Me! Me! I'll keep it for my grandkids. Who knows? I'll put it up next to my Daniel Ellsberg photo.

pek

 

Here's a pic taken today of my seats.

 

Wow.... if there are that many people having problems here this has to be a wide spread problem... this could get interesting.... they will probably just ship them all to warm climate cities to resale them

 

Sounds like the TSB should take care of it; seems like MB is on this. I will also have to say that my dealer and it's service have been great; I just hope the fix comes sooner rather than later.

I still love this car, and I'm already starting to having separation anxiety.

StanNH - Did you get any timelines for your fix?

 

Well, The China plant screws Benzes together very well. Better than Tuscaloosa. China has plenty of cold weather up north. No reports of trouble with MBTex from China.

With China you get what you pay for. Want it cheap. They will make it cheap. They are capable of first class quality. But then you must pay. Most are happy with their iPhones.

 

No, I was told it's a work in progress and I shouldn't get upset if I don't hear anything until next week. Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying the self lubricating seat option.

 

Maybe you should get together with your chemist buddies & sell the technology to a prophylactic manufacturer.

 

MB-USA already owns the technology. I'll be watching for a branded MB product ... MBRACE would be an appropriate name.

 

 

Someone take it to the lab.

 

People who don't own the new C seems to make more fuss then the owners having the issue.
As one pointed out above: having separation anxiety for having to deliver the car for the fix.

 

well this is turning out to be a significant problem. makes a good argument for leasing 1st/2nd year production runs.

 

If you were making this argument with regard to the taillight/bumper issue, I would agree. However, MBTex has been around since the dawn of mankind. This major screw-up can't be attributed to the car being a new build.

 

How could this matter?, i is a completely reworked new model, it is very likely that the MB-Tex in the 205 series is a completely new product.

 

Would they use this only on US builds though?

Not that this would be a complete sample or inclusive of local environmental conditions during US MBTex production, but are you guys seeing anything like this at your dealership?

 

I'll bet this product, likely from a local supplier, got tested under high UV, high temperature exposure & passed. The problem was unforseen at low temperature.

In SA, crude as it may seem. All plastic products are placed in a site on the plant roof under the blazing African sun & monitored. There are also accelerated lab tests but the roof test has ensured that dashboards etc. don't curl up & crack etc in our harsh conditions.

 

Well after my five mile commute to the train station I saw this forming all over the front seats. The car was kept in a garage all night and then exposed to nj temperatures which are in the single digits ( negative with wind chill). This is on top of the tail light alignment issues that I had posted earlier this week. Not sure when my car was made but I took ownership of it on December 30th! and it had 7 miles on it. The salesperson had said at the time that they just got it in so I'd assume a relatively new build. I'm pretty disappointed in my purchase so far with these issues. My prior car was a 1999 Lexus gs300 that had less issues in the 12 years that I owned it. Will speak to my sales guy today and already have a scheduled service appointment for this weekend to fix the tail light. Should have bought the 3 series like I was planning to (cheaper with much more options and better performance).

 

To those wondering about MBTex development, the concept of MBTex is old, but it's likely new to the US supplier. Let's start by separating performance standards from process standards. MB would have most likely given the US supplier performance standards, such as, the material shall have such-and-such tensile strength, grain, puncture resistance, surface reflectivity, odor, etc. It is then up to the supplier, as the expert on whom MB relies, to develop the manufacturing process to achieve the performance standards in the product. Focusing on product standards and allowing the expert to have the flexibility and creativity to innovate the outcome is common. This also applies to many Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, where the government identifies the required end result (the light shall illuminate to some degree), but gives the manufacturers, as the product experts, wider berth to innovate the design to achieve that outcome.

As to cold weather testing, auto companies here all know the town of Bimidji, Minnesota, typically the coldest town in the US. The residents there could tell you of parades of various brand prototypes coming into/through town. I am highly confident that MB is among them. I turned down the opportunity for such a "cold trip", as I really hate the cold (which makes today in Michigan particularly painful at minus 14 degrees F windchill - schools are closed!).

So, again with speculation, what probably happened? Most likely, the prototype material did fine on the cold trip. But, as the supplier moved to volume production, they may have made a seemingly innocent change in the process, likely to improve throughput or save cost, or, something may have happened inadvertently in production which was not apparent in more normal temperatures.

Right now, that seat trim supplier is likely figuring out how to produce enough material to replace the vehicles built from the "dirty point" to the "clean point", the population they can identify which would have been made with the suspect material. The financial guys are determining the hit for the warranty which they will need to absorb from MB. Again, someone or ones career(s) may find they are facing a detour.

 

I bought my C300 on October 25th. From what I could tell it was possibly the dealer's second delivery of new C's. My VIN is in the 144XX range. Not sure where that compares to those vehicles that are having the issue.

I have black MB-Tex and it may have been mentioned before but I would like to know what conditions seem to cause this? Is it just the cold weather or is it the change from cold to warm temperatures in the car (from the car's heater?) that causes this? Does it need to be exposed to the sun?

It was 9 degrees this morning. My vehicle is always garaged overnight. The garage is not heated. However, I leave for work around 5:30am and when I get in my car in the morning the only light in the garage is the small garage door opener light and it does not get light outside until a little after 7. Point is I do not get to see my seats in good light in the mornings. Also, I park in a covered (unheated) garage at work (why I asked about the sun above).

I am still trying to figure out if my garaging/parking/driving situation has simply masked the issue and I have not seen it yet or if I am lucky enough to not be affected by it for some reason (build date?). I doubt the last part comes into play since the TSB references dealership stock as possibly having the issue.

Anyway, I definitely have the tail light misalignment issue and have pretty much decided the dealer may do more damage than good so I may not even try to get that fixed; however, if my seats even look half as bad as Stan's I am immediately going to the dealer for a loaner - with TSB in hand.

I fully expected some issues with a first gen redesign so I am not overly worried (yet). I am getting slightly concerned about the possible resale value problems if this issue is not resolved fully.

Has anyone looked at the other forums to see if other models are having this issue? For the life of me I can't imagine MB using a completely different MB-Tex on JUST the C class. Could they????

 

Thanks, that is really helpful and interesting information. With all of the criticism that the Alabama plant has been getting, is it fair to say that this issue is not their fault?

 

I do not believe sunlight has anything to do with this. I first experienced this issue after parking in a covered parking garage in extreme cold for two days and then driving it home at night. My garage at home is insulated but not heated, and I had never experienced the issue until I had parked it outside in the cold.

I personally am not concerned about resale value. They will eventually replace the covers and this issue will be a long forgotten years from now when I am ready to sell the car.

 

In this case, most surely. They just install the seat sets which they receive, probably no more than about four hours before the car is built. With in-sequence, just-in-time inventory management, they have possession of them only briefly.

 

Yes ~ you guys run typical outsourced JIT plants. In East London SA plant upholstery & some other trim is internal so raw material inventories are quite long by comparison due to location & method.

 

Is it possible that there are other factors in play like a moisture leak from somewhere else? Like through the sunroof or door sills that just happen to condensate that way on parts of the MB-Tex?

 

Is there a contact # or email at MBUSA that others are using? My anger is growing on this issue as the day progresses while its parked in near 0 degree parking lot. I have a toddler and a pregnant wife and I will refuse to let them go into the car even if they say this is safe (California has banned some plasticizers on children's toys for example). Also where can I find the build date? I took ownership of this on Dec 30th and it had 7 miles on it (it had just come in they said).





From an unheated garage to a parking lot in 9 minutes this emerged. (Driver seat)





Passenger seat (the heated seats were not on).





Passenger seat (under the headrest). Can't wait to see what happens when I get home tonight!!!!