Eurohorses

Just save up a bit more ang get one with warranty... the cars are great. Preventative maintenance is the key. With the warranty you can drive worry free and not have to come out of pocket much for repairs. Warranty is key with any AMG car.

jpohl402

WELL SAID MARCUS....

03'55AMG

i did not know the person, but he claimed foreign matter went into it when he was running without air filters.

220S

+1

And we've also been through this plenty of times on MBWorld: these are not inexpensive cars when new and they aren't inexpensive cars to maintain when used. People buying a used 996 because they're cheap to buy run into the same issue: expensive to fix. Go buy a used Italian exotic or an Aston or a Jag for cheap. Used prices are affordable. Repair isn't.

Show me 7 billion threads of people stranded with Airmatic. Airmatic can fail (like any strut) but you have plenty of warning signals. The few who have reported being stranded never pay attention to the car's behavior and keep on driving when they get symptoms. There are hundreds of thousands of MBs fitted with air suspension. They still use Airmatic on current cars. Where are all those people? On the side of the road?

The rear is a "killer" but not a "real" one. That's because the MB protocol at the dealer is to drop the rear to install. Because the air line isn't supposed to be pulled off the nipple to the reservoir. It's primarily a labor cost. But an Indy will show you how to do it. They don't have to follow protocol like the dealer does.

azncantonw211

i agree with emoving... and btw your cls looks amazing, i like your history of AMG's

emoving

WTF......you seriously posted that stupid comment on "multiple" super charger failures based on that worthless piece of information that you read "somewhere but don't know where". Way to help out a possible buyer with that gift bit. That is the dumbest thing I may have read yet. Some retard is driving around with no airfilters in a high performance car and sucks debris up damaging the engine. And that is the fault of MB......how? Newsflash newbie.....if you drive ANY car around with no air filter.....you will eventually do damage. You may want to just read threads instead if posting meaningless, baseless information

03'55AMG

nowhere did i say it was the Mercs fault, i said he brought it to a dealer and it was expensive..

AKnight55

If your running around without air filters then you are a true bonehead.. When i opened up my air boxes last summer you should have seen how much stuff the filters block from going into the engine..

GT-ER

Being left stranded does not mean "stranded on the road"...you could be left stranded in your house.

You'd be lying to yourself if you think the airmatic system is reliable. I have yet to meet an E-class owner that has never had an airmatic failure ( And I've met quite a few ).

FWIW, I work at an airport and in the parking lot there are currently TWO MB's stranded due to airmatic failure...lol. Just so happens I saw them yesterday...I know it's a lot of coincidence but I found it kinda funny ( and disturbing ).

AKnight55

Well you have never met me.. I have had no issues with my airmatic..(knock on wood)

AMGPilot

I've NEVER had an airmatic failure or issue in 97K miles.... Airmatic is reliable

GT-ER

You're right...I haven't. Nor did I say that there is a 100% failure rate.

emoving

I have had 2 E55s and a CLS55 and no airmatic failures.

GT-ER

Interesting...now no one has had an airmatic failure...lol. Since I'm all up for being proven wrong...I've started a poll:

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...c-failure.html

03'55AMG

I realize that, and im glad I dont know him. i change my air filters a lot because im in the country and its very dusty and lots of stuff gets up there. and i would NEVER run my car w/o filters.

Ali_E55

i got mine in september 2004 and it is a 2005 MY.

untill now it has 62k miles. modded like hell and junped through several times on humps.

untill now

non of them have failed.

one of the reasons that i noticed which lead to failure is that if you lower it too much or drive it on sport 2 alot.

most of my driving is on comfort. + never used to ride passengers. most of the time me + a passenger. rarely me + 2 passengers. ^_^

220S

I had a Bilstein coilover strut blow out on me and it left me stranded. A long way from home. I also had a KW strut leak that was not detectable and eventually fail to operate which made me have to get the car flat bedded. And there are no warning lights or messages that go off when they're about to fail or when they've actually failed. If I had kept on driving I would have damaged many suspension components.

I've never been stranded on the side of the road nor at my home or anybody's home driving a car with Airmatic. Nor have I ever experienced a failure.

So what can I say? That I'm "lying to myself?"

06E55

I had absolutely ZERO symptoms when my rear failed. Well, technically, I did have one "symptom..." When I shut the engine off the day it failed, it made a screeching sound. I thought it was someone's serpentine belt squealing (I was outside of my car sitting at a table when the sound started). When I got back into the car and started it up (the car was backed into the spot and was on an incline, plus I was with a date so I wasn't paying any attention to the vehicle), I got a red message saying Airmatic Failure (or whatever message came up)... So, if you call that "plenty of warning signals," then yes, I did... But I doubt anyone could say that I had plenty of warning...

My car isn't lowered, nor do I drive around in Sport I or II very often...

£ C43 £ AMG £

I have to repair my passenger seat when I take someone for a ride for the first time ..........................from the whole they blow through the base

GET ONE and if you change your mind sell it, but you will find it hard to let go of the addiction.

£ C43 £ AMG £

I drove 10 miles with a busted driver air strut on 19's, rubbed the arch when turning. Front was 2inch off the ground.

replacement took me 40mins thanks to the DIY thread.

If you get one just stay away from the stealer and you will be fine.

GT-ER

I've had over 20 cars in my life and have had one one strut failure ( huge pot hole ) and it did not leave me stranded ( I used the car like this for a week bouncing all over the place...lol ). You cannot tell me the airmatic system is more reliable than a standard strut/spring system. I must admit that perhaps I was hating on the system more than I should have, which is evident by the poll I opened. But even at a near 40% failure rate ( poll is at 38% right now, let's see how it goes in a few days ) that's pretty freaking high. I should open a new poll on a W203 forum or something to see how many failures they get ( and I don't mean slowly wearing out failures, I mean full blown leaving you stranded failures...like airmatic does ).

stevebez

As a DD - I would be prettty worried about this car without a warranty. DIY maintenance and parts online help allot. So as an occasional / weekend car maintenance & running costs should not be a major issue.

But no one has mentioned the mod bug?

You need at least 5k$ set aside when this hits you and trust me it will. And be prepared to see that number rise and rise quickly.....

tgoss

No doubt. This car has been great on my wallet for maintenance. Best daily driver I could imagine at this point in my life.

And.... This is where this car kicked my nuts.

Shadow5501

FWIW, I've had my '06 about 15 months. Bought with 34K, now at 41K. I've had one slow leaker strut replaced and one hard failure that occurred overnight while the car was garaged. With stock wheels & tires the car isn't exactly undriveable with a failed strut, but neither is it normally driveable. More like you can limp along to get off the road.

So far, my personal experience is that airmatic fails every 4K miles...

220S

One was a 993 and the other was a M3. There's no way I was going to drive either with a failed strut. I'm not talking a Honda Accord with 100k on the same OEM suspension components. An expensive Bilstein PSS-10 or KW v1/v2 shouldn't fail but they did. And they do. They're pretty sophisticated (similar to Motons) and can have issues, like an Airmatic strut (take a look at a schematic, there are a lot of parts involved; I have the tech bulletin on the system in a pdf file if you want it.)

You should also poll the S Class forum (ABC is an option on the S, the rest have Airmatic), the R Class, the GL Class, the ML Class, the CLS Class.

But maybe this time around make a poll with mileage, stock/modified, etc., taken into consideration rather than just a fail yes/no. It would be informative to understand any variables involved (like any good poll.)

And I wonder about the Range Rover forums, the Audi forums, the Lexus forums, the BMW forums, the Jaguar forums. They have models with air suspension. I wonder what the stats are on those systems.

The only folks who have the real data outside of random polls in car forums are MBUSA and the dealers. I'm curious why Daimler keeps using this system if it's bad? Maybe Daimler uses Airmatic to get rich off spare parts? Although it sounds like they're shooting themselves in the foot since most Airmatic replacements seem to be under CPO or extended warranty.

p.s., my Indy claims the components have changed over the years and the system gets less replacement rates each time around. Can we assume that a 2009 or 2010 is less prone to failure than a 7-8 year old E55?