I own a 2001 Brilliant Silver e320 with which I have had paint problems, I was wondering if anyone in this forum has experienced the same thing. About a year into my ownership I started noticing that the paint was chipped on the hood and in various places on the body - some of them actually looked like road damage but others did not. I presented the problem to my service advisor and was told that the problem was "road damage" and that it was not covered under warranty. I wound up getting the areas touched up only to have others appear and basically the hood started looking like crap. Last year I had to have some body work done so I had my local MB (American Service Center in Arlington, VA - which is another story of complete dissatisfaction) dealership repaint the hood while it was in the shop. It has been about 9 months since that was done and the problem is manifesting itself again, as a matter of fact the problems that I am seeing appear to be exactly those which forced me to have the hood repainted. These paint problems are pretty serious as they are down to bare metal and there is rust forming in them. I phoned the dealer to discuss the issue with them, I have yet to hear back from them and am certain that upon hearing my name they're running for the hills. I also called the MB customer service 800 number and explained this to them, they told me to work with the dealership.
My biggest problem with this issue is that I find it hard to believe that there isn't a quality problem with the paint on my car and that if this is what you get for a $50k price tag I'm really irritated. I never had this sort of problem with my Volvos in the past even after 100k miles.
I would not recommend American Service Center's body shop, I found them amateurish at best and totally unprofessional. I will never give them another one of my hard earned dollars. My service advisor there has been OK, he has tried to make my experience with MB comfortable. While I like this car for everything other than this paint problem I find the MB experience with this particualr dealership
unsatisfying. I suppose that I had high expectations and that they have so much business that my satisfaction doesn't matter.
I too have an 01 E320 4Matic, and its Brilliant Silver. However, I have had no paint problems and other than washes do nothing to treat the paint. It looks as good today as it did when I purchased in Oct 01. Perhaps you regularly drive in an area that has very small stones on the road and you do not realize it.
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