Corrosion of cars

Daimler AG, in its most advanced plants, eliminated various time tested processes such as cavity sealing and other anti-corrosion activities in the hope of cost cutting.

However the alternate process(known only to insiders but rumoured to be some kind of gel/agent) failed miserably and horrible corrosion patches along all welding joints performed in automated plants came to be reported to them world-wide.

We were kept in the dark at the time and under the name “additional body protection” various measures were asked to be carried out without information to the owners since no cost was to be charged.

As owners of a C Class whose roof, doors and all other sheet metal corroded totally we received no answers. At that point we were told that only cars made in plants overseas were affected and our own car (not Indian made cars sold to our customers). As we were dealers we were asked to protect the companies reputation since our own car would be restored by the senior most body specialist “Herbert Kartsemnmier”. It was shared that the dealers in Mumbai and Delhi had volunteered to secretly hire additional space where these “IMPORTED CARS” which they had sold in large numbers would be stripped like our own C Class and in rare cases exchange offers of such attractive nature would be offered for “PROBLEM CARS” that the owners must be MADE TO EXCHANGE the cars. We were told that our customers with MADE IN PUNE cars were safe.

However over the years we were shocked to see the cars we had innocently sold fall apart particularly in the door joints. At this point the story was changed and the fact that all doors were imported as pressed and welded units from those same plants with the defective process was revealed.

Various “measures” were performed behind the customers backs but such things cannot be done to the required standards in a dealer workshop. Corrosion in most cars reappeared as it was bound to, but customers are totally in the dark and any failure after a couple of years, is now their responsibility.

Any talk on such issues was prohibited and few dealers like us who began raising our voices at this point and demanding information were slowly forced to exit the network after extensive financial damage and a campaign of harassment.

Total secrecy on what went wrong prevents full knowledge. We were informed that secret replacements of cars would be offered in “rare” cases to avoid adverse publicity. It is a well known fact that entire waxing, sealing and all forms of corrosion protection were missing on thousands of cars for years which the dealers have secretly rectified under instructions of DaimlerChrysler!!! The reasons have never been shared with us!!!