cvroom

Hey guys. Well I bought my C300 on the 30th of March and Im sitting in the dealer right now. I already came once and for squeaking noise that couldn't be resolved. Now I'm in here for that noise again, my tire exploded and has to be replaced, the right side of the glovebox between the door is breaking off, the front left vent moves on itself, the air conditioning smells bad after being turned off, and on the outside of the doors in between the chrome the black plastic trim looks like it has grease which is not removable. Grrrrrr!!! This is annoying. And now I'm being given a rental car.

imboom

Tires normally explode from one of three reasons:
1) You hit something sharp/hard that causes the tire to rapidly deflate.
2) You filled up the air on those tires too high.
3) Combination of 1 and 2.

If it was number 2 or 3, is this your first car? There are max psi numbers on the tires for a reason.

chilledbenz

I feel for ya I've been in your situation before, just be thankful with all the other reports popping up on this board about transmission troubles, engine troubles and electrical gremlins that your problems are minor. If your looking for good news you can be assured that the warranty will take care of your concerns. The reason for the loaner car is because I would be most certain that the service department doesn't have the parts you are needing in stock, they seem pretty random and haven't heard of others here having those problems.

mac911

For all those having trouble, any polling or logging done, to see if the problems have been equally between South African and German built cars, or not?

imboom

I was thinking the same.

Bremen made car here, 0 problems. *knock on wood*

chilledbenz

Bremen car here...and I've had problems with mine. Gotta be careful with starting threads about problems people are seeing with cars though. I attempted to do a thread for people to state what problems they were having after I had my trouble, but I got shot down here pretty quick. The people that haven't had any problems will flame you for posting.

jrct9454

I think the real issue is trying to draw grand conclusions, either positive or negative, from the truly microscopic sample that is represented online. Whether your experiences are positive or negative, there are simply too few cars represented here to make a statistical sample that is worth much.

Which is why Consumer Reports is so important - their data represents the only decent sampling that is not under control of the manufacturer; the car makers themselves are the only other ones that have real data, and needless to say, they aren't talking. JD Powers, and similar pollsters, also represent samples that are too small to be really useful.

In my personal sample of ONE, our car has been issue-free and a joy to own. It has been significantly better in every respect, including build quality, vs our W203 C240, and just about every other German car we've ever had. I could draw one kind of conclusion from that, or accept the fact that it's just one experience.

If you've had a problem, it's tempting to look for others with the same problem, and then conclude that it's a widespread or genetic weakness in the car - but it takes a lot more cars than we can sample here to know anything important about reliability and potential inherent weaknesses.

Some of you seem inclined to be pessimistic based on what you've experienced or read here - others, like me, see the W204 as a real step forward for MB, and a sign that they've turned a corner. Neither view is "right" until a lot more time and miles have passed under a lot more wheels than are represented here.

chilledbenz

This is true the car is still fairly new and being new is part of the problem I'm sure they will work out the kinks for the upcoming model year. I hope mine was a one time thing and nothing more happens the rest of the time I own it. I keep my cars for 4 years or 50k miles which ever comes first because thats when the warranty is up and I've seen what the repair bills on MB's are...you don't want to be paying that out of your pocket. I have a gut feeling with this car I'll be getting rid of it much sooner though..cross my fingers.

KuiDaCroat22

How can you find out whether or not your car was made in Germany or not?!?! Id like to find out about mine

chilledbenz

There are a couple of ways of finding this out. The first way is your car came with a window sticker stating where it was made, but sometimes this sticker is removed when you take delivery. Then it can become a little complicated but see if you can follow me, the first cars that rolled off the line were all Bremen cars and at some point around Nov/Dec of 07 the London South Africa plant took over the making of all rear drive C300's. If you took ownership of your car after Nov/Dec of 07 then the quick way to tell where it was made is in the options, if its a 4matic then it was made in Bremen, if its rear wheel drive it was made in South Africa. The C350 seems to be the odd one out and if I'm not mistaken is only made in Bremen. There is also a link that was floating around here somewhere where you typed in your vin number and it told you were it was made, but I'm not so sure I would want to be typing my vin number in on some website.

angeloxnet

all canadian bound cars were from Bremen, as of June, Not sure if this has changed or not

oblu

Bremen car; lots of little issues.

Holy christ, if this car is 'turning a corner' I shudder to think how bad the w203 must've been. Every time my wife gets in the car, and the mirrors squeal
or the sunroof squeals she just shakes her head and says, 'you just had to have this car; remember that'. She's no BMW fan, really she hates them with a passion and likes to refer to them clarkson style as '***** cars', but her other favorite saying around my car is, 'you gave up your BMW for this?'

If this is the best Mercedes has got, they've got a long way to go.

mac911

Look inside the driver door. Mine says Made in Germany. I assume others say Made in South Africa, if from South Africa.

Also, like the last letter in the VIN, numbers after it, it is R on South African cars, F, on Bremen Germany cars.

imboom

A few of us had the mirror squeal. I've had it, yet it's not a problem for me because I see it as a realistic problem. I've lubricated the seals and since then it has never squealed. No car will be 100% perfect off the lot and I could honestly say that since I've had cars that had small problems like you complained about but then turned out to last 100k miles and still strong after I sold it.

Unfortunately, some people(not naming you) expect a C-Class to have the same qualities as an S-Class. Hyundai can't do it with a $40,000 car, so let's be really realistic here, the C-Class is NOT ever going to be MB's best. C-Class was always been the entry level item to their whole brand line. In the US, there is no other way but going up the model lineup. Think of the Ipod from Apple on the first three generations. They were full of problems, looked cool, costed quite a bit for an mp3 player, but opened the eyes of consumers to their more expensive computers.

jrct9454

All I know is that our car has been a real joy to own and drive.

Sorry if your experience differs.

And I can tell you from BMWCCA and the E90 boards, there are plenty of people wondering why they bought a BMW 3er. As noted above, if you want perfection, you'd better be buying Japanese.

oblu

It's okay, you can go ahead and name me. I guess I'm just disillusioned. I've had a couple of BMWs and a couple of Audis and, even though they were entry level, they never felt like it, looked like it or acted like it. I had an 03 A4 and then bought a lease return 01 A8L because I knew how it had been treated and the mileage was crazy low. The A4 held up beautifully next to the A8 in terms of material quality and craftsmanship.

I find the "entry level" argument a bit of a cop out.

Benzalot

Actually, I just purchased a 2006 W203 and it has all of the options I hear 204'ers missing on their rides. I was seriously looking at a W204 and had real sweet, loaded, low milage C230 follow me home from the dealership. I saved myself about $18K and a sounds like a lot of problems. I can find no fault in this car... (and it has electric memory seats and steering wheel adjustments! ) It drives like a big go cart!!! I am most happy with my decision.

Regardless which body style you select, the C Class, in the long run is a lot of car for the price. I just sold my 20 yr old "entry level" 190D which provided me great service over the years. The squeeks and rattles are little things and when the other cars are complete junkers, your "entry level" Benz will still be running and looking good.