This is a great post with excellent real world experience contained. I had to read it twice just to soak it all in. Thanks for sharing, much appreciated.

 

Really great topic and I thought I would share my perspective. I am a bit biased since I grew up with Mercedes cars since the 1980s. Having owned about a dozen in my lifetime, I can say that the these cars are some of the best engineered, but I agree deficiency will always be in the plastics. I would not view this as necessarily negative as this is just a cost to ensure they can market and sell their cars competitively. All car companies are doing this btw.

Having owned 3 Porsche 928s, which all had issues with rubber and plastics just like most other German cars, everything gets brittle, rubber hoses burst, gaskets harden, etc. Thats just how it is. No offense to BMW owners, but I feel like those plastics fail the more often than most. Do not know why?

Back on Porsche, I spent more time wrenching a Porsche in a garage or sourcing no longer avail parts than actually enjoying. I’ve also been stranded regularly where AAA was becoming the first card in my wallet.

Now to compare that to the r230 SL500 which I bought to replace the 928 with over 10yrs ago, I’ve never been stranded. Everything always works and I have top down fun everyday and any day I want. I am seeing signs of rubber aging here and there especially motor mounts or valve gaskets which are normal maintenance, so nothing that is out of the ordinary. I am constantly evaluating the ABC struts and valve blocks which are still original and in need of replacing or rebuilding at some point - still in decent shape as I regularly change fluid and store car in heated garage. No issues…yet. Russian Roulette maybe, but I’m ready for the repair, just want to max the life out since it is not my only car.

Only major non reg maintenance issue I ran into was trunk soft close failure. Dealer wanted over $2k to repair. I just came to this forum and learned to DIY the repair with gorilla glue to seal up the weak plastic motor. Cost less than $10 and about an hour of time. That was 8yrs ago and still functioning perfectly. Thank you mbworld members!!

In summary, it all boils down to following the rules of the game we all play. Educate yourself and pay to fix them or fix them yourself. Take care of your Benz and your Benz will take care of you.

 

Charging $2k to fix the soft close should be a felony, a d I am NOT joking.

 

The issue about failing plastics is not the fault of the manufacturers. In the late eighties, the German government mandated that all plastic be manufactured to be biodegradable (this included automobile parts) so as to not harm the environment when put in land fills. This is the reason why the plastics in German cars are starting to breakdown. They were designed to do this from the get go to be compliant with German law.

Germans are very environmentally conscious people. They even put dumpsters at the entrances to stores so you can discard over-packaging (cellophane, cardboard and Styrofoam packaging) so you don't have to take it home and then dispose of it!

 

You know, I always wondered why they went that route with the wiring harness back then. I never really looked into the why part, but that is interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

I remember the early W140s had the entire engine wiring harness go bad because of this "environmentally conscious" change.

 

The new plastics were also quite tasty as I recall. In 1992 I bought a then new body style (E36) BMW 318i. At the time BMW, M-B and many other German marques were the target of marmots that developed a taste for and were eating the plastics and insulation from engine wiring. Causing tens of thousands of DMs in damage.