2003 Mercedes-Benz C-Class C230 Kompressor review from North America

See the note (below). It turns out that the car was very badly aligned. The C240 was also badly aligned, just not so bad as the C230 Kompressor. I had alignment on C240 done at independent shop - C240 is OK...

Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC

Paul G. Juron

General Manager

Customer Assistance Center.

Dear Mr. Juron.

I’ve never driven, much less owned, a car that handled so poorly and sounded so cheap as this C230… Around town, it was fine. On the expressway at speed, the car was just awful. It seemed determined to follow every irregularity in the concrete and generates more road noise than any car that I’ve owned since 1975… I thought that there certainly must be something physically wrong with the car.

I called the dealer after accumulating about 50 miles and owning the car for about 4 hours and told them that the car was unacceptable for the reasons outlined above. The next day, I went to the dealership and found that the car had depreciated seven thousand dollars overnight. I tested a C240 which was everything that I imagined that a Mercedes ought to be. By exchanging the C230 for the C240, the depreciation was somehow reduced to 1500 dollars, so in order to avoid a substantial loss, I bought the C240. The irony that the C240 that I bought had more miles on it that the C230 that I traded did not escape me…

I asked if Mercedes couldn’t be contacted to “back the title” out of the system and was told no, that the car had been titled to me immediately after I drove away from the dealership and that “that was that”. That struck me as a fairly strange way to welcome a new customer to the Mercedes family.

The bottom line is this… I have wanted to own a Mercedes for many years, but the process of buying one has been thoroughly unpleasant. If the dealer had even offered to try to talk to Mercedes on my behalf, that would have been enough. But, that didn’t happen… I would like to add that the salesperson was never part of the problem…

I bought (among other things) a set of the headlight trim accessories for the C240 which were fine for three days until the first rain at which point they came loose from the car. The double-sided tape stuck fine to the headlights, but came loose from the headlight trim. That, coupled with the experience with the C230 has begun to convince me that I made a serious misjudgment by purchasing a Mercedes-Benz automobile.

I will probably keep the C240 for the length of the warranty and then dispose of it. I had hoped to stay with Mercedes for the remainder of my life, but unfortunately, I will not likely be purchasing another nor can I in good conscience recommend the brand to any of my acquaintances. My wife generally purchases a new car of the same brand, but different model as I within a month or two of my purchase. This pattern has prevailed for almost 25 years.

As things stand, I can just about guarantee you that she won’t be visiting the dealer for a Mercedes-Benz automobile…