Parts: The Perfect Defective Moulding

In the past, when people think of the reputation of Mercedes-Benz, their first impression may not be lavish or opulence, but it must be indestructible. The high-quality parts that make up the vehicle are naturally the basis of this word, and Mercedes-Benz is proud of the quality of their genuine parts till today. Unfortunately, nothing in this world is permanent. Today, can we still see this indestructible?

Time to time we see similar opinions on enthusiast forums: “Mercedes in the past were great, they were reliable, elegant, and had real class. They just don’t build these like that anymore”. Such praises for old Merc are heard every day in BAT. Well, in general I don’t approve this. I can’t ignore people’s accusations about the quality of current aftersales parts, and I have verified some of them based on my experience. However most of the accusations have been filtered out by me, at least some of them are unfounded.

This has to take into account consumer’s professional limitations. Sometimes people think that wax coating on rubber parts is bad and looks half-finished. However, this stuff is there on factory new cars, and it still remains on my ultra-low mileage cars and 30-year-old NOS. For example, people complain that new bushings don’t last. This has to make sure that the new bushings are installed at the correct angles and torqued, and frankly many workshops today can’t do that. People may even have a beautiful imagination about past products due to their unfamiliarity and overestimate their past quality. For another example, there are some counterfeits on the market, and even I sometimes fall into the trap. So the situation is always complicated, and the manufacturer is the last one I blame. Unless it’s something quite obvious, like they no longer print the owner’s manual like they used to.

Frankly speaking, I am a Mercedes-Benz brand flatterer. Although Mercedes gets nothing but money from me, I gained a lot of fun from them. As an optimistic person, I don’t think I am the one being taken advantage of. My passion for Mercedes is almost solar-nuclear fusion, although looks like it will eventually stop one day, but it is still far away. Since the start of the parts album, we have not criticized any genuine parts (although I have inevitably had bad experiences). I prefer to defend Mercedes-Benz, which is the source of my enjoyment. Defending what I love is not a profession, but a calling.

Mercedes’ marketing campaign since 1902 has been “The best or nothing.” Similarly I have a humble bottom line: Better than nothing. Both in the work I do on cars and in the way parts are treated. I always pass on the idea in my parts reviews that even if Mercedes isn’t doing as well as it once did, nobody is doing it better than Mercedes now. As a people pleaser, I appreciate Mercedes needlessly offering parts for obsolete models—better than nothing. The worst I can imagine is Mercedes realizing that doing nothing is better than being criticized for doing it, resulting in parts being unavailable. So, my discontent is always silent.

Enough of that. The parts for this review, there is really no rival, only Mercedes makes them. Well, I have tried restore them, but no one does it better. This is the center moulding of the facelift rear bumper, part number A1408800636. Fig 14 in the image above. It’s a facelift version just by chance, because I needed it. I also ordered pre-facelifts before this, they are more structurally stable, so they are stronger and less prone to problems.

The part itself is characterized by its length. It is 150 cm long thin stainless steel strip with chrome plating. And then it is expensive, with an MSRP of more than 350 €. So much so that the opportunists who resell classic parts have not monopolized them and Mercedes-Benz still has them in stock. Of course I will save what I think is the most important feature for last: it is fragile. This type of stainless steel chrome plating is applied to 5 mouldings on the front and rear bumpers, also the radiator grille. Due to the large acreage, stainless steel can be easily squeezed and deformed. Such deformation is almost irreversible. Forget about PDR or any sheet metal tricks, we are talking about stainless steel, chrome-plated stainless steel. There is almost no way to repair dents in high-gloss stainless steel without damaging the chrome over it.

Dents are a common problem on used cars. The older the car is, the more likely it is to get dented. Of course, in addition to dents, there is also the problem of rust, or “leaking”. Generally speaking, chrome plating is still loose and porous even when it is thick, so nickel and copper are often used to cover the base material. After many years, copper can become a problem, as it will leak through the oxidized chrome plating to the surface, leaving a patina. Even after the patina is removed, the yellow copper layer is very noticeable. For a high-level restoration project, this is unacceptable. The only solution is to re-chrome the moulding. Of course, it only makes sense to re-chrome the moulding if it is not dented. For a scavenger like me who dismantles a lot of donors, I can find 1 or 0 set of mouldings that can be used directly in every 10 vehicles without dents or a small amount of patina. 3 or less mouldings without dents but with a lot of patina. The rest are thrown away as scrap metal. Therefore, it is not easy to find parts worth re-chrome.

Re-chrome-plating a part is much more complicated than just writing the word, even harder than having a new part made in the factory. First the chrome needs to be chemically stripped, then polished, ready for apply new coating. Then copper plated, chrome plated, and polished again. The part must be well preserved at each step to avoid dents. One dent and all the work done so far has been wasted. I haven’t even mentioned that these stainless steels can warp and dent if they get too much heat from polishing. In our experience of finding contractors to re-chrome them, some nearly perfect mouldings were total lost on the first polish because of heat deformation. The cost in parts and time of re-chrome is huge. In fact, before deciding to order this set of genuine parts, we sent the original mouldings of the car to a contractor for re-chrome plating. The parts were dent-free, but had countless patina. As a result, due to the high polishing temperature, all 5 parts were deformed and reported as total losses. In this photo taken by the supplier, you can see that the longest moulding in our case has been completely transformed into a curved one.

So, given the level of restoration and the cost of re-chroming, it is worth it in some cases to get costly new mouldings. On our 9966 km S 320, all mouldings had a lot of patina from long-term humid indoor parking. In order to correct this car to factory spec, I ordered all 5 mouldings for the front and rear bumpers, as well as the NOS radiator grille from our stock. In the past, I also had no chance to get any NOS facelift bumper mouldings, because facelift cars are more active and popular, their parts ran out long ago. These 5 new parts can only be ordered from Mercedes-Benz’s German warehouse through authorized parts dealers. I placed the order immediately after finding out the original mouldings were total loss due to bending.

The bill was huge, but the 1000+ € were worth it for the results I won’t regret and the nerves I saved. I waited in the workshop the day the package deliver to avoid any mistakes. Shipping damage or defective parts would be a super expensive joke. The first batch arrived with 3 pieces, 2 front bumper mouldings and 1 rear bumper center moulding, the longest one. The packaging and box were very casual compared to the value of the goods. The packaging was just a paper bag, and the three pieces were directly placed in the overly generous cardboard box. My delivery pal, my three employees witnessed me opening the package together, they also wanted to see the risky expensive moulding.

The first two pieces I opened were smaller front bumper mouldings, they are perfect. I happily said to guys, “Nothing wrong with throwing the money.” But before I opened the third piece, I emphasized “This is the point.” My employees all knew the bad experience we had with the rechrome pieces, it is so fragile. As I unpacked it, everyone was quiet, just looking for flaws with their eyes. I tilted it, moving my eyes to watch the reflection change. A flawless part should be as flat as a mirror. “We’re done, I see the dent”. I wasn’t the first to break the silence, this came from our sheet metal guy. He sometimes liked to make jokes like this, and I thought it was the same this time. However, a few seconds later, I noticed more than one dent. They weren’t super obvious, so no one noticed it at first. But if you look at it the right way, there are multiple countless small dents in the middle area. I became very nervous, but I still had hope. “How obvious is it installed on the car?”

I put it on the ground and walked around at a distance of 1-2 meters. If I could not feel the obvious change in reflection, it would be acceptable. Unfortunately, it is obvious. When I laid it flat to continue to see how serious it is, I found that this could even be observed from the side. My first reaction was to “ask for a replacement”, and others certainly agreed that such a part is not worth its full price. I have never had to return an item to part dealers before, but I have heard of it. I saw an enthusiast in the US order an exhaust pipe for a classic MB and it got dented easily due to storage and shipping. He returned it 3 times and got a perfect exhaust. So I immediately contacted my parts dealer, and at this point I was glad that I made a foresighted decision: I had a hunch that these mouldings were risky, so for potential returns, I did not choose the dealer with the lowest quote, but the dealer with whom I had the deepest cooperation. At least, this would make things easier, and it was worth buying a 30 € insurance for a 350 € part.

The old buddy from dealer first stated that his “young pal” did not check carefully before shipping last night. This surprised me a little bit because the old buddy is a veteran, and although we have been working together for a long time, he is not the kind of person you can make friends with. I don’t appreciate such kind of people, and I will explain later. But he admitted the negligence on his side and agreed that I could mail the part back to report the problem. I returned the part through the return process of the shipping company, but it happened to be a holiday break, and I was told by the carrier that the sender “did not respond” to paying the freight. In order to save time during the holiday, I paid the return freight. You see, at this moment I was already in a weak position, I just wanted to solve the problem as soon as possible, without defending my own interests. In my opinion, since they did not refuse my request, I should go with them halfway: make a little sacrifice to avoid greater losses. This is my principle: better than nothing.

After the holiday break, there was no further response, so I took the initiative to contact them. The old buddy said: “I received the moulding, I took a look, there should be no problem with this thing, Mercedes-Benz cannot claim compensation”. Well, I felt like I was being teased. Because I took a video and sent it to him before returning the moulding, he had already seen the problem. After I questioned him, he sent me the photos he took. Static shots on the dirty floor in his dim office. See, there is no problem now! “Because according to our inspection standards, this bright strip is flawless, you know? You can see it against the light and there is no pit, because we can’t feel the pit with our hands. If you go to claim compensation, they won’t give us compensation.” Then he proposed 2 standards from MB to claim compensation: 1. The defects can be seen from the static photos 2. The defects can be felt by hand touching.

Unfortunately, this tricky part can circumvent these two standards through technical means. For me, I can look for the flaw in a still photo that shows it from a certain angle, but they have a million ways to make that flaw invisible in a photo. The dent is definitely there, but it is not a pit caused by a sharp object, but a series of silky pits. Now I am very glad that I took two videos before returning the goods to show how they deformed. I showed these two videos again. He was silent for a while and replied briefly: MB said that there is no such inspection like you did. At this time, I went from hoping to solve the problem to being furious: “MB can’t see it, they are blind. Just tell me whether you can see it or not?” I really want him to speak his conscience, because he definitely saw the problem, but he chose to defend his employer between his conscience and his employer. Then he said like a wise man, “even if you order another one, it’s not necessarily better than this one”, as if he was thinking about me. After we have cooperated for so long, he was not even willing to express an attitude of understanding me. To be honest, my position in this incident is not clear. I think that as a regular customer, all future cooperation is my bargaining chip, but many parts suppliers don’t care.

The parts dealer “North China Star” (as known as 坚城奔驰 on the label) was founded in Beijing in 1985. It is earliest MB parts dealers in the country, one year before Mercedes’ first service point and nine years before Mercedes’ first showroom in China. Since it was founded early it had a large number of NOS, and that’s how we started working together. This old guy is one of the veterans of the dealership and is very knowledgeable about classic MB parts. But as I said, he is not the kind of person you can make friends with. These classic parts dealers know that the more good deals you get, the less they make. So as my parts inventory increases, his price becomes more and more expensive. At some point, we are in competition. Because even though I don’t sell any parts, they don’t think so. They want to have the pricing power in their hands, and once I have more NOS inventory than they do, they will lose the pricing power. The negative side of his knowledge must be seen: never expect to get a good deal from him.

I was a little dizzy, and I spoke a series of vehement words, including reporting them to the Consumer Protection Association. In theory, this was an Internet purchase, and I opened the package in front of the delivery man, so the law would support the return. However, he didn’t seem to care at all, and then he was silent. I thought, I would not buy anything from him for quite a while. Then I asked for the invoice for this transaction and asked for the moulding to be returned to me, which are all evidence. At that time, I didn’t know who to report to, because according to him, it was not them who were responsible for the appraisal of this claim, but he refused to say which MB agency it was. I assumed that the “Daimler Northeast Asia Parts Trading Co., Ltd.” on the label was the culprit, because their label said “Product Passed”. But I called them many times and no one answered the phone number on the label. Then I went to seek inspiration from my true friend, a veteran in aftersales service of a MB dealer. He absolutely agreed that this is a defective part, but not optimistic about my expectations at all. He said that in his 20-year career, he had only one claim approved, and that time he claimed on behalf of his dealer rather than the user. It was a W222 headlight, it looked perfect, but the adjustment function did not work after installation. He spent a long time on that case and told me that I could not solve my problem on my own.

He thinks the gray way is more promising. Since the system doesn’t work, then bypass it. Ideally, if I know someone who is in a high position in the aftersales system, the claim will be issued effortlessly. This is more likely to be a German, conscientious and dedicated. Or use a rough way, like those angry users who besiege dealers, sit on the dealer’s display car and cry, or call a few trucks to block the dealer’s entrance and exit until they surrender. However, as a believer in the W140 methodology, I don’t want to solve the problem with those non-S-Klasse methods. Imagine what Jürgen Hubbert would look like if he were still alive and saw this. Anyway I looked for many employees at Daimler Northeast Asia Parts Trading Co., Ltd. on LinkedIn, and none of them seemed to have anything to do with aftersales parts. So I decided to complain on Instagram, which is what I decided to do last. Because I don’t want to hurt my feelings with further reactions, even though I am very disappointed. But I can also comfort myself with an example on the most famous car forum in China. A chauffeur of a 2018 S 680 Pullman complained to MB on the forum that their car had serious quality problems, including surround images that did not work immediately after picking up the car and curtains that did not work. Even people who spent almost 2 million € on buying a car can only complain on the forum, what can I do?

Short words expressed my disappointment:
“The most frustrating genuine Mercedes parts I’ve had. When you find a bunch of dents on the $$$ bumper molding, Mercedes aftersales define it‘s not a problem… They did at least five inspections and judged it ”nothing wrong, you can’t inspect parts in your way”. In the end, I had to accept a Mercedes-Benz certified flawless defective part, plus 2 additional shipping costs. More frustrating than the monetary loss is the unpromising future: They are lowering their standards and respect for customers. In this case the representatives don’t even respect people with eyes. I was told “even if you order another one, it’s not necessarily better than this one”. Well, I would just walk away from these “risky parts” in future.”

Well, that’s what I think. I will not order parts that may cause my financial and emotional damage from MB again, and I will not cooperate with this dealer again. I know MB is actually far away from me, I have no direct contact with them from the beginning to the end. But their authorized dealers are their representatives, and since they have decided to do this, that is MB’s attitude. This time I don’t want to remain silent, at least I will still tell the whole story on the website. As for that part, if I can’t find the perfect NOS, it will leave a gap in what looks like a perfect car. If anyone is interested, I will tell him the “no qualified part” story.

Aftermath

My complaint on Instagram did attract the attention of enthusiastic people. About a week later, an MB employee from Germany asked me for details of the incident, and I provided what I knew. This enthusiastic user previously worked in the development department and had just joined the aftersales. He decided to solve the matter out of kindness because “I see your passion.” At least he admitted that the part was defective, didn’t he? I believe other MB employees saw my statement, but only he came forward, so I salute him. Now, things seem to have a glimmer of hope. I think my request is very simple, that is, to replace a part that meets the specifications, but it seems very difficult through the system. Now we are on a slightly gray but very righteous road.

First, he launched an investigation, which required a response from Beijing. I had no idea about MB’s internal procedures, and I didn’t want to waste his time explaining it to an outsider like me. It would take time anyway. This all happened just before I was about to publish this article as it was. I told him that I was going to do it right away, but because of what he did, I would put it off. I believe my article will not affect any innocent people, but the incident has not come to an end after all. If someone changes everything, I am willing to bury this story.

While this incident was going on, we went back to the re-chrome route to see if there was any chance of getting something better than the MB genuine parts. I found the chrome contractor to be more communicative than the MB parts dealer representative, at least they acknowledged their negligence that caused my loss. They were willing to chrome another set for free until I satisfied. I chose to go a step further and found another set of dent-free mouldings for them, which was not easy. We went through the complete process of chrome plating in detail and had some of the risky work done in my shop. I am willing to admit that as far as the chrome treatment itself is concerned, their work was flawless, it was just the dents that ruined it. You can tell the quality of this work by its charge, 500 € to re-chrome 5 mouldings, some of which we did ourselves.

In the above photo, the left side is the second product, and the right side is the first product. However, the result is still not satisfactory. The problem is still the unevenness of the stainless steel surface, the deformation has been reduced from 100% in the first attempt to, I would say 20%, but as long as there is a noticeable deformation it is a defective product. The contractor believes that chrome plating stainless steel is inherently more difficult than chrome plating steels, and they can’t do it better. I think the problem is the polishing method and technique, these long thin mouldings are more suitable for low-temperature magnetic polishing with steel needles or abrasives in liquid. But the problem is that there are no magnetic or rotating polishing tanks on the market that with adiameter more than 150 cm. The good news is that this set is not completely unacceptable, I can install them on lower-level projects. So I spent another 500 € and 4 shipping costs to get a part that is indeed not as good as MB genuine.

Back to MB side, after a while, it didn’t change the result either. I don’t really clear what happened, just refine his words. He launched an internal investigation about the part. On the one hand, all the same parts in stock passed the inspection, which means that only I received a defective part. Of course, it all depends on their definition of defective, and I am pretty sure that my part also passed their inspection when it left the warehouse in Germany. So, a slightly defective part may be judged as an OK part. On the other hand, the investigation is global, but each market has different standards for what is OK. My understanding of this is that maybe it’s really just me who got a defective part, because of transportation. I was told that it is a pick-up only part in Germany, but it obviously went through multiple shipments before I got it. Then due to the standards of different markets – I unabashedly infer that their Chinese colleagues have a higher tolerance of flaw, I can’t get a claim.

I attach my final message as a final opinion on this matter:
So, it seems that this is what happened, the Beijing salesman probably represents the collective position of MB aftersales – this is an ok part. After a short period of uneasiness and indignation, I can understand this way of handling things more and more. Maybe we have to admit the distance between ideal and reality. For an underrated old S-Klaass, 350 € moulding is a luxury, but for a new C-Klasse that is produced 2000 units a day, it may be just a hair. I have to imagine that there is a cognitive diviation, and the two sides have completely different understandings of the importance of this diviation.

But it’s not over yet!

I’m a God believer because I find miracles exist. Of course, I am not a believer in any popular religion, my Bible and church are in these cars. I think I understand these things quite well, and in theory all puzzles can be explained from a technical rather than a metaphysical point of view. However, there are always things that cannot be explained. Just when I finished putting together this manuscript and felt desperate (we are going to paint the rear bumper this week and ready to wrap this project. If nothing unexpected happens, we will install an ugly rear bumper with no center moulding), a friendly parts dealer brought me a set of 3 rear bumper NOS mouldings. In their lovely original bag, the price is quite affordable, 325 €.

After hearing about my experience, my dealer friend told me not to have high hopes for this set, as they have a long history. However, we decided to give it a try. After receiving the package, we found that the center moulding was much more perfect than the one ordered from the MB aftersales – still not 100%, but without the annoying waves. It only has a scratch on the edge, which can be covered by the side moulding, and one of the side mouldings has a crease. Therefore, the center and one side can be used. Compared with ordering from the MB dealer, it is still a good deal. The most important thing is that we solved the problem.

In the end, it cost about 1875 € to get the full set of bumper mouldings. I didn’t realize that I had paid so much. But, can anything better happen to me? God really exists where I strive for everything.