451 belt advice and warranty

[Jason1969]

A few questions here. The dreaded belt on my wifes 451 has split in half with a loud crack. Luckily there is still half of it on the car. I'm not to keen on driving it to Mercedes (the car has done 9500 miles and is 21/2 years old) in this state but I did take out an extended warranty at the end of the two years. The RAC man has also offered to source a new belt and fit tomorrow. Is this an option to get me to the Merc garage? or would I be covered for the vehicle to be retrieved and fixed at the garage under warranty. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Jason

[Thrumbleux]

Belt splitting lengthways suggests pulleys have lost alignment - for which the warranty should be liable. Given the failure of the remaining part of the belt is highly probable leading to severe engine damage I'd think recovery inevitable. (New belt could fail en route or be construed as attempted repair - best forgotten).

[Jason1969]

Thanks so don't touch and check with Mercedes about vehicle recovery?

[Thrumbleux]

Yep, that's how I'd play it. Not mentioning the RAC offer unless Mercedes won't collect then make sure they accept liability if it explodes on the way there. My guess (assuming they have two brain cells to play with each other without one killing the other) is they will recover, and remove any risk of the very expensive overheating bill were that to occur.

[ColSmart]

At such a low mileage and year of car and the way the belt split down the middle in two, it sounds like an MHD, and if so you can get Merc to foot the bill, as they have put out yet another fix (recall) for missalignment issue this year.

[Jason1969]

Thanks ColSmart, called into Merc today and it is being organised. Handy to know about the recall.

[cougar7609]

This is interesting to hear, our MHD has only just had its belt and pulley replaced by Mercedes under a recall they have just sent out. Mercedes WILL replace the belt as long as you dont drive it. They WILL pick it up and you will not have to pay a bean for it.

You dont say if your car is an MHD or not, but I will assume that it is with so few miles and having the belt problem.

Im in France and Im not sure if they have started the recall in the UK or not. We received the recall letter about 3 weeks ago. It was replaced on Monday. It is supposed to solve the problem with the MHD belt once and for all but Im not sure as they have had several recalls for the MHD belt before now that were supposed to solve the problem. Our car is a 2012/13 made in 2012 and sold in 2013 so Im pretty sure that if your car is an MHD you should hear from Mercedes in the future anyway. Interestingly I had bought the belt and was planning to replace it myself soon, as it was Mercedes got there before me. Our car has done 10000km and the belt was fraying at the sides and showing signs of wear on the top. So it was replaced just in time. Do not let mercedes charge you anything for it!

[10:45PM]

It's not a recall in the general sense of the phrase... it'll be a service measure.

and service measures don't always carry over from country to country anyway.

[Jason1969]

Update, the RAC took the car in as it was a specialist job. No quibble from Mercedes. Apparently there is a recall and they replaced the bolt and bearings with the updated versions. Luckily the belt snapped down the centre and part of it was holding everything together so it could be driven onto the truck and off again. The car is MHD, excellent service from Merc all round. Had the car MOT'd at the same time which was not due until Sept which they did free of charge. The only cost to me was a major service which included a brake fluid change.

[ColSmart]

Glad your sorted.

You should maybe consider getting a trade-in sooner rather than later as MHD is a problematic engine. There is no guarentee that this will not happen again or worse destroy the engine at a lot of cost. This is why when I was looking, I decided it would be a petrol Turbo or a Cdi Fortwo, as I knew about this MHD problem from these forums. I went for the Cdi.

I was in a similar situation about not trusting a Smart car a number of years back....
I owned a Smart Roadster and although it was a fantastic drivers car for two years, I had to get a replacement steering rack due to faulty noisy rack, (luckly just under warranty before it ran out), and did not trust the car after that, and bought something else. (Also rain water leaks had a lot to do with it).

[Jason1969]

Thanks, appreciate the advice. To be honest this is such a low mileage car we'll keep it. I plan to take out an extended warranty every year so it should cover any issues. I only found out about the mhd issue after purchasing two new ones. I've since traded mine in for a Brabus as my mileage is a lot higher. I'll keep an eye on it weekly but the car only does 10 miles a day.

Thanks