Does anyone think I had 'Idiot' written on my forehead ...?!

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hawk20

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We need to think about this issue seriously. If wives renege on deals agreed by husbands, and husbands welch on deals agreed by wives any sense of honour or reputation we may have had will be gone. And nobody will work for us ever again without a written contract.
 

Myros

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hawk, I'm not trying to start a war here

but if Lulu says get it fixed regardless, then its her shout. If she said see what's wrong with it and see how much it costs, then its their fault for not getting approval.
My Mb dealer wouldn't let me proceed with them about the mem's car's paint repairs until she told them in terms that I had her authority to do so.
 

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They have charged for a road test. Good. So they should. My dentist doesn't give me free check-ups.

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The price on these jobs includes a road test,, for heavens sake should I charge someone to test what I have done.

Your dentist just has to walk across and look in your mouth, he has to do that to fix anything. You are the one that knows if there is no pain and if the new teeth fit, and during this few seconds your dentist has not moved after asking the question
 

hawk20

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The price on these jobs includes a road test,, for heavens sake should I charge someone to test what I have done.

Fine if it does. But then we are back to the old problem. You're damned if you itemise the time on each job and part job; and you are damned if you don't. One way or another we have to pay for the time they spend on our cars. No free lunches.

But that is side issue here. The big issue seems to be that some want her to refuse to honour the instructions her husband gave on her behalf.

If my wife tells a plumber to do a job, I don't refuse to pay on the grounds that it is my name on the house and he should have asked for my approval. I honour her instructions and she honours mine. That has been normal for husbands and wives for as long as any can remember.
 

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One way or another we have to pay for the time they spend on our cars. No free lunches.

MB did not do bad out of this, out of that £1300 £200 was VAT. parts £400 at the max,( and they are earning on this) so £700 for 4 to 5 hours work at the max. Not many earn that in a week, thats what makes life hard
 

Alex M Grieve

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£700 for 4 to 5 hours work at the max.

I suppose at our stage in life Malcolm, people pay a premium for our experience, whereas a dealership has significant overheads.

For members of the Forum I would certainly be prepared to give this level of discount though. ;)
 

jberks

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All the points raised are right. £2 for brake paste, £60 for a road test etc are all ludicrous, but mathematcally speaking, they're probably not entirely innacurate (30 minute test drive for example). It's just that, with such high prices in the first place, we 'expect' some things to be automatically included.

Times are hard and people have started to screw a discount out of every aspect of a service, (I do) hence some dealerships have started to act a bit like double glazing firms these days. They over-inflate the initial price by including every component and aspect. They don't expect you to pay it, unless you're a company with an incompetent financial director. They fully expect you to haggle, then they can generously give a fat discount for a 'valued customer like yourself' and you go away happy, and they get what they expected all along. If they quote a lower price and don't negotiate, you'll probably see them as arrogant and avoid them. To some extent they can't win.
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Same goes for firms like Quickfit. Drive in, on spec, and ask for a new set of tyres and see what they quote you! Go online or negotiate, or take advantage of their 'sale' and you'll pay what blackcirles etc would have charged you all along. Possibly less true today, but I still remember being quoted £90 for each tyre when I could get the same tyre for £45 2 doors away and the fitter was quite open. Wait until next weeks 2 for 1 deal ....

Its common throughout business. Walk into a hotel and don't ask the price - you'll pay one price. Now ring them and haggle, 90% of the time you'll pay a lot less.

The 2 mistakes here, which the op already knows, is a) the Husband wrote them a blank cheque with his 'yes do it' line. and b) She paid up without a murmur.

Once she'd got the card out, even if motivated to, they'd have a hard time arbritrarily reducing the price without openly admitting they'd inflated it in the first place. In that position, with a customer seemingly happy to pay, what do you do? I'd keep quiet and take the money just as they did. You'd feel guilty but figure the customer was happy so why worry?

In over 10 years of merc ownership, most with dealer history, the most I have ever paid was £600. That was for a major service plus gearbox oil etc etc. It would probably have been well over £1000 had I just said ok, but I made it very clear that funds were tight and if they wanted the job they were going to need to be realistic. In response, their prices and discounts were excellent.

So I have a lot of sympathy for the OP but to some extents, and I suspect she'll agree that with hindisght, a fool and their money are easily parted and in this case, her (and her Husband) have been, at least partially, a bit foolish. (No personal critisism here - we've all been there - I certainly have, many times!)

On a more positive note, I suspect that a calm conversation with the service manager in the cold light of day, could yield results. Possibly not a refund at this late stage (not impossible though), but maybe a really good deal on the next service to help redress the balance.

BTW
Myros knows a lot more about the law than me, but I always understood, if a person was apparently representing the customer, as a husband would be, its' binding. Hence, a teenager may not, but a spouse would. In the same way, a deal offered by a salesman, desipte not being a director, is binding on the firm he represents. So, I'd suspect a court would accept that the work was properly authorised.
 

hawk20

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MB did not do bad out of this, out of that £1300 £200 was VAT. parts £400 at the max,( and they are earning on this) so £700 for 4 to 5 hours work at the max. Not many earn that in a week, thats what makes life hard

Well my dealer is £100 per hour so that would be 7 hours work for £700. And that includes all overheads, buildings, land, ramps, STAR, training, employment costs, insurance, loan cars, free valeting and all those other costs people like to conveniently forget.
 

Myros

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thanks for the plaudits Jberks

I was coming at it from the stricter end of the spectrum to try and illustrate what's what.
It does appear that Mr Lulu may well have sunk the ship when he okayed the work. What went on between Mr and Mrs Lulu is their business. The more I read it the more it looks that way.
The dealer would be on dodgy ground if they took the car in without ascertaining who it was dropping it off and why they were there. It seems that this bunch were expecting the car, and recognised Mr Lulu, but that doesn't strictly mean he's empowered to deal with it.
For the cost of a phone call to her, they might have saved her a lot of cash, as she could have taken the car away, and they would certainly have saved Mr Lulu the grief he might be getting now.
Sadly, the same goes for Mr Lulu, a quick phone call and all might have been a different shape.
Maybe its just that dealer. Stratstones ( for they are my local) are very very professional about this in my experience.They really wouldn't let me tell them what to do with my wife's car until I explained who i was, why i was doing it and so on, and then had her tell them that's what she wanted. Maybe that's because it was their money we were spending?????
 

robertjrt

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This is a very interesting thread. It shows how different dealers treat different customers. When my C180 went to a MB workshop I never experenced any problems, but, I used to say, "if anything extra is needed, 'phone me first". There should be a "Menu" tariff in the reception so there is no mistakes on what you expect the final bill to be.

For instance, my radio arial needed replacing, £145 MB, £30 for new insert, which was replaced at my local garage. Hope for the best, assume the worst.

As I understand it, the service and the important stamp should be MB, but, not all repairs, shurley, who you calling shirley?
 

Alex M Grieve

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I was coming at it from the stricter end of the spectrum to try and illustrate what's what.
It does appear that Mr Lulu may well have sunk the ship when he okayed the work. What went on between Mr and Mrs Lulu is their business. The more I read it the more it looks that way.
The dealer would be on dodgy ground if they took the car in without ascertaining who it was dropping it off and why they were there. It seems that this bunch were expecting the car, and recognized Mr Lulu, but that doesn't strictly mean he's empowered to deal with it.
For the cost of a phone call to her, they might have saved her a lot of cash, as she could have taken the car away, and they would certainly have saved Mr Lulu the grief he might be getting now.
Sadly, the same goes for Mr Lulu, a quick phone call and all might have been a different shape.
Maybe its just that dealer. Stratstones ( for they are my local) are very very professional about this in my experience.They really wouldn't let me tell them what to do with my wife's car until I explained who i was, why i was doing it and so on, and then had her tell them that's what she wanted. Maybe that's because it was their money we were spending?????

All this sage good advice - and do I detect latent marriage guidance counseling skills there too? :confused::rolleyes:;)
 

alan782

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This could be a very painful lesson![/QUOTE]

I would go back to them and complain in the strongest possible terms without shouting or swearing. I would tell them you are on this forum and will name them and shame them if you do not get some kind of reduction. Also who did you use so that others dont get caught out the same as you. Good luck. Next time use a decent Indie like S-A-M U-N-I-T WHO WILL NOT RIP YOU OFF AND CHARGE A REASONABLE AMOUNT and only do what you want done.
 

jamesmc

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The price on these jobs includes a road test,, for heavens sake should I charge someone to test what I have done.

Your dentist just has to walk across and look in your mouth, he has to do that to fix anything. You are the one that knows if there is no pain and if the new teeth fit, and during this few seconds your dentist has not moved after asking the question

Plus... who was paying for the fuel for this 'test drive'? The customer no doubt.

So use the customers fuel and charge them for the privilege.
 

joe1972

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Blimey!
I thought the days of a totally unexpected massive bill were gone.
They should've let you know what was being done and atleast given a good approximate of how much it would hurt your wallet before a spanner even touched your car.
This is simply outragous!!!

My missus has an old SL, which she lets me near now and again (last time was a replacement alternator...easy in theory, but proved to be a real bitch in the end!). She's had the car near 10 years, and some of the bills she paid her regular garage before she met me were pretty eye watering.....so it does happen I guess, even with people with older cars in the case.
 

Xtractorfan

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Reading this thread brings back memories of a 1997 E300 estate ..ruby red, I remember it well.. we had it in for some bodywork repirs about 02 ish..and the reason i remember the car so well was the service history, full MBSH. around 90,000 mles, it belonged to a local doctor, and the total service was in the region of £6000 over its 5 years of life, Now at the time we did think that spending that amount on a £30K car was ridiculous..
 

television

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Reading this thread brings back memories of a 1997 E300 estate ..ruby red, I remember it well.. we had it in for some bodywork repirs about 02 ish..and the reason i remember the car so well was the service history, full MBSH. around 90,000 mles, it belonged to a local doctor, and the total service was in the region of £6000 over its 5 years of life, Now at the time we did think that spending that amount on a £30K car was ridiculous..

I was thinking the same as you at one point,,the total cost of servicing at this rate would be horrendous over the life of the car
 

television

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Plus... who was paying for the fuel for this 'test drive'? The customer no doubt.

So use the customers fuel and charge them for the privilege.

When my car was in, the engineer took it out, he was gone for 1 and a 1/4 hours and came back with the roof down, and quite a chunk of the fuel gone, he did not know that I saw him out in it. Within 5 mins of getting the car back I had to go back as there was air in the system
 
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