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Hi folks.....i've had my CLK230K Avantgarde cab (2000 model) for 18 months now and as beautiful as it is to drive and to look at, i can't help but think....christ......wot's going to go wrong with it next and how much will it cost me to fix? I have found a local garage that specialises in Mercs and Rollers (ex Mercedes dealership mechanics run it) although they are not a dealership. Therefore their hourly rates are half that of a stealership but you dont get the stealership stamp in the book! Is it worth the extra for that original stamped Mercedes service book i ask myself????
The car had 18500 miles on the clock when i bought it and has 24000 on the clock now. Problems i've had so far are the brake light switch failed (fixed under warranty), intermittent problems with the passenger window going back down an inch after closing it, the red LED on the towaway de-activation switch is constantly on (dealership diagnosed faulty PSE pump at a cost of £455 to repair!!!!!! out of warranty), some **** broke my NSR light cluster with a shopping trolley and no, i didn't see them!....and finally.....as it has had ultrasonics fitted (by mercedes), bearing in mind the car is a convertible, i have trouble deactivating them when the roof is down and the bloody alarm keeps going off! Guess which switch is supposed to deactivate the ultrasonics......yes you guessed right.....the towaway de-activation switch! I cant help but think the problems are connected.
Overall, the car is georgeous and my wife loves it so i can only keep my fingers crossed and hope the mechanical gremlins keep away!

 

Always amazed at British view of mileage. Buy an S class and put 250k on it!

 

i hope to put 250k (miles) on this one without having to put 250k pounds stirling into running it! Point is that for a realativly 'low mileage', you wouldn't expect components to be failing just yet or are my expectations a little too high? [8D] I suppose that there is no perfect cars out there.....after all...... most later cars have more electronics than the Apollo 13 space mission and we all know what happened there!
Perhaps the Jap car manufacturers are a little closer to reliability than most other manufacturers, although their kudos aint nowhere near MB!......after all what have the British got now.....MG Rover.......I liked the look of the MG ZTT Tourer (no acounting for taste) untill i spoke to an AA breakdown man!
Anyway.....i hope to have many years of enjoyment out of the little gem i have now[sm=wakeup.gif]

 

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I use to trade in my cars as soon as the warranty was up. But I like my C280 so much I think I will hang on to it for a while, plus I am semi-retired and don't put as much mileage as I use to on a car. I have the C280 for almost 3 years. When I got it, it had 22K miles today it has 47K miles, see, just broken in.