Shoody parts and shoddy service

Botus

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I'm upset, so far I have taken 5 hours of my time to let Mercedes know they don't know what they are doing.

elements of 2018 sat nav maps are 9 years out of date !

cs wrote back saying go to a dealer and get a feedback form (why they can't provide it themselves one can only guess... apathy, incompetence, stalling tactic ?). Both major main dealers near me had NEVER heard of this form, its taken 2 months for one to provide it after 3 attempts (the better one as Hughes Beaconsfield, managed the next day)

having got the form it asks for no more information that the original email I provided to cs the first time (so clearly its just a stalling tactic) late Friday, cs come back with yes we knew of 2 of the faults, thanked me for 2 far more important ones they didn't know about and ignored a more irritating one that's a brand new feature of the latest maps that were never there before.

then asked if I was happy with their response

yesterday I shot a small video displaying this new error very clearly... today edited to 12 seconds and 15meg and their inadequate email system rejected it.

inadequate sums up the whole brand very well

while I'm moaning.... apple phones yet another update (is that 6 rebuilds of iOS 11 since October !!!), wanting to transfer a video to the PC, does it just function like a proper device... of course not... but on the phone I can re save the same file to another app then open in iTunes and then put on the PC what a joke....
 
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curious

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Only the Vito left! W639/1 OM646
I feel your pain.
Used to have 3 Mercedes in the household, now just the Vito. Not because of the product but, because of the appalling customer service and sharp practice. Had to, 'Letter before action', them on 2 separate occasions to get the right result.
 

davemercedes

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Great sympathy, Botus. And of course it shouldn't be like that.

Unfortunately it seems that overall the MBUK organisation is one great sleeping giant and from some of the stories I've read here (like yours) it seems too many managers have forgotten not only what customer service is, but why it should be first class.

It's quite sad and seems like a ludicrous comparison - but remember all those "skip" jokes? Most of us do but who's laughing now?
Skoda topped the automotive table in the 2015 UK Customer Satisfaction Index Summary (UKCSI) produced by the Institute of Customer Service.

Rather surprisingly Mercedes came top of the JD Powers survey in 2015.
- Shame they didn't read some of the member gripes on this forum!
 

turbopete

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2017 '17' Ford Mondeo 2.0TDCi ST Line X 180 (sorry)
It's quite sad and seems like a ludicrous comparison - but remember all those "skip" jokes? Most of us do but who's laughing now?
Skoda topped the automotive table in the 2015 UK Customer Satisfaction Index Summary (UKCSI) produced by the Institute of Customer Service.

That said, id imagine customer expectations are lower for a Skoda than they are for a Mercedes (or any other 'premium' brand) and the Octavia, for example, which is based on the Golf/A3 platform, feels as near identical as it can to drive to either the Golf or A3. yes it looks different and the trim is a little different, but at one point, an Octavia was £12k (ive not looked at prices recently so I know theyre out of date) the golf started at £15k and the Audi was around £18k start price. for basically the same car. but because people bought the £12k version, they didn't expect it to be as reliable or well made as the £18k version, but it was probably equal in every way. personally I wouldn't own ANY of them as ive always felt the golf to be overpriced for what it is, the Audi is the same but more expensive and ive never liked ANY VAG product to drive.
 

Tony MB

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I have never had a problem with any main dealer, simply because I can't afford to buy from them.
That said if I had and having spent a shed load of money with them I would expect that after sales would kiss my feet in appreciation for purchasing their product and keeping them in work. Nothing winds me up more than bad service in any sector when i spend my " hard earned" I expect service,something that Britain seems increasingly bad at.If i ever receive bad service I won't let go recently took a month of calling and having tech visits from Sky to fix a problem that turned out to be a faulty internet hub.
 

mercedes13156

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CLK 200 Cabrio and a Ford Kuga
I was in a local Mercedes dealer one Easter and was walking back through the showroom with the parts I had just bought when.... A middle aged gentleman in a tweed shooting jacket started to cause a bit of a scene. Background first.... He'd apparently bought a shiny new £50k Merc which was leaking like a sieve. This started to become obvious when he exclaimed loudly "Ah've come fur ma wellies, son!" The salesman tried to swerve that and asked if he'd like a coffee while he attended to someone else. "Naw! Ah just want ma free wellies!" Bearing in mind it was Easter and the showroom was full of punters, it took 20 seconds for the entire sales force to disappear. He then proceeded to walk up to one of the cars and said "These things leak like a fu**in' sieve. Mine's got an inch o watter and they're no for fixin it!". As people started to look across the road at the Lexus Showroom, the Receptionist tried to bundle him and his wife (twinset and pearls) into an office. "Surely ye've a stack o wellies for these? Size 8 and the wife's a 6." By this time, the General Manager, three salesmen and the Receptionist were literally trying to stop the flood of people out the door.

I believe he got the leak fixed. He may even have got a free set of mats.
 

Tony MB

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I was in a local Mercedes dealer one Easter and was walking back through the showroom with the parts I had just bought when.... A middle aged gentleman in a tweed shooting jacket started to cause a bit of a scene. Background first.... He'd apparently bought a shiny new £50k Merc which was leaking like a sieve. This started to become obvious when he exclaimed loudly "Ah've come fur ma wellies, son!" The salesman tried to swerve that and asked if he'd like a coffee while he attended to someone else. "Naw! Ah just want ma free wellies!" Bearing in mind it was Easter and the showroom was full of punters, it took 20 seconds for the entire sales force to disappear. He then proceeded to walk up to one of the cars and said "These things leak like a fu**in' sieve. Mine's got an inch o watter and they're no for fixin it!". As people started to look across the road at the Lexus Showroom, the Receptionist tried to bundle him and his wife (twinset and pearls) into an office. "Surely ye've a stack o wellies for these? Size 8 and the wife's a 6." By this time, the General Manager, three salesmen and the Receptionist were literally trying to stop the flood of people out the door.

I believe he got the leak fixed. He may even have got a free set of mats.

What about the wellies ? :D
 

mercedes13156

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I've not seen MB branded wellies in the Showroom. Perhaps in a Range Rover Showroom. you know, green ones, with fleecy linings.
 

M80

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The business strategy of making customer complaints difficult becomes more commonplace.
Stuck in phone queues,
cut off after a lengthy wait,
internal message systems that we don't have copies of,
"this call shall be recorded" and when they refer back to the recording their finding is unlikely to be to the customers advantage, and you try getting a copy of that.
The 'run the customer round in circles' techniques are endless.

Most people give up and try to find positive things in life to concentrate on as they have a more immediate priority. We lose , they win.
 

davemercedes

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2007 Merc 220 CDi Est Auto Av (s203)
I was in a local Mercedes dealer one Easter and was walking back through the showroom with the parts I had just bought when.... A middle aged gentleman in a tweed shooting jacket started to cause a bit of a scene. Background first.... He'd apparently bought a shiny new £50k Merc which was leaking like a sieve. This started to become obvious when he exclaimed loudly "Ah've come fur ma wellies, son!" The salesman tried to swerve that and asked if he'd like a coffee while he attended to someone else. "Naw! Ah just want ma free wellies!" Bearing in mind it was Easter and the showroom was full of punters, it took 20 seconds for the entire sales force to disappear. He then proceeded to walk up to one of the cars and said "These things leak like a fu**in' sieve. Mine's got an inch o watter and they're no for fixin it!". As people started to look across the road at the Lexus Showroom, the Receptionist tried to bundle him and his wife (twinset and pearls) into an office. "Surely ye've a stack o wellies for these? Size 8 and the wife's a 6." By this time, the General Manager, three salesmen and the Receptionist were literally trying to stop the flood of people out the door.

I believe he got the leak fixed. He may even have got a free set of mats.

Wish I'd been there :) - it's great when somebody makes a scene and they're totally in the right to do so. The sad thing is that as soon as the leak became evident he should have been provided with a loan car while the Service Department sorted out the problem (properly) and that would have won them brownie points instead. I must say it always strikes me as very strange the way these "leakers" only appear after they've been sold.

Presumably all the way from delivery to the dealership and through the PDI the car never got wet - they must have washed it with hot air... there's usually plenty of that available! But the "punter" (well that's how this gent seems to have been treated) is left to find out the hard way.
 

davemercedes

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The business strategy of making customer complaints difficult becomes more commonplace.
Stuck in phone queues,
cut off after a lengthy wait,
internal message systems that we don't have copies of,
"this call shall be recorded" and when they refer back to the recording their finding is unlikely to be to the customers advantage, and you try getting a copy of that.
The 'run the customer round in circles' techniques are endless.

Most people give up and try to find positive things in life to concentrate on as they have a more immediate priority. We lose , they win.

It is of course, perfectly legal for the customer to record the phone call (for personal use) and he is not obliged to inform the dealer that he's doing so.
 

M80

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It is of course, perfectly legal for the customer to record the phone call (for personal use) and he is not obliged to inform the dealer that he's doing so.

Any of us can record, but come a time when we might want to use it in a court room, I believe, that without the declaration at the beginning that the call is to be recorded the evidence would be inadmissible. After such a declaration it's probable that the call would be terminated by 'tother side.
 

mercedes13156

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Many years ago, when I worked in Hannover, I bought a new Volvo 360GLE. Because we were in BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) I had to import it, despite it being made in Holland, also within the EU. It wasn't there on the agreed day, or the day after, or the day after.... The dealer tried to find it and it had apparently gone on the correct train, it just didn't get off it. It was lost. As it turned out, the Forces Import paperwork meant that I had to import "THAT" car, not one just like it. It was possibly at the Volvo yard in Bremerhaven where it didn't get off the train. After two weeks of fruitless searching all across Europe and the UK, we took our paperwork up to Bremerhaven, hoping that someone would be able to see it. Not a chance, there were 30,000 Volvos in the yard, stacked five high. After another two trips to the dealer and another trip to Bremerhaven, we found the out the car was in Minden, 60 miles down the road and that it would be delivered the next day. It was the wrong car. It went back on the transporter and back to square one.

Eventually, Volvo Deutchland lost its **** and phoned me up to say, just nip up to Bremerhaven with the family, have a night in a nice hotel on us and choose a Volvo, any Volvo, pleaaaase? Unfortunately, I had to have the car I had imported with all the right serial numbers to match the paperwork. Back to square one.

After six weeks of searching the world (literally) it was found in the train yard at the factory. Seems it had a wee dunt coming out of the factory and it went back in to have a wing resprayed. As it had already been "put on the train" it wasn't on any other list and it sat there in plain sight, complete with my BFPO number plate on it. It was delivered to the Barracks two days later on a transporter, but it had a top of the range stereo, electric sunroof, leather heated seats instead of velour, fat tyres and wide alloys, tinted windows, fog lamps, heated steering wheel, electric mirrors, his and hers Volvo jackets, Volvo baseball caps for the kids and a full die cast model range of 1988 Volvo cars, trucks and buses, a huge hamper of food and wine and finally, a monster bouquet of flowers. A few days later, we found a letter in the glove box which promised an extra year's guarantee on the car as well as three years free servicing.

Now that's customer service.
 

Craiglxviii

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Sounds just like dealing with EE really doesn't it?
 

mercedes13156

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I'm a Virgin Media man myself. Don't know why. Maybe they're the least worst at service standards.
 

mercedes13156

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That said, id imagine customer expectations are lower for a Skoda than they are for a Mercedes (or any other 'premium' brand) and the Octavia, for example, which is based on the Golf/A3 platform, feels as near identical as it can to drive to either the Golf or A3. yes it looks different and the trim is a little different, but at one point, an Octavia was £12k (ive not looked at prices recently so I know theyre out of date) the golf started at £15k and the Audi was around £18k start price. for basically the same car. but because people bought the £12k version, they didn't expect it to be as reliable or well made as the £18k version, but it was probably equal in every way. personally I wouldn't own ANY of them as ive always felt the golf to be overpriced for what it is, the Audi is the same but more expensive and ive never liked ANY VAG product to drive.

We got in a Skoda taxi last week. It was a "Superb" and a couple of years old. I have to say, it was every bit as well made and as comfortable and quiet and any Mercedes Taxi we've ever been in. I was chatting to the driver who said that he'd had a series of unresolved "altercations" with MB UK about his previous car and that in terms of build quality, performance and reliability the Skoda was the best car he'd ever driven in 30 years of being a taxi driver. He also said that pound for pound, the Skoda was currently many miles ahead of the Mercedes range.
 

John Laidlaw

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My Dutch area manager has a Skoda Superb we leased over there for him and I must say it’s an excellent car, cars are hideously expensive to buy over there and ours is a lease policy anyway. Difference is the lease arrangements in the Netherlands include (their equiv of) RFL, Insurance, tyres, maintenance and fuel! So everything really and we’ve a fixed monthly cost....
 

peterws1957

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I've given up telephoning or emailing customer services of any organisation. Quick letter (signed for) followed up by a reminder a few days later is all I do. Last altercation was with Paypal customer services (an oxymoron if ever there was). It was "impossible" to do what I wanted according to 3 different service employees, confirmed by a senior manager(who was quite frankly obnoxious). About 2 weeks later got an email from some executive confirming that my instructions had been carried out. Its not only MB or indeed the car industry you can have an appalling experience with.
 

M80

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I agree with paypal being poor.
My recent experience is that their buyer protection is designed to have us buying with false confidence.

Maybe I should send a letter as you suggest.
 

Brizzle

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Any of us can record, but come a time when we might want to use it in a court room, I believe, that without the declaration at the beginning that the call is to be recorded the evidence would be inadmissible. After such a declaration it's probable that the call would be terminated by 'tother side.

My usual thing is whilst the recorded message is telling me the call will be recorded I say something like "I'm recording it to for legal purposes". It's not my fault the machine isn't a) listening, or b) actually recording at that moment in time :)

If the recording is ever needed then you will clearly hear me telling the machine I'm recording too :)
 

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