'95 C280 wire harness badwill - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

#1 05-17-2002, 05:40 PM

mb service advisor says that in all probability the wire harness shorted because of faulty insulation and took out a module and the throttle actuator with it. all said $4000. after really pushing the goodwill issue (i tried to keep my cool), the official word is: MB has no goodwill towards a seven year old car and it's second owner. I would imagine that i have no legal case. The really sad part is that i still love my benz.

ronald_m · #2 05-17-2002, 06:39 PM

Sorry to hear that,Why don't you try to go to another dealer try your luck.

jsmith · #3 05-17-2002, 09:26 PM

the goodwill replacement is not an official MB policy. from what i understand, the dealerships have an allotment of money every month that they can use towards this if they so choose. MB in Montvale, NJ told me that the official line is that any goodwill repairs are at the discretion of the dealer. the two major bugaboos of the M104 engine, namely the head gasket and wiring harness, are not part of any recall and there is absolutely no coverage for those components. i went through the same thing being a second owner. i have heard that in some states, they do provide this goodwill service even to second owners. in any case i would get a second opinion - it could be just the wiring harness which is about $500 + 3 hours labor.

Benzmac · #4 05-17-2002, 11:07 PM

You need to get the Mercedes rep!!!! involved with this. There is a rep that serves that area for Mercedes. Trust me, they know about this problem!!! The harnesses fail!!! Go above the dealer and talk to the factory rep, but be nice.

unkl300d · #5 05-18-2002, 01:12 AM

cmahanna, how many miles on your C280?

City or freeway driving? Mixed?

Thanks

#6 05-19-2002, 10:03 PM

This one is in NICE condition and only 71K miles on it. (Probably why it just now went bad.)

Benzmac, thanks for beating it into my head to get to the factory rep. I'll let you know what happens.

BTW I've closed the job but haven't paid. Also, I've obviuosly asked to keep the harness.

mbdoc · #7 05-20-2002, 08:12 AM

AT 71,000 miles the harness should have covered by GOODWILL. However as pointed out every dealer can decide whether or not to ask their rep for this Goodwill to happen OR not.

jsmith · #8 05-20-2002, 09:28 AM

FYI, my car now has 57k "low miles". it only had 52k when i got it last fall. i even found out after i had the head gasket and harness done at my expense that the head gasket had been seeping since 14K miles (from paperwork i found in the car). the wiring harness problems were triggered by the head gasket job and had not reared its ugly head before. none of this seemed to sway the service manager's thinking even though i told them that i intended to have my car serviced there (FWIW it was Ray Catena's of NJ). it sucks that you have to go through all of this when it is clearly a known problem. one of these days i will print out everything that has been posted about these issues and send it in to Mercedes along with my old wiring harness (wonder what the postage will come up to)...

unkl300d · #9 05-20-2002, 02:05 PM

The reason I asked for mileage is that it seems from past
posts that 70K miles seems to be the window where many harnesses go south.

This is not an exact statistic nor a technician talking here.
Just an anecdote.

My C280 has 33K.

The head gasket was another issue with this model.

Talk to other dealer reps and take it to another city if need be!!

#10 06-25-2002, 12:24 AM

i'm at exactly the same place with my 95 s600 with 55K miles. The NJ office said no way with a 7 year old car. I asked him what to do if the engine was blown (see my earlier post) and he more or less said he had no opinion. I too, was a bit miffed at the attitute of this *superior* car company. I wrote a letter 2 days ago to try to draw the attention of the higher-ups. The local dealerships apparently do have unlimited good will, but MB seems to want to use this on primary owners and long-term supporters of the dealership. I wasn't even in my home state when I broke down. May ship from Idaho, where they have never worked on a V-12 in any serious manner to Enriques in Ca based on what I read in the GOOD Shop forums. Whatever, this is a wonderful newsgroup. Would have been nice to read it before I fell in love with the v12

#11 06-25-2002, 08:13 AM

I was at my dealer two weeks ago and asked about the head gasket "goodwill" and he stated the DB doesn't have "goodwill" anymore. Don't know what's the truth??? Sure wish this Chrysler merger never happened!!!

Just think that a chrysler scheduled to roll into showrooms soon willl be using the same engine/transmission that's in the new E Class.

#12 09-03-2002, 06:56 PM

Is there anyone with a decent M104 engine out there? Do they all have to stuff up? Im getting all worried now coz it seems like this is a universal problem and that everyone who owns a car with the M104 engine in it seems like the harness or the headgasket WILL/MUST go bad. Maybe I should have kept the C200 ah?

Christian

1989 300TE
1994 E280

joe p · #13 09-04-2002, 08:00 AM

I've replaced a bunch of harnesses and never had a bad EA at the same time. I'd be sceptical of ME and the EA.

Joe

joe p · #14 09-04-2002, 08:24 AM

Been sitting here thinking about this and I see it like this. Goodwill is a 2 way street. You buy the car from a frachised dealer, have some service done there (not all), use OEM parts when posible and be the original owner and maybe you deserve "goodwill" warrenty repair. Otherwise you bought it used, never darkened the dealers door unless you had a serious problem that required the "latest, greatest" test equipment and information and expect it to be fixed for free? I've been on both sides of the street and while I can empthasize I cant agree with your assesment of Benz's response.

Yes, the harness is a problem, however there are other products out there with more serious problems. 93 to 99 626 4cly trannys (costs about 3k to fix), v8 BMW's needing shortblocks, Caravans dropping trannys like flies, Dodge diesels with sticking throttles and tranny hoses blowing off under big loads and so on. Yeah, most of these are not in the same class as the benz but, you look at the costs of the repairs versus the value of the car and the percentages are actually higher. (which means on that economic level, it costs more to fix 'em)

Personally I'd get it fixed and grin when the 626 is sitting on the side side of the interstate, or cringe when the big dodge diesel is getting bigger and bigger in the rear veiw.

No slam guys, just food for thought on this "goodwill" issue. Afterall, 4/50 is where the warrenty stops. (btw, that control unit might be coverable under 7/70 IM)

Joe

Antony · #15 09-04-2002, 08:29 AM

I have a '95 E320 wagon...90,000 miles ( I bought it with 70,000) and no head gasket or wiring harness issues at all. Done some AC component replacing, but no other issues to date. My car runs quite well. My .02