I sure wouldn't discredit that idea one bit.
Make dang sure the "experienced" welding shop knows enough to disconnect the battery, unless they want to braze it, I'd recommned MIG welding it, which means disconnect the battery......
It would also be interesting to research this brace support the 4matics have and see if that would be an easy retrofit.
Gilly

Yesterday I just got my new 96 E300D. I bough it on Ebay and it was shipped from the east coast. The car spent most of its life in NJ. I was quite shocked to find the spring perches in such bad shape. What have I got myself into?? :( I haven't even registered the car yet and I'm already scared to drive it. I don't know if I can bring the car to the local MB dealer without even having registration. Notice the passenger side perch already has one of the welds totally rusted through. The rust was apparent even before I started peeling off the insulation because the insulation was already partly cracked. On the driver's side, there was NO apparent rust, but I peeled off a part of the insulation anyway to reveal rust underneath. This insulation seems to do more harm than good. :mad:

Today, I decided to go a little deeper into this issue. I remove both front wheels on my car and I took some pictures. As I said in another post, the service bulletin #01-0799 was performed on my car last May 2002. We can see on the pics the dealer put some "sealer" around after welding the new perches. On the driver side, there was a small crack into the rubber and water was coming out when pushing on it. Oups...I will remove the sealer completely to see the whole perch as soon as I have more time. Also, I need some new sealer of course...On the passenger side, the sealer was peeling off. I pulled on the sealer and we can see that some "grinding" was done by the dealer when installing the new perches. I pulled a little more and now there is some new welding and white mastic.
HDen

I just got my car back from the local dealer. I brought it there to have them look at my rusted spring perches after I had peeled off most of the insulation to expose the rust. As I expected they will not pay for the repairs as the car is already out of warranty, and they denied ever hearing about this problem. So I called the 1800 Mercedes number and explained my situation to one of their guys. He said he would forward my case to his manager and someone will get back to me next week. I'm not expecting much though.

1999 E 300 Turbodiesel
 

I just had my front ball joints redone by the dealer, and they checked the spring mounts and found no flaws. I showed them the documentation downloaded from here, as well. Should I press on with higher headquarters? The replacement of the ball joints made a huge difference, by the way. The car has 109,000 miles when I bought it.

Wait until MB calls back first would be my advice. Your dealer may not have a lot of experience with rust issues because of where he is located but the problem exists and MB knows about it. If you made it clear to MB corporate that the car came from "the northeast" and has rust on the perches they will know what needs to be done. If MB does not call back or the person who calls further denies responsibility then kick it up to their supervisor immediately. This is not something they should ignore and now that you have brought it to their attention the liability they have if there is a failure is huge, make sure that you tell them that! Tell them the next calls you will make are to NHTSA and your lawyer.

Also, why not drop an email to Richard Bamberger at CBS who is compliling horror stories about this now...maybe they can help apply some pressure. His email is: rbamberger@cbs.com

springing
 

i would be reluctant to weld around on a spring perch.

although the local dealer seems pretty clueless when i have tried to use them for problems that were tough to solve on my mostly 15 year old and older mb's, i might take the car there if i had one of these since it sounds as if they have a proceedure. welding on a spring perch if not done correctly could cause more problems than it solves.

also, what happens when they fail? doesnt the car just come down onto its rubber stop?

Why am I the only one talking about this MB Campaign 01-0799? Did somebody in the US ask about this Recall Number to the dealer??

Nhdoc, I will wait for MB to call me back. I'll see how they respond about my situation first before emailing CBS about it.

t walgamuth, when the spring perch breaks completely the corresponding wheel will jam in the wheel well, disabling steering and making the car come to a violent stop while turning in the direction of the affected side. I'd imagine the affected tire would also melt from the heat if it happens at a higher speed, but of course the scary part is the loss of control of the vehicle.

HDenDiesel, I didn't mention that MB campaign number to my dealer, but I did tell him there's a recall campaign regarding the spring perches in Canada. His response was that every country does its own thing or something like that, basically meaning it's irrelevant. From the document you posted it seems like this campaign involves replacing only the sealer around the perches, not the perches themselves, correct? Anyway my dealer told me there's no recall or tech bulletin about this at this time, so there's nothing they can do for me. On the other hand the guy at MB headquarters sounded like he's at least somewhat familiar with this problem (though he didn't say so explicitly) so I'll wait and see what the response will be.

While it may be irrelevant to the MBUSA crowd, it should not be irrelevant to the NHTSA, or to the guy doing the TV story. Has anyone mentioned this to them? In the end, a recall is what we should be looking to bring about where this kind of design and manufacturing defect are acknowledged and repaired, free of charge, to everyone owning one of these machines. Jim

MB will not do anything until a family of 4 is killed in their E class and they are forced to. :mad: :mad:

I'm still waiting for a response from MB, but today I also called my dealer again and referred him to the tech bulletin # that HDenDiesel posted. He couldn't find anything on that number and apparently it's for Canada only. However, he was able to get MB to pay 50% of the repair cost and tomorrow I'm going to a local bodyshop to get an estimate. Is this fair enough or should MB pay 100%? I guess it'll depend on the repair cost.

I would insist they pay 100% and let the dealer handle the repair. If he has to send it out to a shop let it be their responsibility to see it gets fixed correctly. If you have it done and it later fails they will claim the shop you brought it to screwed up...let them fix it.

My dealer doesn't have a body shop and they picked one for me. So essentially the dealer will be handling the repair but they're contracting this body shop to do the work. Of course I'd like MB to pay for this 100%, and I may push for it some more, but on the other hand since there's no official recall in this country I may be lucky that they're even willing to pay 50%.

I would ask them to pay 100% or have them sign a document with a witness that they deam the repair is not needed and will not casue problems and they refuse to repair the problem.....something that you can haul them into court on if it fails.....if any lawyers read this or someone who has a lawyer on retainer find out how feasible it is....