Faults:

Nothing. The car has lower mileage for age and has full service history. Maintenance is expensive on these cars but worth it to avoid expensive problems; the only things I have had to replace in 3 years are wear and tear items (tyres, brakes pads, etc). I do not drive as much mileage as I used to however.

General Comments:

Silver 2012 C-Class. Seriously good looking and comfortable car.

The C180 Sport model is a good one. Gorgeous exterior style and interior. I love this car's look - This is the 2007 - 2014 model, I was not keen on the updated odd looking 2015 onwards car. This one still looks like a classic C-Class.

Inside, the sports seats are a joy to be in, controls laid out very well. The car is great to drive - not the fastest, but the 1.8 petrol engine with the semi auto box can move quick when needed. Still manages 35 - 40 mpg as well in realistic driving settings. It's not quite as fun to drive as my old BMW 3 series, but this car feels better built and overall quality is better. I went for petrol over diesel as this is a simpler, less problematic engine.

Like most cars they are far too overpriced on the used market, but look hard and you can find a good one for around £6000 - £7000. Still a ridiculous amount of money for a car over a decade old, but with that money make sure you get a low mileage clean car with full history - do not touch abused or modified examples of these cars as they quickly become a money pit.

Faults:

Air con condenser.

Tracking causing uneven tyre wear (repeatedly).

Suspension bushes.

Timing chain.

ABS sensor.

Parking brake cables.

Parking brake mechanism.

Fuel consumption spoiled by "emissions upgrade".

Corroded brake pipes.

General Comments:

The car was great at first, although the seats are quite firm until they settled in. I spend a lot of time on motorways and A roads so the car had a relatively easy life. There were persistent problems with tracking and uneven tyre wear; even after having had full 4 wheel alignment done by the dealer, it was never 100% satisfactory. From 40,000 miles on, it suffered persistent uneven tyre wear, particularly to the front tyres.

Performance was adequate, but the OM651 engine is a grumbly old thing and you could never forget that it was a diesel. Economy was pretty good, often getting 55-58mpg on the motorway, but this was ruined by the "emissions update" carried out in 2016 which knocked 10% off this figure. Dealer said that this could not be reversed.

Dealers always keen to carry out overpriced work - wanted to change my tyres with "only 3.5mm" tread remaining. Caught them lying about a number of issues including wanting to replace the "badly corroded" brake pipes and failing the car at MOT. An independent tester said that there was some light surface corrosion which he cleaned off and painted with some anti-rust paint and passed the car.

Dealers never managed to cure the sticking parking brake, which used to stick on if parked overnight. There were various excuses for this despite having replaced the cables etc. Eventually I went elsewhere. Summary - dealer experience was very poor.

At just over 100,000 miles the car developed a rattle on start-up. This was diagnosed by a Merc specialist as timing chain. If left it will either eat through the alloy engine casting or else snap, writing off the engine (£7,500 replacement engine). The chain is at the back of the engine and requires 8 hours garage time to change "and the parts aren't cheap". Mercedes skimping on engineering and using a simplex timing chain on the OM651 engine instead of duplex. The Merc specialist does these regularly as Sprinters have the same issue.

With a few other things that needed doing (suspension bushes, new tyres etc) the repair bill was 2/3 the worth of the car & so I traded in. The new Merc 2.0 litre diesel has a duplex timing chain. I wonder why that would be?

Summary, I liked the car a lot. It was spoiled by the poor engineering standards of the engine and the utterly miserable dealer service. I would have kept it longer except for the timing chain issue.