First post for me on this forum.

I bought my CLS in the summer. Its used as a evening car and has only been driven 3,000 miles in 6 months. It is handeled like a new born baby, only me and my brother have driven it so far. Due to the Taxes on imported cars in India it cost us close to US $160,000 for the CLS 350 with the 18" alloys and some extras.

These are the problems that we have come across in the 3,000 miles.

- Alloys have been bent 6 times and have to be changed at a cost of $700 per alloy. It has always been either the front right or left one. I can email you a photo of it if you want, they are quite badly bent & always from the inside. As if the car has hit a curve or pot hole quite hard. Like i said, only me and my brother have driven it and both of us have NOT had any accidents or has the car been driven rough on bad roads. No damage has been found on the car or on the suspension. Mercedes changed the first 2 alloys which were damaged with in the first 500 miles for free. The other 4 times we have had to pay for them. This week the vibration came back and we found out that both of the alloys were bent again!!

Mercedes won't give us an explanation as to why the alloys keep on getting bent. We can't figure it out either, trust me when you pay close to $160,000 for a car you make sure that its driven with care. But yet the alloys keep on getting bent?

I am the only person that I know who own this car here so i can't ask around to see if this is a problem with the car or with the alloy! Hope you guys can help. Pleaseeeee. I am going crazy! Its like i am driving around a car made of Crystal.... This is a mercedes, it should be built like a rock!

- Add 1 litre engine oil keeps on coming up every 1,000 miles. Should it be burning so much oil?

- The drivers side electronic head rest switch broke off while i was trying to move the head rest up !! Yes honestly!! Iy just came off in my hand without any pressure applied to it! Is that Merc quality?

- Speedtronic has failed

- ETC has failed

- The engine fan operates at full speed at most of the time, even at a cold start

- The fuse for the Electric seats blew within 100 miles

As you can probably tell i am qute pi***d off with this car. I still don't want to get rid of it though as I love it. I think its one of the best cars out there in its class today.

All the other faults have now been fixed (even though they should not have been there) but what do i do about the 18" alloys? I know my driving isn't that bad? Its only used for Highway driving! What culd be going wrong? The roads are very good but yet they keep on getting bent?

Please help.

hmmm, that's strange, really strange. roads in malaysia aren't any better than those in india, yet i've never heard of this problem before.

unless india gets a different batch of alloys from other countries, i don't think it's anything to do with the alloys themselves.

what's the interval between getting these bent alloys? are you sure your bro isn't messing around with the car? :P i remember having a puncture, scratched alloy, and loose bumper after lending my E to my younger cousin lol.

i'd advice you to keep a log of everywhere the car goes for the next few weeks. might have missed something. a particular leg of a road where there's a big speed bump? something like that?

sorry, really not sure how i can help - perplexing!

My brother is older and much more of a easy going driver then me. I am sure that i haven't hit it on any pot hole and so is he. Ok once it happens fine, twice... maybe, thrice.... bad luck...... but six times is beyond a joke in such low mileage.

But surely a Alloy is such a metal that its quite hard to bend. We have Honda dealership's and we see cars come in which have had major accidents yet the alloys are still ok. The CLS hasn't got any scratches or any physical damage. That's what gets to me? To bend an alloy it should take quite an impact and not just a pot hole. But they seem to be getting bent in even the smallest of pot holes on the highway.

Trust me this car is driven very nicely. Like i said when you spend $160,000 on a car you drive it like its a new born baby.

Thats what gets to me!!! Is it a design fault? Suspension problem? What could it be?

How is the ride in everyones CLS? In mine you can feel every bump on the highway. Its rougher then if i were in a SL. Is that the way its meant to be?

What about the head rest button breaking off and Merc refuseing to fix it?

about the problem with burning Oil.

New 3.5L engine seems to be buring much oil and it was also reported with SLK350 and other new 3.5L equipped cars.

HOWEVER, any thing over 1L per every 1000 mile is EXCEEIVE for any car and let dealer know about this issue.

The dealer says that the engine burning the oil so quickly is normal.

So has no one else had any issues with the 18" alloys? Do you think we are getting deffective alloys here? Maybe they are made here so the quality isn't the same?

My suspension became quite hard for a while too. It felt like I was riding in a go-kart. I could feel every tiny nook on the road. The suspension hardend the same day that the ESP Malfunction came. I told the dealer about it, after they had changed the sensors on the steering wheel they called me to pick up the car. I told them to go take out it out for a spin and check the suspension. After those sensor replacements the suspension feels fine. The CLS should glide on highways, I barley feel cracks now.


Hope that helps.

They hvae replaced the ESP chip but the suspension is still rock hard. Yeah it does feel like a go-cart. But how are the suspension and the chip linked?

Got one of my friends in Delhi to hook me up with the number of another CLS owner there. Guess what? His car is in the workshop facing the same problems today. His alloys are bent too??

What's going on?

Running over too many of the lower cast ? I would like to know what happens when you change back to 17" rims and see what happens then.

For starters if I had to replace a bent rim then I would assume that the alignment of the steering was also damaged.

What is the force you are using to fasten the rims to the hub ? Overtightening the the wheels bolts is also something I would look at and then the order in which they are tightened.

How ould i check if the allignment of the stearing is gone?

You personally cant check it. It needs to be put on the device which is designed for that purpose.

Im not exactly sure how they are linked, but it might have fixed the suspension because they had to reset the ECU. When I sent in my car for service they told me that the computer was not showing any suspension troubles. I told them to take the car out for a spin and feel it for themselves before they hand it back to me.

Ask your service department to take the car out for a spin. They will undoubtably notice the tight suspension and then they can troubleshoot it and quite possibly refund you for the bent rims.

lallyr, are u in delhi? what dealer do u service ur car at?

I asked them to look at the suspension. They too put it on the machine and said it was fine. I dont think he took it for a test drive but instead checked all the settings and said that they were fine.

akzz - I am based in Punjab and my local dealer here is Tai-Pan traders. The delhi dealer is around 5 hrs from me so i could take it there if they could fix the problem. Why do you ask?

I can tell u for a fact that the delhi dealers will have a better knowledge of the problem due to the extensive range of cars they deal with.

I strongly recommend u taking ur car there and give it a shot since its been bothering you a lot.

Cheers

Have a look at these? Thats the bent alloys. Shouldn't it take quite a impact to bend them so much?

Has no one else experianced this yet?

What kind of tire pressure do you have on your wheels? I have been experiencing tire pressure loss on all wheels because of NYC potholes. I had filled it up to 39 PSI all around 3 weeks ago and now its down to 32.

The rims might be taking in all of the pothole impact.

Its just around the 33psi mark. Once again i must stress that this car has only been driven by two drivers who love it more then their wives. Any pot holes are avoided like the plague. Yet still we have bent 6 alloys. I don't think it is a driver problem. It has got to do with the suspension or the alloy being made locally and not to the high standards.

Here is a few other pics of what problems i am facing....

i bent mine after 3k miles running into a little pothole.. the steering was shaking at first so i thought it was an alignment problem.. took it to the dealership and they said the right side rims were all bent.. luckily they fixed it.

For free or did you have to pay out? How severe was the impact on the pot hole?

lallyr,

how u doin?? i think ur bent alloys are mainly due to a low profile tyre, and you using them on indian roads.

Didd u manage to take ur car to the dealer in Delhi?

I can assure you that they could help you out.

Cheers!

Not yet. Going to try and take it down sometime next week. Not sure if they will help though!

no pay out.. the mb service just got it fixed for me.. it wasn't that bad but enough to feel it above 50mph+

I'm sure they will help, I personally know them. I can PM you the name and number if you want, just lemme know.

Cheers!

Akzz - Yeah that would be perfect. Thank you

PM sent Lallyr