E200 broken front spring!

[robsti]

2004 E200 12000 miles only!

Mercedes dealership want full price for the repair but due to the low milage I would have thought some sort of discount from Mercedes would have been available.

Have any PH`ers had any out of warranty work done by Mercedes goodwill?

Cheers Robsti.

[ClassicMercs]

Springs are pretty much a 'consumable' item these days. Potholes - speed humps - parking on kerbs. You may not consider that you do the above, but you will have encountered them over time.

If you get anything off full price its going to be something, but don't expect anything special. I don't know how badly the E200 is affected as a model. My old 190E used to break one every two years - and that included driving like the proverbial vicar.

[Deva Link]

It seems Mercedes simply won't even discuss goodwill once the car is 5 yrs old.

Threads about springs breaking on E Class's seem to appear almost daily on the UK MB forums.

[Stegel]

OSF spring broke on my late 2006, 51,000 mile CLS on Sunday. Car has Mobilolife, so Mercedes recovered it, provided E Class hire car and paid about 60% of cost as goodwill leaving me with £75 to pay this morning. Never had a spring break before, car is pampered although it works for a living, I avoid potholes whenever possible, so somewhat surprised, but having Googled it I tend to agree with comment above that they are almost consumables these days.

I guess Mercedes willingness to pay goodwill declines with age though!

[Midlife]

Discounts ?
My own experience with an 06 plate <19k miles and broken o/s/f spring :
(cost of new part + labour) * 2
They prefer to replace both sides at the same time...

So if you're paying for one side only, then you've had a 50% discount....

When I expresed my surprise, the mech told me the car park was full of cars waiting for the same job.

It seems springs are wear and tear items now

[MadeInEngland]

I've just had 3 go all in the space of one week on two separate occasions. Both front and one rear. Car is a 2003 E320 with 90K on - Mercedes wouldn't give any discount whatsoever. I think these springs are just not up to the job. Google it and there are loads of people with the same problem. Shoddy IMO
I have never had a spring break in 35 years of driving and mostly a lot poorer cars than Mercedes.
I'm thinking of writing to Watchdog about it.

[Deva Link]

First time it happened to one of our cars was both rear springs broke on a 4 year old Clio we owned in 2002. Even then, it must have been a common issue as the dealer had 10 springs in stock, when they'd pretty well never had anything else I wanted!

The dealer laughed at the suggestion that Renault should pay (this was in the days on 1 yr warranty) but a quick call to Renault UK and they agreed to pay 100%.

However I can't imagine that would happen when breaking springs is a much more well known problem.

I wonder if it's unique to the UK and is salt related? I travel a bit for work and have been in Merc (and other) taxis in other countries that are driven frighteningly hard over speed bumps etc so if springs breaking is an issue there then it doesn't affect how they treat their cars.