Mercedes-Benz Rethinks Car Construction to Make Repairs Easier and Ownership More Sustainable

By Hugo Mattson December 22, 2025

To enhance recyclability and improve repairability, Mercedes-Benz will be creating a new process for assembling cars.
The switch from using adhesives in assembly to mechanical fastening means repairs will be less complicated after damage, while reducing waste during disposal and recycling.
By making repairs easier, this approach can help reduce the long-term costs of owning and insuring a vehicle while supporting sustainability objectives.

The manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz automaker is moving to a different strategy on how to assemble and repair vehicles by making some changes to their existing practices. While many parts of the automotive industry continue focusing on electric propulsion and software, this change affects the actual time of repairs, the time required for parts replacement, and the method of disposing of a vehicle after the end of its life. Both owners and insurers will benefit from this change, along with repair personnel.

Mercedes-Benz has begun to place greater importance on three areas: repairability of components, the recycling and reuse of materials for future vehicles, and reducing the overall lifetime cost of parts and vehicles. Currently, vehicle production relies heavily on permanent bonded joints (glue, etc.) and other non-mechanical connections. Mercedes is transitioning towards utilising greater mechanical component assembly (modular) for a variety of parts so that they can be removed/replaced/recycled without damaging the associated mountings.

The direction of the vehicle production reinforces the company's overall sustainability plan, which is based upon the principles of Circular Design and aim to minimise their complete environmental impact over the life cycle of a vehicle.

Using modular components instead of glued components allows for the replacement of specific damaged components rather than replacing a whole assembly as is typical when a glued assembly is damaged. In the past year, adhesives have been becoming popular throughout manufacturing since they have many benefits including increased structural strength, decreasing weight (due to using fewer materials), and simplifying the assembly process. However, due to the difficulty and high costs associated with repairing bonded components, you will often find that when a component has been glued, it cannot be removed from its assembly. In addition, as bonded components cannot be easily removed, your repairs will often increase as it will be easier to remove the entire section of glued components than to just repair one component.

The video above illustrates the complexities in changing a headlight lens made with the current manufacturing ways.

Mercedes-Benz is now addressing this by replacing some glued joints with mechanical fasteners such as screws, clips, and other service-friendly fixing methods. This allows damaged parts to be removed with less labor and less waste, while also improving access during disassembly and supporting higher recycling rates when a vehicle reaches the end of its life.

This is easier to understand with real examples. Headlights and taillights are frequently damaged in minor collisions. In many modern designs, lighting assemblies are packaged tightly and sometimes bonded into surrounding structures, which can push a simple repair into a larger job involving adjacent trim or panels. A mechanically fastened approach makes it more feasible to remove and replace the headlight or taillight unit as a discrete module, without disturbing undamaged surrounding parts.

A second example involves body panels and doors. Minor impacts that crease a door skin or damage a bolt-on fender can still trigger extensive work when panels are joined in ways that are difficult to separate cleanly. With more modular, mechanically fixed construction, individual body panels can be replaced more directly, limiting the number of parts that need to be removed, refinished, or discarded. In practical terms, this can reduce labor hours and reduce the amount of material that becomes waste.

This modification will require careful re-engineering of the manufacturing process and structural integrity, safety performance and noise control still are critical and must meet the highest standard sets by Mercedes-Benz for serviceability and recovery of materials.

Sustainability Beyond Emissions and Powertrains

While electric vehicle sustainability generally dominates the conversation around the automotive industry, Mercedes-Benz has taken an expanded approach when framing automotive sustainability through design, material choices, and most importantly, powertrain strategies. For Mercedes-Benz, sustainability is not just about electrification; it encompasses the entire process from manufacturing through to maintenance to the final phase of life when disposal or recycling takes place.

More specifically, Mercedes-Benz is using more recycled aluminum and plastic materials and placing emphasis on mono-material components that can be separated more easily for reuse or recycling. Reducing the number of different materials in a part lowers contamination risk during recycling and improves the quality of the recovered raw material. When vehicles are easier to repair, they tend to stay on the road longer. That reduces premature replacement and lowers the overall resource demand associated with building a new vehicle, which also supports sustainability objectives.

What This Means to the Owner

In terms of ownership cost, these design changes can improve cost predictability and reduce the labor required for repairs after damage, which can lower labor expenses. A further benefit is that modular, interchangeable parts can reduce how many components must be replaced after minor collisions. Simplifying vehicle repair leads to longer rental periods of vehicles, which can help to limit premature replacements of vehicles, and reduce total resources needed in the manufacture of a brand new vehicle and facilitate support of sustainability.

Minor Changes to an Industry with a Major Impact.

Mercedes-Benz does not market this, but the benefits could be quite large. In addition to focusing on the sustainable aspects of their vehicles, manufacturers that focus heavily on repairability also have to weigh their sustainability commitments against their customers’ satisfaction and long-term value.

As vehicles become more intricate and advanced, engineering decisions made during the design of the vehicle's assembly affect the eventual results of vehicle ownership in the real-world. In this instance, the switch from an adhesive-based fastener to mechanical fastening may be a minor engineering change, but it will have long-lasting impacts.