NastyAluQuadra

I just knew something would go wrong.

Booked in my SL to have the brakes checked following the SBC recall notice in the press.

Spoke to MB call centre, who confirmed there was an issue - speak to the dealer. They also said the problem would feel like total brake failure and there had been two cases in the UK. Not to worry though as they say if you push hard enough some reversionary back up brake action does appear (err, so that won't be scary or dangerous then when it takes you by surprise).

Rang dealer, they confirmed they would do the SBC check and booked it in for 15.00 today (latest they could do). OK, bit early in the afternoon but I left work early and turned up. "Err, we are not able to do any work yet....need to goto some servicing conference and we don't know what the procedure is.....". Incredible. "Can you wait for the recall letter?" Why didn't they ring me? Why did they take the booking? Wasted hours when I really needed to be at work.

Blue SL - going by your recent experience, I want an Aston dealer to look after my SL.

NastyAluQuadra

Is no other UK owner bothering to worry about this?

I'd thought this would get some replies?

Mustard

Well, I phoned my local, but useless, dealer. He told me to wait for the official recall letter. It hasn't arrived.

He did say the problem and subsequent recall was prompted by two taxis in Germany that, after 100,000 miles or so, had brake failure. The back-up mechanical system worked well but not as planned.

I'm with other forumee's who maintain this SBC system is a load of crap and should be deleted ASAP.

I notice its not on the new SLK.

NastyAluQuadra

Not heard a sniff from anyone or the dealer since.

I rang my local Aston dealer yesterday and have registered interest in the new AM V8. I'm getting quite excited about not having to deal with any more Mercedes dealers.

blueSL

I haven't heard anything. Given the problems with SBC and the cost of the recall, my guess is that Mercedes want to be completely sure that this is all there is to do.

SBC has proved a technical and especially commercial failure, a pointless application of technology to solve a problem which didn't exist while providing the driver with a completely artificial braking feel. Those of us with early SLs are stuck with the first implementation of a complex system which has since been revised for both the SL and the E Class and now dumped. As Mercedes are finding, there's 800000 problem fraught cars out there already and each day, more than 1000 join their ranks.

Wouldn't surprise me if there's a drains up going on on the whole thing to minutely review what needs to be done in the recall.

It's a heavy duty application of electronics and especially high pressure (160 bar, over 2000 psi) hydraulics and my prediction is that it will prove ruinously expensive to maintain these cars as they start aging. 100000 miles in an SL? We just do not know yet how it's going to be. As I've said before, that shiny silver lump at the front right of the engine bay costs $3500....

SL Boy

According to my dealer the fix is a software upgrade and the SL recall is not urgent. The problem affects only cars with SBC that have had more than 100,000 brake applications - and the problem has only come to light on E class models used as taxis in Germany. However the software upgrade will be carried out on all cars fitted with SBC.

I am told I can expect to receive a letter in the next month.

NastyAluQuadra

Now this sounds interesting.

This smells like a software reqt/design/coding error where a counter or somesuch overflows leading to a crash of the software after 100000 applications of the brakes.

How many miles had the taxis done I wonder?

JackStraw

Mercedes Recall Brakes the Bank
Sensotronic issue to prompt massive worldwide recall of several models.
by Mac Gordon (2004-05-31)


Mercedes-Benz is preparing to conduct the biggest product recall in its history - a development compounding its recent rash of quality problems. The recall is particularly sensitive for the revered automaker because it involves the Sensotronic advanced braking system that the German automaker introduced three years ago on E-Class and SL cars as a failsafe advancement "nothing short of a revolution." A total of 680,000 Mercedes cars are being recalled worldwide, of which about 180,000 are in the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal last week. The system's hydraulic tank can develop bubbles that cause braking failure, says the automaker, however no complaints have come from the U.S.

Developed by Robert Bosch GmbH at a cost of $150 million over a six-year period, the electronic brakes system relies on microchips to determine when emergency stopping is underway. The high-pressure hydraulic reservoir that backs up the electronic devices applies maximum braking instantaneously. In the Sensotronic technology, electronics vary the braking force on each wheel. Microchips note the car's speed and direction when the driver's foot leaves the accelerator. As soon as the driver's foot hits the brake pedal, braking force is applied most forcefully to the front outer wheel and then to the rear inner wheel.

A spokesman for Mercedes-Benz, Johannes Reifenrath, said that while the automaker plans to keep Sensotronic on E-Class, SL-Class, Maybach, and SLR McLaren cars, the system is very costly and other systems may be studied as possible replacements. Mercedes said that most complaints came from drivers of high-use vehicles, such as taxis. Mercedes has encountered a number of quality setbacks in recent years. Its reliability score on J.D. Power surveys rose to 318 problems per 100 vehicles last year for 2000-model-year vehicles and early in May stood at 108 problems in the first 90 days of ownership of 2004 vehicles. The brake recall could cost Mercedes about $30 million, Reifenrath said. -Mac Gordon

SL Boy

I was told and have also read elsewhere that the taxis had all done over 100,000 miles

SL Boy

I am suspicious about this story. I very much doubt that a Mercedes authorised spokesperson would admit what amounts to sudden brake failure and state the company's potential financial liability. If this was said by someone other than a Mercedes authorised spokesperson I would throw doubt on the credilbility of the story.

Has anyone read anything similar anywhere else that would help to corroborate this story?

JackStraw

Another Glitch at Mercedes
Recall of 140,000 U.S. Models
For Brake Trouble Compounds
Quality Issues That Plague Brand

By STEPHEN POWER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May_26,_2004;_Page_B1

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below0.)

Mercedes-Benz owners weary of quality problems are headed for another bump in the road.

The luxury division of DaimlerChrysler AG is preparing to notify U.S. owners of about 140,000 Mercedes passenger cars that their advanced "electrohydraulic" brake system could fail and must be brought in for service.

Touted by Mercedes three years ago as "nothing short of a revolution," the system was designed to improve braking in dangerous conditions. But it can be foiled by air bubbles that may develop in the brakes' hydraulic tank. Mercedes says the cars have a backup hydraulic system that activates the brakes if the electronic technology fails.

The U.S. recall will be announced in letters to customers over the next few weeks and is part of a wider recall affecting 680,000 E-Class and SL cars world-wide that also have the braking system, which the company calls Sensotronic. It is the biggest recall in Mercedes history and an unpleasant distraction at a time when the German company is trying to put to rest questions about quality.

The recall illustrates what has become a persistent problem for Mercedes, one of the most admired names in automobiles. In seeking to maintain its reputation as a leader in cutting-edge technologies, the company hasn't always been able to deliver the innovation it promised, or found that customers didn't always appreciate the improvements.

Last July, for example, Mercedes took the unusual step of offering new cars to about 2,000 owners of the 2003 E-Class cars who paid for but never received built-in navigation systems. Because the systems weren't ready at the time of the vehicles' launch, the company planned to allow the new owners to come back later to have the systems installed -- only to decide that such retrofits would be too complex and time-consuming.

Over the past few years, several Mercedes models have been riddled with glitches in increasingly complicated electronics systems. And in January, Mercedes announced it was recalling 33,000 vehicles world-wide to check potentially faulty seat-belt buckles.

In several quality studies, Mercedes has slipped. A study of vehicle reliability by J.D. Power & Associates last year found Mercedes had 318 problems per 100 vehicles in the 2000 model year -- worse than such middlebrow names as Dodge (312 problems per 100 vehicles), Subaru (266 problems per 100) and Mazda (288 problems per 100). Earlier this month, Mercedes improved its performance on the latest J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, which measures defects in the first 90 days of ownership. With 106 defects per 100 cars, Mercedes rose to 10th on the survey, from 15th a year earlier, when it had 132 defects per 100 cars.

But that improvement came too late for some car buyers. Merrel Wilkenfeld, of Charlotte, N.C., bought a $52,000 2003 E-Class but found that after a few months, the radio wouldn't shut off, the windows wouldn't close properly, and something was wrong with the brakes.

"I'd pull up to a red light, and other drivers would look over to see this beautiful Mercedes squealing to a halt at 10 miles an hour," Mr. Wilkenfeld says. In January, he traded in the E-Class for a 2004 Jaguar S-Type.

Mercedes officials acknowledge they have received complaints from buyers about quality and say they have taken steps to address the complaints. Among the steps: increasing product testing by 50% and sending employees to parts suppliers such as Motorola Inc., Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG to gain more expertise on integrating new technologies into vehicles.

Other complaints, Mercedes officials say, involve less grave issues and are limited to the U.S. market, such as gripes about the size of cup holders and noise generated by windshield wipers at high speeds.

"Mercedes customers should have very high expectations about their vehicles, but in many cases, Mercedes customers have absolute quality expectations, which means 'no failure' or 'no quality problem whatsoever,'_" says Mercedes spokesman Johannes Reifenrath.

In the case of the advanced brake system, Mercedes bet on a technology that had won over many outside safety experts. An association of international experts in the field of brake technology honored the system in November 2001 as "an important contribution to increasing active safety in motor vehicles."

Developed by German car-parts maker Robert Bosch GmbH at a cost of nearly $150 million over six years, the "brakes with an electronic brain" use microchips to sense when a driver is braking in an emergency, and can draw on a high-pressure hydraulic reservoir to apply maximum braking force instantaneously.

Based on the car's speed and direction, the brakes apply different braking pressure to each of the four wheels, which helps maintain control even in emergency stops. Compared with conventional brakes, they can reduce a vehicle's stopping distance by as much as 3% -- a big difference in an accident. If the electronic components fail, the car still can be stopped, thanks to a backup hydraulic system that activates the front brakes.

But to some customers, the improvement wasn't apparent.

"Even the salesperson could not feel a difference," Joseph Testa, 39, of Tampa, Fla., says of the Bosch system in his 2002 E-430 sedan. Mr. Testa wound up buying the model but says the dealer agreed to shave a few thousand dollars off the price after comparing it with an earlier model that lacked the system and noticing no major difference. "It killed him to have to admit it," Mr. Testa says.

Mercedes officials themselves aren't so bullish about the system's future. Although the company plans to keep it in the models that currently feature it -- including the E-Class, the SL-Class, Maybach and SLR McLaren -- Mr. Reifenrath, the company spokesman, says the system is "very costly" and that conventional braking technology has improved to the point that "we can look at other systems."

He declined to say how much the Bosch system costs. A Bosch spokesman says Mercedes officials have told his company the system "is too expensive and in newer models they wouldn't apply it."

Mercedes says it didn't receive any complaints about the brakes from U.S. customers, and that most complaints involved vehicles with high rates of usage, such as taxis. Mr. Reifenrath wouldn't say what the recall would cost the company, but said reports that it would be €25 million, about $30 million, "sound reasonable."

"When you're an innovation leader and you introduce developments like air bags and [electronic brakes], the others can watch and see you develop the system and see you invest the money and time, and then you've done the work for them," Mr. Reifenrath said. While some customers "may not appreciate" certain safety improvements, he adds, "If you want to be an innovation leader, you have to invest in these things."

Two other German car makers also recalled high-end vehicles. Porsche AG said yesterday it is recalling more than 40,000 Cayenne sport-utility vehicles world-wide to check for potential faults in rear seat belts, while Volkswagen AG recalled some 60,000 of its Touareg SUVs to address the same problem. Porsche and Volkswagen jointly developed the two SUVs and they share some parts.

Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com5

Corrections & Amplifications:

Mercedes-Benz'S 2002 E-430 sedan doesn't come equipped with a brake system that is the subject of a recent recall campaign. This article incorrectly reported that it does.

jco-amg

here is link to official press release

sbc check

blueSL

If there are 680000 cars to recall, $30m sounds low to me, $45 per car doesn't buy you much of anything.

SL Boy

about 20 minutes labour......perhaps enough for a software upgrade which is what I have been told is required.