[veeeight]

have you all had the 5 year warranty

It’s only a 3 year warranty in the UK - most of the heads have been replaced within this warranty period.

 

[Grant72]

Morning all.
Just had an update from the dealer. They've taken the engine out, removed the cylinder head and sent photos to the Mercedes Benz technical team who have advised a new cylinder head is required.
It's been ordered from Germany but no eta as yet. I will continue to enjoy driving the GLA45 S in the meantime. Further updates to follow.

 

[Forrester]

You won't want to give the GLA 45s back.

When my wife had to take her then new Audi A3 in to get a lighting fault fixed. Which Audi couldn't work out what needed to be done, they gave her an A5, but as a couple of weeks went by they downgraded her courtesy car. You might find the same as they sell the GLA 45s.

 

[Grant72]

Morning all.
Just had an update from the dealer. They've taken the engine out, removed the cylinder head and sent photos to the Mercedes Benz technical team who have advised a new cylinder head is required.
It's been ordered from Germany but no eta as yet. I will continue to enjoy driving the GLA45 S in the meantime. Further updates to follow.

You won't want to give the GLA 45s back.

When my wife had to take her then new Audi A3 in to get a lighting fault fixed. Which Audi couldn't work out what needed to be done, they gave her an A5, but as a couple of weeks went by they downgraded her courtesy car. You might find the same as they sell the GLA 45s.

Hopefully not. I originally had a B200 courtesy car (only one available at the time) but was offered the upgrade due to my own car being an A35. I thought that was pretty decent of the dealership. I suppose time will tell depending on how long the repair process is going to take.

 

[Weegie]

Add me to the list. New Sept ‘21 and 12.5k miles.

Engine warning light and rough running just as pulled into car park. Came back to car all fine and ran for a week with no problems or symptoms, including 2 100 mile trips.
Just after leaving house warning light and rough running, no power.
Called MercedesMe and RAC attended. Saw fault codes from both occurrences and followed me to dealer who they had called to get security to open up to allow car to be dropped off. Again car ran fine.
Call from dealer Saturday saying they had car and would look at Monday. Today advised issue with compression on cylinder 1, engine being stripped and they will keep me informed. 😟

No progress. As of lunchtime yesterday dealer hadn’t started more detailed investigation, engine strip down, as very busy.
Will chase up again tomorrow but all points to new cylinder head as above. Interesting to know availability of parts and how long will be off road....

 

[veeeight]

Spotted on Facebook…..

Anyone verify this? Are all the cylinder head problems on pre 2020 cars?




“MY2019 (68,19,69plates) & MY2020 (20plate)
A35 AMG owners beware!

The pre 2020 MY A35s have a common fault (namely the cylinder head, and valves not seating in the cylinder head correctly)

It starts off as a tapping noise coming from your engine (this is the early stages or the valves not seating correctly into the low quality aluminium alloy head on early models)

Over time the forces exerted on the engine and valves causes any or multiple of the cylinders to misfire at once as a result of any or multiple of the cylinders cracking due to the pressures of the incorrectly seating valves along with the poor quality aluminium alloy head used in the earlier models.*** which has been revised at production level and hasn’t happened on a single A35 MY 2020 onwards!

This happens on cars varying from 14k-50k miles in my opinion all of the early model years are ticking time bombs and should be all taken in under recall as the cost is 4K upwards if it’s out of your own pocket which is ridiculous considering it’s a fault Mercedes are fully aware have and have revised in the newer MY cars 🤦🏽‍♂️“

 

[Weegie]

Correction to my post #137 above

“Add me to the list. New Sept ‘21 and 12.5k miles”. Should have read Sept ‘20. Only held by dealer for a couple of weeks for delivery so believe July ‘20 build.

Car been with dealer for two weeks now. Took a bit of time to get work underway after diagnosing lack of compression on one cylinder, but told yesterday that new cylinder head being fitted and car being returned middle of next week.

I don’t have great technical / mechanical knowledge. Is there a explanation anywhere on what is causing these issues, or why it is happening.

 

[sr3rad]

It would be nice to narrow this down a bit, my car has build date of Oct. 2019 first reg Jan 2020 so it seems I'm in the danger zone. I might have a chat with MB to see what their attitude might be if, as Sods says, it happens after the end of my 3 year warranty. I would have thought a recall is unlikely on such a major item.

 

[JoseCruzPT]

Hi Guys,

So here goes an update from my last post from January.

Issue with cylinder head was on exhaust valve from cylinder 1 (pics below), burnt and with extensive carbon deposits. New cylinder head installed.

Picked the car up on the begining of February (1 month for repairs), drove for about 4500 Kms (roughly 3000 miles), and yesterday i realised it seemed to backfire between 2nd and 3rd gear just before parking when i realised it was again vibrating at idle and seemed to be on 3 cylinders even if i revved up a little bit.

I haven't meanwhile started the car again, will do so today, but for now there was no engine light on. Will drive to Mercedes Benz ASAP.

I have been carefully reading at all the posts, and see that the issue mainly happens in cylinder 1 exhaust valves... am i right assuming this? Could it be that something around cylinder 1 is affecting the performance of this one? design fault? Mine is an A250, the same engine than that of the A35, although less power. C and E class also uses this engine (M260), but longitudinally mounted and other configurations.... Does anyone have any idea if there are issues with C and E classes as well?

I am guessing issue must be much more widespread than we might think...

My father owns a GLA 250 from the previous generation with the M270 engine, and no issues with it at all.

Regards,

 

[Craig70]

Spotted on Facebook…..

Anyone verify this? Are all the cylinder head problems on pre 2020 cars?




“MY2019 (68,19,69plates) & MY2020 (20plate)
A35 AMG owners beware!

The pre 2020 MY A35s have a common fault (namely the cylinder head, and valves not seating in the cylinder head correctly)

It starts off as a tapping noise coming from your engine (this is the early stages or the valves not seating correctly into the low quality aluminium alloy head on early models)

Over time the forces exerted on the engine and valves causes any or multiple of the cylinders to misfire at once as a result of any or multiple of the cylinders cracking due to the pressures of the incorrectly seating valves along with the poor quality aluminium alloy head used in the earlier models.*** which has been revised at production level and hasn’t happened on a single A35 MY 2020 onwards!

This happens on cars varying from 14k-50k miles in my opinion all of the early model years are ticking time bombs and should be all taken in under recall as the cost is 4K upwards if it’s out of your own pocket which is ridiculous considering it’s a fault Mercedes are fully aware have and have revised in the newer MY cars 🤦🏽‍♂️“

Have noticed that mine has started making a slight 'tappity' noise when cold but only minor, and soon goes after a few a couple of minutes driving. Mines only done 5.5K so I know that if go to MB they will just say ''it always makes that noise when cold!''. Totally love the car but this is giving me a nasty niggle in the back of my mind even to the point of getting rid of it before the seemingly inevitable

 

[srea064]

Craig, it will be fine. I know what you mean though about having anxiety. I came from the Focus RS MK3 camp and we all had to have our head gaskets replaced, in my case twice. My AMG came with 2 years warranty on a 69 plate and yours must be similar. Just enjoy the car and if it develops a misfire, get it in and stand your ground for a new head. Until then, enjoy the car.

 

[Forrester]

Spotted on Facebook…..

Anyone verify this? Are all the cylinder head problems on pre 2020 cars?




“MY2019 (68,19,69plates) & MY2020 (20plate)
A35 AMG owners beware!

The pre 2020 MY A35s have a common fault (namely the cylinder head, and valves not seating in the cylinder head correctly)

It starts off as a tapping noise coming from your engine (this is the early stages or the valves not seating correctly into the low quality aluminium alloy head on early models)

Over time the forces exerted on the engine and valves causes any or multiple of the cylinders to misfire at once as a result of any or multiple of the cylinders cracking due to the pressures of the incorrectly seating valves along with the poor quality aluminium alloy head used in the earlier models.*** which has been revised at production level and hasn’t happened on a single A35 MY 2020 onwards!

This happens on cars varying from 14k-50k miles in my opinion all of the early model years are ticking time bombs and should be all taken in under recall as the cost is 4K upwards if it’s out of your own pocket which is ridiculous considering it’s a fault Mercedes are fully aware have and have revised in the newer MY cars 🤦🏽‍♂️“

#130 is a 70 reg so is that a 2020 or 2021 build.

 

[Forrester]

Have noticed that mine has started making a slight 'tappity' noise when cold but only minor, and soon goes after a few a couple of minutes driving. Mines only done 5.5K so I know that if go to MB they will just say ''it always makes that noise when cold!''. Totally love the car but this is giving me a nasty niggle in the back of my mind even to the point of getting rid of it before the seemingly inevitable

It's not good business practice from MB. They should get the at risk cars in and fix them. It might be fine for the owner under warranty who does lows mileage and then sells it on with nothing going wrong. Or even where the same owner has the cylinder defect in year 4 or later, MB will probably fix it free as a "goodwill gesture". But they won't probably offer a GW gesture to a subsequent owner out of warranty.

All* our A45 first gen turbos blew, and generally below 10K miles so few would have caused a problem for subsequent owners. But a range up to 50K miles is a real ticking timebomb which MB should sort out now.

*I stand to be corrected if anyone is accurately aware of one that didn't.

 

[Craig70]

Craig, it will be fine. I know what you mean though about having anxiety. I came from the Focus RS MK3 camp and we all had to have our head gaskets replaced, in my case twice. My AMG came with 2 years warranty on a 69 plate and yours must be similar. Just enjoy the car and if it develops a misfire, get it in and stand your ground for a new head. Until then, enjoy the car.

yes, hope you're right 🤞

 

[THewson]

My A250 went in last week same warning signs as below so best to get checked.
My warning light came on when it first happened but then went off when I restarted the car and it drove as normal for a week or so. The night before it’s service which was booked it happened again and didn’t stop this time. Again they know it’s an issue as they said “the last one they had in like this blew the engine”
I’m waiting for it to come back to me 🙏

I have a bad feeling this may happen to mine soon, tonight I started the car up was already pre warmed from a drive around 3 hours ago, anyway the car was quite jerky in idle, could feel it through the seats etc like a vibration and feeling like it was going to stall also noticed revs were fluctuating and lower idle than usual. However it drove fine and then seemed to vanish after a drive.... Can anyone confirm they had this before they had the fault?

 

[Forrester]

My A250 went in last week same warning signs as below so best to get checked.
My warning light came on when it first happened but then went off when I restarted the car and it drove as normal for a week or so. The night before it’s service which was booked it happened again and didn’t stop this time. Again they know it’s an issue as they said “the last one they had in like this blew the engine”
I’m waiting for it to come back to me 🙏

Please can you share how many miles you have done.

 

[THewson]

Please can you share how many miles you have done.

I’d done about 40k but they were in chunks so not a lot of stop/starting. Car was bought sept 2020.

 

[Weegie]

Correction to my post #137 above

“Add me to the list. New Sept ‘21 and 12.5k miles”. Should have read Sept ‘20. Only held by dealer for a couple of weeks for delivery so believe July ‘20 build.

Car been with dealer for two weeks now. Took a bit of time to get work underway after diagnosing lack of compression on one cylinder, but told yesterday that new cylinder head being fitted and car being returned middle of next week.

I don’t have great technical / mechanical knowledge. Is there a explanation anywhere on what is causing these issues, or why it is happening.

Picked car back up from dealer today. I had asked for detail on the issue and cause but had to ask again. Frustratingly the little slip they give you saying what has been done advised cylinder head gasket replaced. What I was told was:

• pitting due to valve seating
• they have done 3 or 4 others this year
• cylinder head replaced, new/improved design
• work covered by 2 year warranty, so basically for me 6 months beyond the 3 year new car warranty

 

[Roger76]

I’m in Japan , my A35 manufacture year 2019 , got the car in 2020 . Does anyone know the new head part Num .

 

[Craig70]

It’s only a 3 year warranty in the UK - most of the heads have been replaced within this warranty period.

Morning @veeeight.

Sorry to pick on your point a little late. I realise we have a 3 year warranty in UK, but mine's a Sept 19 car and it's only done 5.5k.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get to the 15k plus that seems to be the 'trigger' millage for most engines by September this year, and was wondering if it's worth having a word with my local MB dealer (who have been really good so far when dealing with them) about my concerns and see what they say.

I'm sure they'll take the corporate line and say 'nothing wrong, so nothing we can do' but might be worth making them know I am aware of the seemingly common issue.