New to forum as car is my wife's but had a question. Noticed this past summer that on each end of the middle horizontal section of the grill that it was warping and separating. The car is a 2005 with 14K on it. At the time not that bad and was symmetrical. Had her tires replaced today with run flats after she has been stranded twice in last 6 months and one of the guys in the shop who seemed to know alot about Mercedes and the frame that this car was built on pointed out the warping. It is much worse than when I saw it this summer and he thought it was coming from heat from the power steering lines that run to a cooler. It is to the point where grill is turning in and has scratch the paint in the middle section and will not go back into restraining clips. Is this a common issue? I glanced through threads and did not see any mention of it before. This car is in Austin TX where is can get pretty hot in the summers although she does not let the car idle more than you would have in evening traffic. Anyway, I see this as a warranty issue and I am just looking for anyone who may be aware of this issue.

Thanks in advance,
George

 

Never heard of this problem...take it back to the dealer they should fix and troubleshoot the problem under warranty. Also how is the ride comfort with the run flats, I have been told that they change the ride comfort drastically.

 

CrossfireLTD,

Thanks for the response. So far we have had good luck with replacement of headlight lenses that were fogging over and replacement of third tail light strip so I don't see much of a problem with this issue with the dealer but it is so strange that I was curious if anyone else had the same problem. It is internal heat that has caused this issue and I am just looking to see if anyone else has ever seen this.

As far as the run flats, please someone correct me if wrong, we could only find Bridgestone's in sizes that fit the front stock and are 20mm wider in the rear with same aspect ratio. Initial ride of about 20 miles is that the tires are a little more noisy at 45+ mph (I attribute to tread pattern) but that the ride/steering is not that noticeable. This is coming from my wife who has owned vettes in the past. The car is a convertible so I don't know how the noise difference would be with a hardtop. She did not feel any difference in the harshness of the ride as I have seen mentioned on this forum.

Hope this helps,
George

 

Plane,

I have 40,000 miles on my 04 coupe and I live in New Braunfels, Tx. so the temp. here is about the same as Austin. I have not had any trouble with the grille at all. You need to take it to the dealer to find out what's going on, I've never heard of anyone having the grille warp. Good luck.