I cannot believe that a motor manufacturer that has been in the business as long as Mercedes is making and selling a car with brakes that are defective, by not putting sufficient pad pressure on the Disks / rotors. If this were the case you would have many issues, apart from, the car not stopping in a straight line,generally unstable braking, long stopping distances etc etc, the car certainly would not pass UK construction & use regulations or our yearly (on 3rd anniversary) ministry of transport test (& the German or other countries equivalents of it) where the individual wheel/braking forces are tested.
The problem is more than likely as previously mentioned an inferior quality metal (for the job) in the disks / rotors and I would suggest that if you are really serious in improving your braking that you look towards getting a set of drilled & grooved disks / rotors and use them in combination with a set of harder or 'fast road pads' as they are sometimes called. You will be astonished at the difference and will not get the problems you are having. This disk problem is not unique to the B class.
The rear brakes on the B hardly do anything....it's down to weight distribution and all.....drums would have been better IMO. But yeah once the car is out of warranty, aftermarket, here I come!
Keith, Mike, you're both right in all the above.
I'm so frustrated with these rear discs. But the B still stops very well and as you both have said we can change them for better materials, and not a huge cost in due course.
It makes you think "what else?" when they cheap it down like that.
The cover that holds the pollen filter is another soon to be failure on our B's.
It's so cheap!!
They could have used a small hinge on the black plastic cover.
In time, when bending that cover, it has to crack and we'll be taping the back to keep the fit.
This penny-pinching scares me away from a great car.... if these observations continue.
Cheers, Derek
Last edited by Derek Lecours : 03-03-2008 at 01:42 PM.
They give a number to ring for overseas customers. Although you may have a company locally that deals direct with Rossini.
They have got good press reports over here & I can recommend them personally having fitted them previously to my Scenic. Price was not much more than the standard Renaults disks / rotors so I imagine that they should compare favourably with Mercs prices.
Keith, thanks for the link and I have bookmarked it for future reference. We have just returned from three weeks in Hawaii where there was not a snow tire, nor a B Class in sight.
What a delight today to start up the B and enjoy its great combination of space, comfort and utility. We had two rental cars in Hawaii, a small Chevrolet which was a piece of junk and a new Mustang convertible, which was also a piece of junk. The difference between the two ( aside from the convertible top) was the small Chev could easily hold our luggage in the trunk - while the larger Mustang could not!
We took a taxi from the Airport in Vancouver - a Toyota Corolla, with 350,000 km on the clock and it not only took all of our luggage, but was rattle and squeak free - and the only unexpected repairs were recently replaced battery and radiator.
Now, I will try to catch up on all of the new posts on the forum, while my tan fades away.
I've put 110,000km on my B200T in 2 years and encounter the following problems:
Problem - Steeling wheel noise
Solution - Changed the whole rack-and-pinion
Note - I've got this problem when the Bee is 3 weeks old
Problem - Door seal keep getting off
Solution - Changed all the door seal
Note - Problem starts at around the same time as the steeling noise problem and I've gone through 3 sets of door seal. However, the left rear door seal still come off as of today.
Problem - Both front door windows stop half way when using the 'auto' closing function.
Solution - Lube all windows components
Note - Problem starts about the same time as above. However, after a few time fixing it, I've give up. It's still won't close fully sometime now.
Problem - Windshield washer fluid jet is leaking and stop function after
Solution - Changed all the host form windshield washer fluid tank to the jets
Note - Happened only once so far @ around 40,000km
Problem - Starting with knocking noise when turning and eventually it will sound when going straight.
Solution - Changed left front wheel bearing
Note - Happened to me at around 85,000km and I didn't hit any pot hole with my left front wheel!!!!
Problem - Rocking engine!!!
Solution - Changed the whole fuel injector assembly
Note - Just happened to me (@ 110,000km)!!!
That is all I've got so far. One more note, I do all my service at Mercedes dealer and everyone over there know my name already. I've also purchase the extended warranty and I've already got enough repair after that to make my extended warranty worth it...
Welcome aboard evildoer!!
Thank goodness you bought the extended warranty.
You have more cliks than anyone else so far from past postings. If you fill in your profile we'll know where you're from. It seems that we'll have lots of work on our B as time and distance accumilate from the problems that you've had.
I wonder if the window problem is a software problem.
Maybe your area has a bad fuel problem.
Good luck and tell us more. Derek
Last edited by Derek Lecours : 06-07-2008 at 10:43 AM.
where there was not a snow tire, nor a B Class in sight.
Linear Mode
