Is anyone else happy with thier local dealer

[PINBALL]

Took the magic carpet out for a spin last night at 5am with temp at just above freezing & car had stood around for 2 days.

Just had to marvel at how the heater was pushing warm air out at just over a mile from home and almost too hot at just under 3 miles.

Makes me wonder if a diesel is as efficient as this 6 cyl 280.

Anyway, after stopping at Tesco's to get some groceries (not thier petrol, always try to get Shell basic unleaded as my dealer tells me theres nothing to be gained from using "optimax&quot.
After around 2 miles noticed blower had stopped working!!!

Panicked & phoned 2 indy's who said both blower & reo-stat were likely to be at fault and that the cost would be in excess of £600 where blower would be £200+ depending on type used!
and reo-stat at £224 + labour & VAT etc etc.......

Phoned dealer (Merc Gatwick - formerly Malaya) who said to bring it in next Monday lunchtime & leave for 2-3 days where blower & reo will be tested independantly and only changed according to the offending unit + labour at £95 pr hour!

Dealer said set times for work undertaken and bill will be kerbed to these limits even though work may go over, as your a regular customer to us and your on record as having had your previous Mercs serviced by us over the last 15 years.

They recon bill should be between £3-400
With 15% dicount on labour for age of car being over 5 years old!
PLUS 10% dicount on parts for owners club membership.

Will post up outcome when I get car delivered back to my home from them free of charge!

Anyone else get this kind of exceptional service from thier dealer?

Regards, Keith.

 

[Rory]

Let's hope you're still so happy *after* the car's actually been in!

My C270CDi blows warm air out in seconds - apparently it uses the a/c compressor in reverse for extra heat on cold days. I also don't think efficiency can be measured in terms of how quickly the engine gets hot - the engine's prime purpose is to move the car, not make hot water. Surely the heat is wasted enery?

 

[Chazchuzzlewitt]

My dealer's pretty good on parts- I get 10% off on parts and I'm not even a club member

And yea, the diesel pushes wam air out just as quick...

 

[philharve]

By 'dealer' I assume you mean a MB retail outlet from whom you can purchase new cars, parts & accessories, get the car serviced, etc.? However, I can also get all these, except for new cars, from my local Indie.

I prefer to visit the Indie because nothing seems to much trouble for him and because he's friendly. However, all my car's service records is with the dealer and because it could be said he 'knows' the car from the day it was sold up until the last service. Another is due soon.

The dealer will provide genuine MB parts The Indie will supply mainly genuine MB parts. However, he might supply equally as good items at well below MB prices.

Is there an Indie whose labour rates are equal to, or greater than, a dealer? I don't think so!

I've never asked for discount but I can imagine the dealer agreeing. I tend to think the Indie wouldn't agree.

I can always get parts from the dealer because the Indie only keeps stock of the most popular items.

It's horses for courses. I will switch between Indie and dealer to whomsoever offers the best value for money or for sake of convenience.

I can't say that I've been all that impressed by the dealer because the Indie has gone out of his way to help me and he's supplied me with a number of freebees on occasion. The dealer has always been a bit stuffy. Maybe it all comes down to customer care.

REGARDS Phil

 

[jberks]

At least you can get into your dealer fairly quickly. Mine has a min 3 week waiting list at the moment.
My complaint with dealers is their stubborn adhearance to the 'menu' and their total infexibility.
Sure fixed price assures no nasty surprises. but I tend to find that if someone fixes prices, they are fixed on the high side to mitigate the risk. Certainly, that's how I work, if you want me to take the risk, I'm going to charge accordingly. If it's done on Piece rate, then it may well be cheaper if it goes well.

15% labour discount is fine, but remember you get 50% with the indie from the start. Parts are swings and roundabouts and I have yet to hear the dealer ever say those immortal words when referring to the bill for that 10 min bob-in fettling job, "We'll sort it out next time your in".

I just miss the personal service, where you walkede in and they knew your name. When you say, 'just look at this', they jump up and follow you out to the car park. It still exists at the indies, but gettting rarer with the dealer. There is one face I still know, the rest are service reception girlies who smile sweetly but are really glazing over when explaining that "obscure rumble at 28mph in the rain". You know they aren't going to pass it on to the tech and you are just wasting your breath. There is no point taking them out to your car to show them the problem as they know as much about cars as I do about make up and they greet your request for 2 mins chat with a mechanic with indignant outrage.
Oh well, at least there's a nice coffee perculator!.

 

[maldon]

After the 'mishap' (booked car directly with Bromley to fix a handle on the pass seats of my ML) last Weds, I spoke to Croydon (who sold me the car) - according to the receptionist at Croydon the salesman went into one with Croydon and the car was booked in this morning.

It will have to go back in on Weds for 4-5 hours.

The service in Bromley is poor, very poor - the site is no where near big enough and there are what seems to be a huge number of besuited people running around - four parking jockeys - but I suspect no where near enough mechanics.

I want to see what they do in Bromely as restitution for me having to book direct with them when they had clear instructions from Croyon to callme directly, and a reminder from the central customar care wallahs in manchester and the time waste journey last week.

The car is absoluetly filthy and caked in mud - the Lancaster Mercedes garage in Colchester weher the Mrs 98 A Class is sent comes back like a new pin every time it goes in.

I somehow doubt this will happen in Bromley.

 

[Retired]

Are you happy with your dealer? Used to be, but they seem to be going downhill. Don't want to seem sexist but they too have employed ladies who appear to know very little.

I pretty sure I need a new battery so I called to find out how much they would charge to test the existing battery and, if required, supply and fit a new one.

The lady I spoke to didn't enquire which capacity battery ( a larger capacity battery was fitted with certain extras) is fitted so quoted for the incorrect battery. Told me it would take 0.3 of an hour to check the battery. Couldn't explain what would be done and why it takes so long. Told me it would take 0.5 hour to fit. Again couldn't explain why it should take this long. Also got the labour rate wrong.

All this after waiting over half an hour for her to contact the parts dept to find out the price. When I complained about the delay said 'shall I knock on the parts dept window?'. Very professional.

Compare with local battery supplier who

(a) knew about the different capacities

(b) would check existing battery for free

(c) told me it would take a few minutes to fit a new one

(d) at the of the transaction would be about £50 cheaper.

 

[jberks]

Thats the rub I suspect.
too many fancy chairs
too many suits
not enough overalls
and (sorry) too many unqualified women in technical roles. (I've no objection to qualified ones).

I know it's sexist, and a generalisation but there are some things women are interested in and some things they are not. When i was a lad, I don't remember any of my female friends popping round to help me change a ball joint on my escort or instruct me on the best way to clean out a twin choke webber. When someone broke down, it was the lads who gathered round the opened bonnet. Hence, men know more about what goes on under there than women. Thats reality - not politically correct, but no less true. Sure, I know men who know bugger all about cars and I have no objection to a qualified female mechanic working on my car. But we shouldn't be surprised when the receptionist doesn't know the difference between an engine mount and a ball joint and can't tell a head gasket job from a replacement wiper and hence deals with us innapropriatly..

My dealer has recently moved to a new shiny £3m site, so how come they have a 3 week waiting list to get into the workshop, and you can't get hold a mechanic? The workshop is no more than 25% of the size of the sales area. It says it all.

 

[Rory]

There really ought to be a *lot* more MB dealers. MB sell a *huge* range of cars now and if they want to get the volumes up they need to dramatically improve their customer levels. That won't happen when they've got so much work they can keep you waiting for 3 wks, and it generally isn't practical to drive for an hour to a different town for service work.

 

[Retired]

I wonder if the dealers, or MB itself, really understand the link between service quality and new car purchases.

I've been toying with the idea of a new car for a while now - takes me ages to get round to actually doing it- and the decline in service I've recently experienced from my dealer is beginning to have a large input into the new car decision. Not just whether to go that dealer but whether to buy a MB at all. This from someone who is pretty happy with his 8year old owned from new E240 estate.

 

[Silver Arrow]

MB policy is perhaps the root cause. I used to use Dalesview at Clapham (Yorks). I previously bought my cars from them. They lost their franchise and their trade got shifted to Blackpool. I used them for a time for spares, but they now no longer deliver, so I now use Blackburn, who originally supplied the Coupe. A glance at the map shows the area covered. When one of my pals, who lives in Ingleton, wanted to upgrade his MB, he had to go to Manchester for an approved used MB.

(Warning, get out the garlic and oaken stakes before reading the next paragraph)

The local Audi shop (Hadwins) at Grange behaves like MB used to be. They also obtain and deliver any bits and pieces on account. They are also very nice to me, probably as that car is under warranty. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to fiddle with it, even changing a bulb has to be done by them!

 

[PINBALL]

Silver Arrow - does that mean that youv'e got to drive the car illegally say without a headlight or indicator back to them to have them changed, or do they have a breakdown service just to change a bulb?
I would'nt neccesarily call that sensible would you?

Would'nt say VW/Audi have got anything to shout about after being brought up on Watchdog TWICE a couple years back over thier engine coils burning out and leaving a number of people stranded due to lack of parts.

1 customer was forced to abandon his 9 month old Audi & caravan in the swiss alps due to a burned out coil that no EEC dealers had in stock - he got the car/caravan back 2 MONTH'S LATER on delivery transporter & guess who they tried to charge for that together with Hotels / car hire etc.
No wonder Watchdog took up the story!

Seems to me that theyre now worried about thier image as certain car organisations were reverting back to the Lancia fiasco with thier 'Beta' sports cars rusting away long before their time - our ministry of transport threatened to throw them out of the country if they did'nt do something about it, but then that was a more serious safety dispute with cars sub- frames literally rusting away from day 1.

 

[clive williams]

Anyone else get this kind of exceptional service from thier dealer?[/B]

Regards, Keith.

The standard of service we are used to in the East Midlands is:

"Of course sir we can get you a handbook for your W124 but it'll be on back order" - 6 years later "It's still on back order" I'm more proficient at reading German now!

"Sorry sir, Mercedes never made a W124 with a 5 litre engine" Alright technical mistake - Porsche did!

"You want the end float on the wheel bearing???? We just do them up hand tight"

"Your car's firing on only 4 cylinders. Aren't you lucky! I suppose we can look at it in three weeks time. Its a wot? OOh don't know might take us longer"

Monday - "The parts we can get express delivery for you sir. They will be here by the end of the week" No thanks, I'll get ECP to order them in from Germany direct, they can get them by Wednesday.

"All the W124 panels are the same, we've got the bumper and rear panel in stock" On checking the car in the flesh "It is different, we will have to order the parts from Germany"

"Sorry, can't tell you what temperature the thermostat should be set at." Well how do you know if its working properly???????

Doesn't it comfort you to know that the Mercs are in safe hands - mine!!!!!

Clive

500E
E320CDIT210

 

[ddentrec]

When I popped in to my local stealer the salesman spewed the usual sales pitch as I wandered round their shiny showroom.

I told him that the MB dealer service was better at my local Ford dealer (it is), the C-Class he sold me has had over 18 repair visits in 23 months (it has), and was less well built than my wife's C-Max (mad, but true). I told him I would not buy another new merc until it was in the top 10 of the JD Power survery results.

Somewhat miffed, the sales man boasted that they sell 'almost 600 new mercs a year' and really didn't need to business anyway.

I told him that Fetcher Jones (largest MB dealer in the world) in the USA sell over 500 MB's **every month** 'cause they treat each customer as they ought to be treated.

Typical UK MB stealer: always resting on laurels and allowing the MB brand to do all the work.

 

[PINBALL]

Oh dear, it seems that I've really stirred up a hornets nest here!

I would'nt say that all my experiences with this and other MB dealers around the area has been peachy over the last 15 years, but on the whole they've always tried to resolve the problem amicably.

 

[robbi-wan]

Typical UK MB stealer: always resting on laurels and allowing the MB brand to do all the work.

Which would be fine if the rest of the world did not know about the issues with some of the cars and the (sometimes) terrible "customer service". As this is one of the major drawbacks of buying a new merc - people, quite rightly, are abandoning the marque and its reputation is being irretrievably damaged. When will the bods at DC get their house in order?? The world is moving on.

By the way, my last car was a new Rover 25 rolleyes: ) and the customer service was first class for the 3 years i owned it. Nothing was too much trouble!! The only drawback being that the courtesy cars were better than mine :Oops:

 

[clive williams]

Which would be fine if the rest of the world did not know about the issues with some of the cars and the (sometimes) terrible "customer service". As this is one of the major drawbacks of buying a new merc - people, quite rightly, are abandoning the marque and its reputation is being irretrievably damaged. When will the bods at DC get their house in order?? The world is moving on.

By the way, my last car was a new Rover 25 rolleyes: ) and the customer service was first class for the 3 years i owned it. Nothing was too much trouble!! The only drawback being that the courtesy cars were better than mine :Oops:

Robbi,

I think the problem is more local. MBUK to be precise. My experience is that they are an arrogant bunch who have relied on MB's past reputation with British buyers and have as a result posted some of the most profitable returns of all of the franchises, which DC does not want to upset. Now that MB have produced mediocre quality cars through the 1990's, the other manufacturers have caught up and passed MB's CSI rating (sorry, Customer Satifaction Index). Secondly, the loss of the block exemption meant that MBUK adopted some fairly autocratic and protectionist policies - the typical reaction of a fundamentally weak and uncompetitive organisation, which sent the wrong signals to the dealers and is a cause of the customer reaction they are now getting. They cannot expect to maintain the MB reputation arrogantly ignoring their customer base. We will all go and buy Fords as it's a better experience.

This attitude is not typical in the rest of Europe where I found (fairly limited experience) a much more customer friendly approach. The Germans are for example, less besotted than we are with the mark and the dealerships have to work that much harder.

All I hope is that the overfed and bloated heirachy that is MBuk see the results of the decline in MB satisfaction causing DC to give them a good kicking for all our benefits.

Clive

500E
E320CDIT210

 

[Retired]

Clive,

It may be the case that the German dealers work that bit harder, but it doesn't seem to have produced the desired effect. Pse see post discussing the German owners view of MB quality.

 

[clive williams]

Clive,

It may be the case that the German dealers work that bit harder, but it doesn't seem to have produced the desired effect. Pse see post discussing the German owners view of MB quality.

Yes, I too have a German mother and in general the German relatives are indeed more demanding than we Brits are especially, in respect of their dealers (all makes) performance - you should hear what they say about Italian cars!. I've always learnt to put the German complaints in context before I make a Brit/German comparison. I've found the German Benz dealers to be generally helpful even when telephoning from this country to access parts in the early days of 500E ownership, when our MBUK dealerships were a waste of space and before I had learnt the system.

I suspect that the only reason that there was a change of direction at DC regarding the quality of their new cars was the adverse responses from European and other markets - not the GB one as they were making too much money- to the 'built down to a price' offerings they made during the 90's

Clive

500E
E320CDIT210

 

[maldon]

Happy?

I'm palpitating. 1330 - your car is ready sir. 1335 am at the site - 1415 still no car, butis is being broughtout now.

Wait out front, am in a hurry

1320 go back in... Coming now.

Car is brought to front - is filthy, despite having been assured by Croydon (they sold me the car) that due to the total failure with thelast appointment the least they could do is give it a good valet.

Go back in to ask the person in charge of service reception to call me - they have not.

Croydon have been told Bromley are a waste of space (they are same franchisees).

Lets see what happens now.

While typing this, Croydon callback to say they will come and pick the car up on Monday and as a gesture will valet it.

Pity the feeble excuse for a dealership in Bromley cannot manage this.