "won" the weird strange issue lottery. To thus say MB sucks and you dont want them anymore is... well - very irrational

 

[C350Carl]

When you say new transmission, do you mean a complete gearbox or parts from within?

If they are replacing a complete box every time then i would politely suggest to them they need to look somewhere else on the drivetrain for the issue.

If they are just replacing parts from within then i would be pushing for a complete new box given you say they have replaced parts on numerous occasions.

Certainly not ideal though. But Mercedes are not the only manufacturer to have issues with fancy technology.

 

[Mitch77]

comments

I received a callback from MB customer assistance yesterday.

They confirmed the following.
They spoke to the dealer for an update.
They would not discuss anything technical as to why subsequent parts had failed however if I wanted to write to the MD of MB UK I could. I advised that another transmission and Torque converter was going into the car, he said oh he was not aware of that.
Finally I asked if all the parts going on the car have failed have not Mercedes Benz factory had them returned and investigated why to support the dealer? No answer.

Today is the 31st October and marks the 4th month the car sits at the dealership in a repair situation

I asked after investigation what caused the first issue during the service of the transmission oil. The dealer thought contaminated oil from MB UK. However a subsequent oil test was inconclusive.

I do not know if any parts have been replaced, I am taking it as what they say is what they are doing.

Transmissions and Torque converters have been replaced with the fault no going away.

The fault is very serious - it is considered a safety issue if a cars auto transmission hesitates without warning, whilst Mercedes say they do not think it would leave a box of neutrals and no drive, they prefer to take the car and leave a loan.

I have had to pay for a new Mercedes E class. The dealer have given a small discount off the new car. My car has over halved in dealer trade in value now at £23k. The selling dealer do not want anything to do with the car and have advised keeping it where it is.

I understand technical problems may occur, however this is a serious issue. and the dealership seem frustrated because other customers have suffered the same faults.

Mercedes Benz UK are a real let down. I have requested details of all repairs, nothing yet received. Sometimes if a black and white procedure book cannot handle a technical problem, it helps to as the Japanese Quality believe 'go to the place'.

We have allowed Mercedes to repair the car. Today the story continues.

 

[C350Carl]

Does seem to be a bad situation. How long have you had the car? I'm assuming it's too long to reject the car?

I would be starting to seek legal advice now as 4mths is way too long for a car to be fixed.

I'm assuming you're not taking on the Paris Dakar in between these faults occurring?

 

[pitch1]

After having a specialist repair my Auto box off a 320CDI W210 I was forced to change the car and stressed to MB that I was not too happy with auto boxes. He said And I quote,"there was aknown problem with Auto boxes but this was sorted out in 2007.

Did MB Broadcast this ?????????????????? Nooo

I pass this on for what it is worth, Sorry!

 

[Mitch77]

Solenoid

After 6mths it is more difficult to reject a car, however it you pay a deposit or something with your credit card you get alot more consumer support, so the next car will have a deposit on credit card.

They have decided not to replace the torque converter and transmission now and have instead replaced a solenoid...it is ready to collect again.