I own a '98 E300DT since sept. 2004.
I bought the car from my cousin with 85,000 km on it and I currently have 99,000km. When I bought the car, I was aware of this spring perch issue and I remember my cousin told me some work was done in the past by the dealer about it. I was looking at some papers today about this issue and this is what I found. (I'm translating from french, dealer is in Province of Quebec, Canada)

Car was delivered on january 16, 1998.
On may 3, 2002, I can see on the "working sheet" that the car was at the dealer for an oil change and also to "verify Recall campaign No. 01-0799 about the front spring perch". It says on the invoice "dismantle and replace both spring perch support, left and right."

Parts:
Qty 2 #210 626 01 19 Appui (Perch) (warranty)
Qty 1 #001 989 63 20 Materiel etanche (Could some kind of sealer or asphalt undercoating applied against corrosion) (warranty)

Hours: 5.97 (warranty)

Today, I inspected both spring perch and everything is OK. I'm planning to go at the dealer next week to get some explanations about what was really done on the car at this moment. It make no sense to me the original perch were took off the car and replaced (welded) by the new ones?

Hope these info may help,
HDen

No one has yet to have a number of how many failures vs cars sold. The problem is that we are looking at one side of the thing. IIRC, things like this are driven by numbers. This is a simplification of what I read but here goes.

10000 cars sold.
Cost to fix 10000 cars is say 10 mil
Of that say 500 cars will fail
50 will result in seruious injury
Of the 50, 5 will sue
Cost of the suits is 3 mil
Therefore we don't fix it.

Just like Ford had for the ignition switch or the TFI module.

Could the recall HDenDiesel mentioned be a provincial thing? Maybe it failed in one region because of some condition and they are not doing it all over. I checked at the dealership and they have no recall in WI. Checked all the WI dealerships and they don't report a recall. Maybe we have to go to Canada, get an oil change and ask for the recall?

Talked to Gilly. In his time at Zimbrick, he saw 2 maybe 3 problems of that nature with the 210 Chasis

NHTSA search reveals complaints filed
 

I spent some time this morning searching the NHTSA website. It is not easy to search for complaints on the W210 spring perch issue, but it is possible.

The reason it is hard is because they break the complaints up into models and classes, so you have to search under E class and 300,320 and 420 models to see all of the complaints. Also the complaint categories can be confusing, and I didn't have time to search them all, but if you got to the NHTSA site and search under 1997 E class complaints, then go to suspension:front:springs:coils springs you will see 6 complaints filed of failures taking place from May of 2000 through March of 2005. There are also complaints under "front suspension" category. Same for 1996 and 1998. Clearly the problem exists. If NHTSA has 6 complaints on file for one year's model that should be a red-flag.

Mine checked out fine
 

As an update, I had my spring perches checked today at my local MB dealer. They were fine showing no corrosion or rust, which I kind of thought would be the case as my car came from southern climate and only has spent half of this past winter here in NE. Still, it was worthwhile for the peace-of-mind in knowing that all's well.

I also have to say the dealer was very nice about the inspection, did it for FREE (not that I am not a regular patron otherwise, I just expected them to charge as they had indicated it would be about 0.5 hours tech time charge to complete it).

How exactly did the dealer inspect the perches?

That's a good question. Since they don't admit us peons into the service area I was told that they peek in from underneath and probe around to check behind the rustproofing to see if there is any sign of rust behind it but since I was not able to be present during the actual work I cannot tell you precisely what they are looking for/at.

I can tell they did not remove my wheels as I torque them precisely to 85 Ft-Lbs and I know they do not...last time they pulled a wheel on one of my cars I had to stand on the lug wrench to break it free.

Had my wheels off today.. looked at the spring perches real good.. on a very lower seam I saw a very small spot of "rust water".. the car was in TN all it's life with no snow at all.

What do you guys think of smothering the entire lower spring perch with something like POR-15?? I am VERY concerned because I travel alot through the snow and salt in the winter.. Right now the car does not have a one ounce of rust anywhere.

Climate doesn't matter. They are not "rusting" off, they are just snapping off.
The 201's, THEY rust off. I know this makes both 201 and 210 owners happy.
One of them I saw was from California. His welcome to Wisconsin was when they unloaded his car from the car hauler (had it hauled to WI not driven) and the expensive sounds ensued as the perch broke, probably from the body being cinched down on the car hauler all the way from California.......but still it should "take it", right?
I'd investigate the viability of having the reinforcement bar added from the 4Matic versions. As was mentioned, the 4Matic has a formed steel bar on top of the perch, adds support to the perch. I don't know if the body is reinforced in this area or not. Need a tech-savvy 4Matic owner to poke around a little bit.
As far as inspecting the perch; forget it. You'll never know if it's going to break or not. They can LOOK at it just fine with the wheel on, I wouldn't discredit the tech for just hoisting the car, you can see the perch just fine. They could just as well look in your glovebox for candy as inspect the perch though. "Technician reports spring perch is not broken at this time". Well duh, you could tell that when you walked up to the car!

Gilly

It seemed that based upon the postings I saw here and on the NHTSA website about W210 spring perch failures that every one was in the "snowbelt". I don't recall seeing a single failure (before) from an area not prone to rust. I'm not sure that the rust is the direct cause of the failure but I personally would be very surprised to hear it does not contribute to the failures since there does seem to be an overwhelming number of the failures occurring in the parts of the country that get snow and salt (not to mention Canada which apparently has a RECALL on them based upon a posting from one of our northern neighbors).

Perhaps this California car was damaged during shipping which caused the failure?? I'm not questioning your opinion or expertise, I can only say that I have spent several hours reviewing complaints about the spring perch failures in the 1996-1999 W210 and every one I have seen was an apparent rust problem which was blamed for its failure. If it is true that rust is not a contributory factor than MB really has to worry about liability if they don't issue a recall because my dealer gave me a "clean bill of health" and if the perch fails you can be sure they will be held accountable.

Well, maybe a forum memeber will have this happen and can get someone to analyze it who would be somewhat of an expert in either metallugy, welding, or maybe bodywork (who else would be good at analyzing the damage, BESIDES someone from MB!). I think my eyes are fairly well trained, but not "expert". I have seen MANY more failures of the 201 spring perch, it's obvious rust caused it. I LIVE in the rust belt, I know what rust damage looks like. I was raised in the era of rust proofing and pretty much expecting your car will have rust on it somewhere after 5 years max, probably more like 2 or 3. We're talking 70's and early 80's.
In the 210's I've seen, I saw NO evidence of rust, especially rust which would degrade the structure like a 201. It takes more than a bit of rust to weaken a structure to the breaking point. You should certainly be able to SEE the rust, and this was all dull gray healthy looking metal. And the welds weren't torn or anything, looks like bad weld penetration to me.
BUT I agree it sounds strange that the problems seem to occur in the rust belt, but doesn't explain the car which was from CA which broke when removed from the car hauler. MB spring perches just "hate" the rust belt for some odd reason? Ve haf many vays to make zem cooperate, und zey are all most unpleasant.........

Gilly

Hi,
This is what I get from the MB dealer today. As you can can see, this is not the whole original document. It's only an "additional information document". But it's a good start! It would be great if somebody can get the rest of the recall campaing by asking the recall campaing procedure # 01-0799 to the MB dealer...

My understanding is last May 2002 (on my car), the sealer was removed from the spring perch and replaced with new one because there was not potential failure problem (no rust).

HDen

Document?

If you owned one of these cars and it was out of warranty wouldn't it be prudent to have the spring perches re-welded just to be sure? Locating a welding/fabrication shop with chassis experience is not that hard and they should have no problem laying down extra beads around the perch. Seems like a no brainer to me. RT