cntlaw

Never ever happened to any of the cars I ever owned



It was a thunder storm here , so I set the wiper to fast mode several times in the heavy rain, less than 15 minutes started the car , I heard a a bang and the passenger side wiper stopped.

We were pretty lucky because the driver side wiper was still working. So many trucks around me in the highways in the dark and heavy black rain ..............

I would not be here typing this message if that happened to the driver side

I am going to write to MB and advise them to close down all factories in South Africa



cnt
P.S. now I truly miss my W210 made in Germany

djx18

Damn C55's!! There starting to **** me off lol! I’ve used me wipers in heavy rain many times even in hail. I was crying when it started hailing lol luckily it didn’t hurt my car. But anyways, yea my wipers have been working fine just to let u know! But I think you can get your wipers fixed unless the C55 has special wipers which they don’t have parts to haha. But yea u should definitely write that letter to MB.

cntlaw

Yes. I am going to write to MB and make the biggest complain to the best car producer in human history.
I have no issue with an air cond breakdown even I am in a desert , I won't get killed right away; but in the black rain , a 10 days old NEW CAR, anything could happen.

Honestly , I work in large corp , I know what they have to do to survive , i.e. to move labours to low cost countries. That is the way the world will have to accept it . And, I know exactly what is the quality level down those countries - they might have some brillaint people but overall there are inconsistences and still some poor quality mindsets down there. (And, German are very discipline and demanding people, thats why they make best cars.)

Even I am not very upset because it is a minor fault , the shhhhty bit is I am going to biz trip soon and staring my new car which I could drive. Today is Sunday, the black rain never did stop; so I will have to use my Honda today.

cnt

FIXEDupW209

the c55's are made in south africa?

cntlaw

Yes
All RHD C55 are made in SA

cnt

Tezta

Whitey

You saying with this you won't need wipers or Sth African MB's will work better????? lmao

cntlaw

I think he tries to be funny

cntlaw

Got the car checked and 'fixed' today. According to the dealer 's repair shop, no parts of the Wiper needed to be replaced; it was stopped by the 'computer/mechanics' due to the wiper exceeded an offset allowed within its movement angle. They told me they adjusted it and it should not happen again. I took it back and never did test it - because the damn rain stopped

cnt

1313

All RHD W203 (Sedan) are assembled in South Africa. My C32 is also assembled there. My car has been trouble free for the last 1.5yr.

My friend's Germany assembled C180 Sport Coupe (CL203) has been facing a lot of electrical glitches since he took delivery of his car. I guess this boils down to luck.

cntlaw

Great Man , let's salute to the C RHD made in SA.
Yes, my C55 so far so good , no strange noise coming from the interior even I been down the rain in really bad damaged roads in HK.

BTW, The wiper problem was surely a human inpsection fault not the parts )

Yesterday was the first sunny day , I am looking forward a sunny day tommorrow

cnt

cntlaw

It s now 2 weeks past since I got this new baby.
In the past few days, there was not enough rain to stress test the repaired wiper again.

I have not found any more problems except I still find the radiator fan sound loud at times. The dealer said it is 'normal' after they had inspected it.

So far , I give a score 90 out of 100 to the C55 because I have not found any other problems yet.

The only comment is I found a tiny scratch on the front bumper caused by stones. And, I thought Nano paint technology supposed to stop this sort of things happened!

I did not do faster than 150kmh nor stress the engine that much just because I have done only 700km milege. Still under break-in period.



cnt

nlpamg

Wait WHAT???? w203's and C55's are made in South Africa? I thought that the engines of AMG models were build by hand in Alfterbach?

Are they just the w203's that they send to HK and a handful of other places in the world other than the US and Europe?

Childish///AMG

I guess that I better keep my 1995 "Accord" too Glad to hear that the wipers are working

cntlaw

All RHD C-class , CLK's are made in SA.
For C/CLK AMG's, they ship the AMG parts from Germany to SA for assemble and mods.
For RHD E or S , they should be still made in Germany.

I guess all LHD MB's are still made in Germany.

cnt

cntlaw

Honestly....I thought I gonna sell my other 2004 Accord but..then..may be I should keep it as a backup to the C55...

The 'sad' thing is my 2004 Accord is made in Thailand , not Japan

jcanabal

At Starfest 2004 the only C55 there was easily "heard" b/c of the fan noise. So, I think your dealer is correct...it's normal! Kind of loud!

Juan

cntlaw

If I have to be frank, the 'noise' is not acceptable for a MB quality.

One thing I discovered possibly one of the major differences of the E class and C class , is the external sound isolation and heat isolation, the C is poorer than my E320(W210). I found the inside of the C55 was much hotter than the E320 after a day parking in a shelterd car park.

cnt

1313

Mercedes is not the only german maker that assembles their cars in S.A. BMW RHD E46 (3series) sedans are also assembled there.

AMG's engines are still built and assembled in Germany. They are shipped to S.A. for final assembly.

VBD

No, only the C class RHD Saloons are made in South Africa, the Sports coupe's, estates and all RHD CLK's are made in Germany.

cntlaw

I see, not too surprise, C class has the largest production quantity which is worth the investment to set up the factory in SA. Any one knows if the 2006 C class LHD would still be made in Germany ?

cnt

VBD

Yes, it will still be built in Germany and possibly Austria.

For info the South African factory was set up in the mid to late 70's and at the time was the only Mercedes factory outside of Germany. So not an entriely new factory. Productivity and quality in the factory is on par with the German factories. Lots of DC's new car testing is conducted out there due to the varied terrains available and the remoteness of some of the locations used(less chance for the press to get photos). The SLR was presented to and first tested by the press in Cape Town (not to far from the Mercedes Factory in East London). The Current DC Chairman Jeurgen Schremp (Excuse the spelling) used to be the managing director there in the Late 80's early 90's.

Other cars built there are the Honda Civic's (strange but true, at the time the deal was setup so as to provide DC with a low cost car to compete with the likes of the VW Golf, Toyota Corolla, Basically to increase profits), and the Mitsubishi Colts (pickups, large sellers in South Africa and the rest of Africa) and the Pajero's (used to be assembled from parts shipped from Japan).

1313

Just to add on, Mercedes also assembles some models in India. Some of the W124 E220D at my place are made there. It's stated in the VIN plate.

BenzVince

GEEZ, wiper failure huh after having it for ten days. So much for quality problem.

cntlaw

It is nice to re-visit this thread I posted when I got my big toy :p .

That was a detached connection issue. It never happened again after the dealer re-attach it to the right place. Neither I heard anyone had the same problem. So, I would say that was an incident rather than a problem.
Now, eight months, done 11000km , the only other problem I had was the transmission fluid leaking - a common known W203 problem, which was fixed by the dealer's replacing a cap/ring something.

I did not encounter any other problems reported by some C55 owners in this forum. All touch wood , my C55 maintains the same overall 'quality feel' as my 2001 W210 E320, i.e. strong body chasis, minium and acceptable interior rattling even its AMG stiff suspension been riding on rough roads here, cold enough air condition, not one lamp ever malfunctioning, the folding mirrors fold smoother then new as time passes, sharp steering as it was new, windows/moon-roof open and close as smooth as they were new...etc

May be , we can conclude the SA built RHD W203 does not have any significant degradation of MB's overall quality? My personal satisfaction score to the C55 is 90%.

cnt