C class what to avoid

[bracken78]

I brought a 2012 C180 for my wife to replace the CR-V diesel we had. We only cover around 8,000 miles a year so petrol was the preferred option and personally, I was feed up with diesel. Ideally, I wanted a C250 (petrol) Estate with leather and heated seats in face lifted form. Could I find one...! Nope. I looked for over 3 months and gave up and instead, brought a very high spec C180 auto (command, heated leather, HK speakers, xenons and some other stuff) which was local. While the car is no speed machine it works perfectly for us with mainly local driving. If our mileage was higher I would have looked for a C220 or C250 diesels.

Other than making sure the Auto gearboxes have been services at the correct time/mileage. I don’t think there is to much to worry about. Rust does not seem to be an issue but time will tell.

[Dunit]

Monkeylegend said:

Dunit said:

Main thing on the 4cyl OM651 diesel engine is to check for the timing chain is not clacking on a start from cold or after a oil change.
It's a single row chain now moved to the back of the engine and is a engine out to replace.
Google OM 651 engine problems and there are loads of videos and advice about it.

My E220CDi is on 293k with that engine, timing chain issues are very rare. Just make sure any car you buy has a proper verifiable service issue and mileage shouldn't be an issue.

I would be more concerned about dashboard rattles in the C class.

It would seem that the cars that do lots of motorway miles or used as taxis etc do not suffer so much ,What seems to be the problem is short town trips with the stopstart enabled .
As i said there is loads of posts on the dedicated Mercedes forum s about this.
And videos showing the noise.