> If this is a 111CDi then it must be less than 3 years old and covered by
> warranty, so whats the issue?
The issue is that they say it failed because of drowning which is not
covered by warranty and which we know is not true. They do not wish to admit
liability and we wish the van back on the road as soon as possible so will
not contest them because our insurance will pay. Nevertheless the damn
engine has failed at a low mileage for some reason and we know that several
others have gone the same way. Since the design is common to both five and
six cylinder engines up to very recently it is rather worrying. It is also
worrying for the long term use of this particular vehicle if this happens
again.
> All I can see is MB are trying to blame it on water ingress as oppossed to
> mechanical failure so you need to claim off insurance and they don't get a
> warranty claim.
See above.
> On a related point I have a Vito 115cdi which just went in for it's first
> 12 month service at 9000 miles. It gets very light use, as you can see
> from the mileage, however the entire front suspension has to come out as
> it's failing completely, there were 15 fault codes on the computer when
> they plugged it in, it occassionally won't lock, it occassionally won't
> open and ocassionally I simply can't remove the key from the ignition.
We run various vans and the Mercedes is the least reliable. Having said
that, this is the first major fault and if it were a one-off then fine, but
it appears not to be.
> The computer bit that operates the dashboard is screwed and needs
> replacing.
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>
> Alan M
I had good experience of Jaguar as well.
On the van front we have two Renault vans [which are also sold as Vauxhall
and Nissan] of 100hp and these seem to be great so far, but they have been
driven no more than 20,000 miles each yet.
There is no beating Toyota for overall reliability and quality in my
experience.
Huw