W210 control arm snapped ! Benz quality WOW
 

I am shocked, wife called on her way to work and said the car got slugish and is making a very loud noise from the front wheel so she pulled over and will call a tow.

anyway I get home from work to diagnose it and I see this ! it turns out to be a common issue !


I did the brakes not too long ago and saw nothing indicating anything out of the ordinary special we got tires and alignment about 6k miles ago shop never mentioned a thing !



Anyway Pelican parts will be hearing from me soon for new replacment parts.

Not sure the failure wasn't because of deferred maintenance from looking at the pics?

What are all the stats on the car? Miles? Front end parts (shocks) etc. replaced? Worn/aged bushings not replaced? Lower ball-joints replaced? Steering parts/bushings aged? Rust issue(s), esp. front spring perches?

Importec is has way better pricing--the Euro catalogue is South San Fransisco Import Parts, WAY better selection and pricing than WorldPac that drives peach parts.

Don't blame the car company.

How many miles? Any rust?

Your 2 piece spring doesn't look to healthy either. Glad I don't live in the rust belt.

That looks like a failure suspiciously near to a weld

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...w-img_9974.jpg

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...w-img_9976.jpg

As for condition those parts look used but don't seem especially or excessively rusty to me - wow guys if you want to see rusty come and live over here for a few days!

Car is a NJ car all it life not much rust on body 205k miles


tie rods is only thing was replaces since we owned the car about 60k miles ago drove fine no weird noises or clunks, welds did fail.

How do you maintain a control arm ? you replace it ? I always thought bushing gets changed in and out but not the control arm its self !

Yup... weld attracts the rust... metal fails at the weld. I wonder if an aluminum alternative exists?

I find it odd there is a parts sticker on the arm, that suggests the arm wasn't that old. I blew up the pic but cannot make out what it says.

However, at first glance it doesn't look like a OE parts sticker to me.

Perhaps the OP can take a better pic of it?

If that is an OE part, I'd be fussing at dealer and MBUSA. That sort of failure is totally unacceptable. MB has done recalls for failing control arms in the past (R107 for instance). How does the other side look?

I would never use an aftermarket control arm. I'd take a used OE control arm over aftermarket.

Have you searched online to see if this type of failure is typical for your model car?

I have seen a few dozen or so pictures on the internet about W210 control arms breaking right at this spot.

I think one should have a cleaning interval for the control arm cavity too, salty mist can get into the arm from the spring hole. A good dousing with body cavity wax inside the arm may help here.

This happened to a friends 97 E300D at around 310,000 but no idea if it was or wasn't the original arm.

For what its worth the arm did not look visibly rusty when it broke.

Many here will incessently flame any criticism of M-B designs, often w/ no technical basis. From what we can see in the photos, it doesn't look like rust contributed. It looks like classic "metal fatigue" failure. After say 1M cycles at a given load, it fails. Statistical, but often it can be predicted amazingly accurately. One example is coiled garage door springs. You can get more life from thicker springs, but none have infinite life. Not much you can do to mitigate other than avoid pot-holes and rough roads. Forged parts are usually less sensitive to fatigue.

Control arm failure occurs on many cars, especially 1980+, as they strived to lighten everything. As in your case, it usually doesn't cause catastrophe. The car just drops and drags. I posted about a temp chain repair to drive my 1984 300D home when the K-frame weld broke loose on one side. Several readers here flamed me about how irresponsible and dangerous it was to drive that way in their "expert" opinion. But I used 2850 lbf rated chain (much stronger than sheet-metal K-frame) and have an M.S. in Mech Engr, so ignored the fussing. Plus, the car drove perfectly straight and felt very solid. I responded w/ links to cars w/ broken control arms, none of which caused significant collateral damage.

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised here. All W210s are prone to rust, especially if they've ever been exposed to road salt. This is a manufacturing defect on MB's part which they have never owned up to. My suggestion to the OP is to replace BOTH front lower control arms and closely inspect the spring perch and the rest of the front suspension.

http://www.mbca.org/sites/default/fi...6_P5070073.jpg
http://www.mbca.org/sites/default/fi...5_P5070072.jpg
1996 E300D front control arm collapse | Mercedes-Benz Club of America

http://mbworld.org/forums/attachment...t-dscf4657.jpg
Lower control arm failure due to rust - MBWorld.org Forums


http://www.benzworld.org/forums/atta...d-imag0002.jpg
Lower Control Arm Cracked - Mercedes-Benz Forum

Well that's it then - design fault!

Are there similar problems with W201s and W124s?