Dealer response to SRS fault

[lulu]

Dear all,

A friend of mine has an 08 c220cdi bought used from our local main dealer (ex demo). She commented that the SRS light had come on recently and had gone to the dealer to have it 'diagnosed'. She informed them that they could only have the car for an hour because of other constraints and they assured her it would only take them a max of 45mins to diagnose. After one hour they had not got anywhere with diagnosis and said they'd need the car for a whole day to do a 'full' diagnosis instead of just the 'quick' diagnosis that it had just had. Because of their work load they would only be able to book it in for mid Feb. She wasn't entirely happy at having to take away a car with a fault with one of the safety systems and asked for a courtesy car. No luck, none available (with a forecourt full of unsold used vehicles)!

I suggested she just ring up MobiloLife and tell them to come and deal with it and provide a courtesy car.

What would you suggest her options are to get the quickest resolution?

Thanks
Lulu

 

[jberks]

To be fair, the car is mobile and safe and they don't have any loan cars available so I'm not sure what you want the garage to do. SRS is a safety feature, true, but it's not a critical one (its not even an MOT failure) so I doubt Mobilio would come out, and what would they do if they did? They may possibly (possibly not) diagnose the fault but its unlikely they could actually fix it.
It is annoying when you can't get a fault fixed straight away but it does happen and 2 weeks isn't that long to wait for a full appointment in the scheme of things.

 

[television]

Thats terrible Lu Lu, I think as you have said as it is not safe to drive Mobilo

 

[Cole@MBS]

Call mobilio out, if it cant be sorted then they take the car in, loan car given and dealer has to put that car to the top of the list as merc are now paying for a loan car!!

 

[jberks]

Sorry guys but i have to disagree. Lack of SRS does not make the car unsafe. It still has perfectly functional seatbelts. Not ideal perhaps but not unsafe either. As I said above, airbags or other srs components are not considered essential enough for an MOT test so I doubt Mobilio would class it as a breakdown worthy of a call out or sufficiently critical to take the car off the road. They'd probably refer you to the dealer who would book you in - in 14 days time. If 14 days is too long why not try another dealer? Personally I'd live with it. After all I went over 5 weeks in total without ESP diagnosis and then back order parts. If no traction control or abs doesn't get a car off the road (I had to drive like a mortal for a bit), I really don't think a dicky airbag is going to be sufficient. The car starts, goes and stops safely - anything else is an extra.