Getting Mercedes warranty claim honoured

[Atom Ant]

Apologies for the resurrection of this thread but I must share my anger.
Mrs Ant has a A200 Turbo (2007) which after cleaning it myself noticed rust under the front nearside door. Upon further inspection the original sealant between the inner and outer skins of the door has become detached and this is where the rust is forming nicely. The car was purchased used with 5K on it and it has since been serviced by MB throughout its life, its currently got 48K on it.
I asked my MB dealer to inspect it with a view to the 30year corrosion warrantee and you guessed it, its the wrong sort of rust (outside in not inside out). Since the rust is in all doors and the hatch the cost to repair is estimated by the MB body shop as 8K, and the car is only worth 4K tops.
I have logged a complaint with MB UK about the way I have been treated by the MB dealer as I did expect more help and some sort of discussion about the way forward.
I don't think I want to take legal action as they are too well conversed in wriggling out so may end up selling the car for scrap.
It makes me really mad that they made cars with rust problems, wont talk about it and don't give a st.
I wont be buying another MB ever.

[Jag_NE]

i like MB cars as a product but i agree with the general consensus that they are very slippery with warranty. in my case i have a minor gearbox fault that was declared at approx 1 year old. multiple attempts at fixing it but i was told at the 3 year point that it was now out of warranty! they also executed the service plan in the wrong order which they are just shrugging their shoulders at. sent that off to the motor ombudsman who accepted the case as having some merit but online reviews imply that theh arent effective at all.

[The Mad Monk]

Norfolkandchance said:

A couple of years ago, when I first noticed rust on the insides of the door, I took it into my main dealer (Robinsons in Norwich) who literally laughed at me when I suggested it shouldn't be rusting at 8 years and 30k miles old. (He also explained that modern Mercedes weren't very well built!) He filled in forms and took photos and sent them off to head office but the claim was denied.

If your claim is refused again, it would cost very little to take MB and/or its dealer to the Small Claims Court. It would cost them a bit of money to defend it. Surely it is a contract. Offered and accepted. Binding on both parties. CAB might be helpful.

It does seem that this '30 year warranty' is not worth the paper it's written on - by MB anyway.

[Norfolkandchance]

The Mad Monk said:

Norfolkandchance said:

A couple of years ago, when I first noticed rust on the insides of the door, I took it into my main dealer (Robinsons in Norwich) who literally laughed at me when I suggested it shouldn't be rusting at 8 years and 30k miles old. (He also explained that modern Mercedes weren't very well built!) He filled in forms and took photos and sent them off to head office but the claim was denied.

If your claim is refused again, it would cost very little to take MB and/or its dealer to the Small Claims Court. It would cost them a bit of money to defend it. Surely it is a contract. Offered and accepted. Binding on both parties. CAB might be helpful.

It does seem that this '30 year warranty' is not worth the paper it's written on - by MB anyway.

Since we are resurrecting: My problem (as OP) is that I can't claim until it has been perforated - this is the wording about rust in the owners manual. Its only rusting very slowly (the car spends most of its life in a garage) so it will be several years before there are actual holes. I've been monitoring it for over 5 years and I still don't think its got to a point where a casual observer would notice. Its ironic - I asked Mercedes to stop it rusting but they can't react until after it has rusted more.

Truth is that I don't suppose we'll have the car when the rust becomes noticeable. Even though its only done about 70k miles, it is 11 years old. If the rust does become noticeable, and I care about the car enough, then I could claim then or do something about repairing it. Its never going to be valuable or worth a great deal of investment so I could rub it down a fill it if needed.

I think I'll try and slow it down by painting something on the inside of the door bottoms, even though this would presumably invalidate the warranty.

Atom: If you want to keep the car I'd go and see a body work or classic specialist and ask them how much to make it look smart and slow the rust right down. They spend their lives stopping cars rust. Then let me know how you get on, please.

Edited by Norfolkandchance on Tuesday 6th March 15:55

[gtidriver]

About five/six years ago i found rust on my A200 cdi, at first MB said it wasnt covered as it was a stone chip, on the tail gate... after completely looking around the car i found lots of rust, in the end i had four doors the tail gate replaced and all the wheel arches treated. Again my bill was over £8000..

If i saw a Aclass driver, say in a supermarket car park id ask to look at the areas that could have rust on. I forwarded four Aclass owners back to Mercedes cost them a few quid..

[Sheepshanks]

gtidriver said:

About five/six years ago i found rust on my A200 cdi, at first MB said it wasnt covered as it was a stone chip, on the tail gate... after completely looking around the car i found lots of rust, in the end i had four doors the tail gate replaced and all the wheel arches treated. Again my bill was over £8000..

I drive a different MB model but I've seen multiple reports of the above work being done on A Class so don't know what's causing the OPs difficulty. I do recall it being said that MB was cracking down on authorising repairs, and perhaps the age of the car is an issue. One thing is the repairs always seem to be done under goodwill rather than warranty.

[gtidriver]

The body shop manager at the approved repairers in Ashford Kent said it was to do the the water based sealants used to bond the panels together. Mainly 06/56/07 models. So corroding from day one..