hello all,
I have been lurking in this newsgroup for little while. Last year, a family member wanted to sell a 2001 model C320. It was a four-year-old car, but only had 14,000 kilometres on the clock (used as a weekend car to weddings and parties etc...). He asked me to advertise it for him, but since the depreciation made the car a huge bargain, I bought it off him.
It has now 22,000 km on the clock. Last week, it developed a problem whereby 4 errors appeared on the dash: 1- brake pad wear fault, 2 - fault with ABS, 3 - fault with ESP, 4 - fault with BAS.
The car would then lock into the one gear that it was in at the time (it can be first gear or any other gear that it was in at the time). Initially, stopping the car and restarting the car would see the errors disappear and the car would be drivable (which made me think that the engine heat may have helped improve on some of the electrical connection). However every day since then, the problem would take longer to disappear. Today, I had to limp home from work in second gear at 60 km per hour all the way home.
I did take the car to Mercedes-Benz for a diagnostic. It was hooked up to a computer, and I was told that the fault lies in the ESP control module.
Now here is the cruel part, the part can be replaced as a second-hand unit for about $2500, or a new unit around about $4000 !!!!
Now for all the mechanics in this group, is this a common fault, and is this a reasonable repair bill? Could the component be removed and repaired by an electrician for less?
This is my first foray into a luxury car, previously being an owner for eight years of a Subaru WRX. The Subaru did throw a fault in the odometer, which cost me $1300 to replace. However, after this experience, I'm thinking of going back to Japanese quality (now looking at the Lexus IS range - much prefer the value of the Liberty range but the missus does not like the interior :-((( ).
Although the car is now five years old, the low kilometres makes the experience very bitter. Do you think, that time can be blamed for the unreliability, and should I get rid of the car? In fact, the six CD stacker died only six months into the ownership (and still remained broken). I did find information on the net that the 2001 MB C class can be quite unreliable (apparently especially so in the electrics), but I would have thought that that I could get more mileage out of the car before things like this happen.
Although I was told that due to the low mileage, that MB will consider giving me a special price for the part. This is not yet confirmed, however could this be expected from the manufacturer?
Cheers