W202 4cyl diesel saloon 1996

I've just had to repair the front exhaust mount for the fourth time in 4 years, due to what looks like stress fractures to the "U" channel bracket, which is welded to the downpipe. This attaches to the support arm secured to the rear of the gearbox casing.

I'm now wondering if there is some other cause for this breakage (or am I simply staving off the inevitable of replacing the whole front exhaust section?) MB kindly replaced the rear section due to a service recall a couple of years ago.

At the same time, I discovered that the Aluminium shield which protects the floor in this area had corroded away under its attachment nuts, presumably due to electrolytic corrosion (salted roads + alloy + steel= bad news) I've patched this up and refitted it with a generous sandwich of mastic between the attachment areas, but I wonder if anyone has a better solution for this problem?

Car now has 180k miles and still drives superbly!

Many thanks for any suggestions,
Simon

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W202-C220D ( UK ) 310K miles

Just looking back over my posts, and realised I'd never written my own answer to my original question.
The vibration from a failing front flexdisk, was stressing the exhaust-to-gearbox mount.
Once the vibration became serious enough to track down and replace the flexdisk, I realised what had been going on.

As a matter of interest, the exhaust bracket initially failed at least 3 years- 75000 miles before the flexdisk problem became noticeable.

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W202-C220D ( UK ) 310K miles