I have had my Mercedes Benz C180 for 2 years now. It is a 1996 Classic (Basic Model) Automatic. It is a dream to drive and in gleaming black. In the 2 years that I have had it it has been almost maintenance free but there are a few common problems with the older C180’s as I will detail here.
The electric front windows - Through use the glass scrapes on the internal mechanism within the door producing linear scratches along the glass along the rear edge of the glass. It also creaks a bit as it goes up and down.
The electric aerial - Although this works and does the job it has stopped returning back into the body off the car and the last section of the aerial sticks out when the radio is switched off or the ignition is off. This also is a common problem due to the number of similar aged C180’s I have seen about.
Front windscreen wiper system - This has recently become a major problem. Because of the ingenious 1 wiper system that mercedes have the wiper not only moves across the screen it also moves up and down. This is all controlled by a rotor arm system. Due to wear and tear this sometimes gets out of synch with the wiper blade moving across the windscreen resulting in the blade catching on the edge of the windscreen and bending the blade. Taking the cover off the wiper arm hub, lubricating the mechanism and resetting the arm when vertical in the middle of the windscreen resolves this for a while but with a new mechanism costing almost £300 I would rather do this and replace the wiper blade for the time being.
Two of my cousins work for Mercedes Benz in the UK - One is a regional service manager and the other is a parts manager. They say that these are common problems with this model and apart from the wiper system problem are very minor and do not stop the pleasure and enjoyment I get from driving my Merc.
One funny feature that the car has is that the headrests on the back seats can be lowered by pressing a button on the dashboard. Great for when you are reversing and they are up. But there isn’t any button for raising them again and you have to get out of the front, climb into the back and raise them manually.
Apart from that just cruising around the streets in this car is a joy. I would recommend anyone who has the opportunity of buying one to do so - you won’t be dissapointed.
Please note the Price I have qouted on this is a conversion of the uk price I paid.
£4500 is what I paid over 2 years ago. Sorry about the confusion Nitin.