David F

Mercedes Benz Cars Reliability Issues

Until recently my son owned a high spec Mercedes Benz A-Class A 200 AMG Line Premium Registration YL19 SZU which he purchased in January 2020 with just over 8,500 miles on the clock. At the same time he also purchased a service care plan with Inchcape at Loughborough to ensure the car is maintained by a Mercedes Benz approved dealer. At just over 13,000 miles it became totally unreliable. In March the car completely failed on two separate occasions. The first was due to a faulty coil ignition spring; this was rectified under warranty. The second was due to a faulty camshaft sensor, faulty solenoid and a faulty radar system. In both cases, the RAC had to be called out to trailer the car back to Inchcape. What else will go wrong with this car? Inchcape said the failed radar system was the problem part, it is on back order and it is likely it will not be available until the 31st December! My son decided to sell the car back to Inchcape as he couldn’t sell it in its present state. Inchcape now have it for sale at over £3,500 more than they gave him! What happens after three years when the warranty expires and the car fails, more than likely you will end up paying shed loads of money to garages like Inchcape to put things right. As an engineer with over forty years testing experience in the motor and rail industry I asked the Mercedes Benz CEO Gary Savage gary.savage@daimler.com if the faulty parts had undergone a thorough series of reliability and environmental tests. He didn’t reply, however someone from his department came back and apologised for the whole experience we had endured. In the past my son has owned much older Vauxhalls, Fords and Subaru's, all had a lot higher mileage, were well maintained and none ever let him down. From what I have read on the internet it would appear that system component failures on relatively new A Class 200’s cars are not that uncommon. Issues like this probably explain why Mercedes Benz are ranked 19th out of 24 in the What Car reliability tables for this size of family car. Mercedes Benz receives 77% of bad reviews on Trustpilot. Some repairs have cost their owners thousands. According to buyacar the average depreciation for an A Class 200 is quite high; in the first three years they lose over 40% of their initial cost. In the past Mercedes Benz were known as a premier car brand, they aren’t any more. I am aware that the more gizmos’ you put on a car the more likely it is that something will go wrong at some time. However I have to question if the components that failed, had at prototype stage undergone a thorough regime of reliability testing, either by the manufacturer of the parts or by Mercedes to determine if they would have an acceptable life in the environment in which they are likely to experience.