Ha at least your lasted a period of time. The radiator fan had my URO one for lunch. One of the clip retainers had came a bit loose and bye bye!

I bought a MB one for $6 from MB...it was like 3x as much material in terms of thickness and strength.

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(4/11/2020: Hi Everyone! I am still taking orders and replying to emails/PMs/etc, I appreciate your patience in these crazy times. Stay safe and healthy!)


82 300SD 145k
89 420SEL 210k
89 560SEL 118k
90 300SE 262k RIP 5/25/2010
90 560SEL 154k
91 300D 2.5 Turbo. 241k
93 190E 3.0 235k
93 300E 195k

Didn't you receive a FEBI "Made in Unknown" box once upon a time? I wonder if Unknown is a third-world manufacturing location?

It would be good to add your story to the "Dang You URO!" thread (if you haven't already) so that records are kept.

What is so interesting about URO is the consistently poor quality of such a broad swath of their product lines. Just about every time you hear about a different type of URO part failing....it's not just limited to their door seals, or their flex discs, or this, or that. So many of their product lines are so consistently bad, that you can't help but see it's a product quality philosophy that is thoroughly engrained in everything that company does.

Why yes, I did.

I'd put Febi slightly ahead of Meyle in terms of quality gambling. Febi sometimes reboxes OEM items (like SGF flex discs). I've never seen Meyle rebox OEM.

URO is typically priced 80-90% lower than OE/dealer list, and people just can't help themselves with that kind of carrot dangled in front of them. MOST folks learn their lesson after a few failures.

There are certainly folks on this forum who have NEVER had a single failure with URO parts and think they are equal to and/or exceed factory quality parts.

These are the same folks who have seen pigs fly, who have observed rocking-horse poop, and who happen to find four-leaf clovers on a regular basis.

I personally am sick and tired of having to choose between paying MB's predatory prices on suspension/steering parts and the seemingly more reasonable prices for hit or miss quality of so-called name brand "used to be made in Germany" parts. From my perspective the tried and true high quality of German replacement part brands from 15 years ago are mostly a distant memory. I recently had the rubber boots on Lemfoerder replacement ball joints slip down from the groove on the shaft (lack of factory grease charge, changed design of retainer rings and ???) which permitted water to enter the joints causing them to make noise 6 months after installation. They won't totally fail for some time but I am loathe to take the time to re-do the job that should have lasted many years. Several years ago I replaced the inner suspension bushings, ball joints and tie rod ends with Lemfoerder parts on my 300TE after 175K miles on the original parts and was shocked to see rubber checking and boot failures within 50K miles and these parts were supposedly still manufactured in Germany. What gives? I personally have had nothing but bad experiences with Chinese made parts and agree with Gerry about the distinctive smell of Chinese rubber. We used to joke in the 80's about how bad German rubber was given the fact that they invented synthetic rubber but in my experience this Chinese stuff is true crap. Mark

I buy tons of parts from my dealer (again, they run mymerecedesparts.com) and find the prices to be very reasonable. I just bought tie rods for the 190E and they were still expensive say compared to a tie rods from an American car but I ended up paying the same it would cost for Lemforder from Pelican when shipping was factored in. The MB power steering fluid was much cheaper than even the cheapest fluid offered here.

Of course a lot of parts are extremely expensive but shop around and include discount OEM sites in your searches. You'll sometimes be surprised by the prices at the dealer.

That being said, I had one incident with a bad part from the dealer, and with my growing knowledge of quality control processes, a defective part can slip through once in a while. Mine was a brake rotor, it was extremely warped so I emailed the dealer, and they got another one to me within a couple of days, no questions asked.

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Current: 1975 450SEL, 83 300D, 88 Yugo GVX, 90 300D OM603 swap, 91 F150 4.6 4v swap, 93 190E Sportline LE 3.0L M104 swap, 93 190E Sportline LE Megasquirt, 03 Sprinter, 06 E500 4Matic wagon.

Unfortunately, I buy enough hard parts from the dealer and find some to be fairly reasonable at the "trade" price and others to be stunningly high. That is especially true of parts for out of production models like W210, 126, 124 and 123 vehicles. I do buy dealer parts whenever it makes sense and given the current lack of quality exhibited by non-OE parts I will certainly buy more OE. Mark

A "nose to nose" comparison will root out Chinese rubber in a split second. Like I said, just walk into a Harbor Fright store and the stench is overpowering. I don't actually think it's real rubber.

Some of us used to joke that the Chinese made the stuff and put it in all the stuff they shipped to the US as a slow-acting toxin/carcinogen to slowly kill us.

Len ... did you get an answer to your question?

That is interesting about the Behr service vs Behr. I went back and looked, and it was Behr service. It is the same one carried on Pelican and a bunch of other sites though. There is no option for a regular Behr W140 blower regulator at any of the normal parts houses. I learned something new today.

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97 S500 (90,000 miles) - wife's car
87 300D (298,000 miles and a replacement #14 head)
94 Suburban K2500 - need something to haul firewood
83 300SD (343,000 miles) (sold)

Yeah, I was just thinking - wow - what have I started?

Lemförder typically has been the "go to" manufacturer for quality parts. Time will tell I guess if that remains the case. IMO I think I'll give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise.

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Len
'59 220S Cabriolet-SOLD and living happily in Malta
'83 240D 351,500 miles original owner-SOLD
'88 560SL 41,000 miles - totaled and parted out
https://sites.google.com/site/mercedesstuff/home
'99 E300 turbo 227,500 miles
'03 SLK320 40,000 miles - gave to my daughter
'14 Smart electric coupe 28,500 miles
'14 Smart electric cabriolet 28,500 miles
'15 Smart electric coupe 28,000 miles

It's important to ask questions and check for yourself.

I had a some bad bosch glowplugs a few weeks ago. There was no country of origin on the packaging, so I was not sure if they were a poor batch from the Indian plant (this has been reported on BW) or if I had been sold knockoffs. They had been bought on Amazon on sale a year or more prior.

Naturally I decided to go local, second time around. When I called my local parts supplier, who seems pretty well versed in what is going on, on the fraud front, I explained I would not accept Bosch made in India. She actually called her wholesaler, who swore up one side and down the other of his mum's grave that no such thing as a made-in-India Bosch GP existed.

One day later, guess what arrives at the shop. She roasted the wholesaler's telephone ear, sent them back and re-ordered from Worldpac. The WP ones arrived with correct security coded packaging and are working like gangbusters. I cannot remember now if they were marked France or Spain, for the manufacture.

For Lemforder, based on what I have read here, I will send back anything that arrives with an etched rather than stamped logo. Best I can figure to do.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

More fuel for the fire:

Lemforder W210 upper control arms, label looks legit and says made in Italy, part has etched "L" logo. Photos at this link.

Lemforder W124 front control arm photos at this link, same etched logo as above.

Lemforder W124 steering link photos are at this link.

Unless Lemforder or ZF confirm these are counterfeit, I don't see anything (yet) that leads me to believe they are not legit.


Now, I did get some counterfeit Bosch nozzles from eBay years ago, from "Fuel Pump King", who asked me to send them back... and then never refunded my ~$200. But that's a different story. Which appears to have been deleted from this forum, for reasons unknown.

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Dave
Boise, ID
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