The tale of £600 faulty door mirror...

[ddentrec]

Met up with friend of mine over the weekend. He owns a Silver 2001 W203 C180 with a full M-B history.

Recently the on-board computer started telling him intermittently that the passenger-side door mirror indicator was faulty, though they folded and worked OK.

Anyhow, he takes car the M-B main dealer. They quote £600 for the repair:

1. The mirror is a unit that cannot be disassembled, and requires replacement.
2. Since the door mirror is silver then both passenger and drivers door mirrors need replacing 'so that they will match'.

Not impressed, he takes the car to a well-known independant M-B dealer in north London: they diagnose broken connecting wires ('very common and well known fault with folding mirrors' they say). They fix the wires in 20 minutes and refuse to accept payment for the work, though my friend sent them a case of beer later during the week.

He wrote to DaimlerChrylser UK to complain: got a standard response letter banging on about 'quality' and 'service' but they would not acknowledge anything wrong.

I added this thread to make the point that we are all aware of, but some of us M-B owners refuse to accept: M-B franchised dealers and DCUK are in it for the money, not the customer service.

Look out for the cowboys.

 

[blassberg]

a thought.......

is it not cheaper for a large company to train people to replace units than to fault find (with no gaurantee of success). That also should fix a proportion of associated similar-age problems. That should in turn prevent unhappy customer coming back for associated problem. That way you may get an expensive but high quality reputation, or a rip-off reputation.

If your customers can generally afford the repairs and not afford the hassle then you hope on balance that you are doing the right thing.

(glad you got it fixed and 3 cheers for Park Royal (I presume) who have come out of previous references very well.

 

[ddentrec]

Fair point. But it turned out that the repair was to the wiring loom in the door, not actually within the folding mirror.

So, had he followed the dealer's advice he would have been £600 out of pocket and the loom would still have needed repairing. Then what would you do? Take them to small claims court?

It is reasonable that the dealer's training includes common sense in basic fault finding. And being at least £80 and hour +VAT with 'the latest diagnostic equipment' and 'factory trained technicians' you would expect them to do a better job in the first place.

Or am I being unreasonable?

 

[mlc]

Blassberg - I know you started off by saying "a thought...." but your not really serious are you?

At MB service rates you should not be paying for a "fitter" you should be right in expecting a fully trained expert. I agree that sometimes its better to replace than try to botch a repair, indeed my experience of warranty claims on engines / gearboxes has always been replacement units rather than dealer repairs, but what our friend describes here is an inaccurate diagnosis of the fault, and why two mirrors? does MB paint fade so badly that they couldnt polish up the good mirror to match?

We will never know, but I wonder what would have happened if he had agreed to the new mirrors, I suspect he would have paid for the new mirrors and got a free (and undisclosed) wiring repair at the same time.

Mark.

 

[blassberg]

Fair point. But it turned out that the repair was to the wiring loom in the door, not actually within the folding mirror.

Fair point(!)

 

[jberks]

This is a very very common story with dealers. Most of their work is warranty or lease co so they don't have to worry too much about the cost. Indies have to justify the cost as customers are paying. Also, if you think about it, indies are normally owner operated so the guy doing the work has been working on Mercs for 20+ years and seen it all. With the best will in the world, the guy at the dealer is probably just out of college - well he's cheaper than a time served engineer. Also cars have changed beyond recognition in the last 10 years. Much of the old mechanicing skills are redundant and a chap with great spanner skills isn't going to get far with an ECU issue. The new way is to see everything as a replaceable module without really understanding what that module does or why it might play up. Just replace it, and it it doesn't fix the problem, replace another module.

It is amusing in some ways. I work in IT and see exactly the same thing. New graduates sent in to sort out a problem. I'm not knocking graddies - I am one, but they have all the certificates and latest courses under their belts and in the come. At the first hurdle they are stuck and on the phone. Why? No-one teaches basic diagnostic skills any more. In my day, we did an apprenticeship and I must admit I was pretty useless for the first year or so, but nowadays, firms expect courses to take the place of experience...and you see the results.

 

[zishan03]

We will never know, but I wonder what would have happened if he had agreed to the new mirrors, I suspect he would have paid for the new mirrors and got a free (and undisclosed) wiring repair at the same time.

Mark.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Zishan