Alex240
Senior Member
Hello everyone, Just thought i'd say something about recent events.
I want to get some new wheels for my car. I looked around a bit and found the alloy wheels direct website, i actually saw that someone on here had mentioned it so i had a look. I found the wheels i wanted, they were £598 for a set of 4 which sounds great, far cheaper than i was expecting new wheels to be.
The thing is that if I were to buy these wheels, and the bolts which is an extra £45 on that particular website and then pay someone to put them on for me, instead of going entirely through the main mercedes dealer, would i really be saving a significant amount of money?
I don't know how much it would be at an average garage to have these wheels and obviously the tyres, fitted. But let's add it up roughly.
Wheels = £598
Bolts =£45
Fitting =??, maybe someone could give an educated estimate. For now i'm going to guess all the fitting at £100.
That would be £743, maybe minus a bit, to do it the website way, and there may even be other delivery costs etc, that i havent considered... and i would always have that feeling of uncertainty that maybe the wheels werent balanced as perfectly as they would be if done at the local mercedes garage. I'm sure that sounds silly to some but i'm really not good with car repairs so my view on theses matters is very simple i suppose.
Anyway, to get the wheels, bolts and have the whole thing done at my local mercedes garage would be £209 per wheel plus £49 for the bolts, so in total it would be £885, which suprised me.
So all in all, there would be a saving, but not that big, I personally would and will choose the mercedes garage just for the peace of mind, and the extra service history credit doesn't hurt i suppose.
I got my mercedes around a year ago now, and at first i tried to find a cheaper way with someone a friend reccomended, it never felt good, i never relaxed after the service, and then he found mercedes specialist for me when i had a warning light issue, because he admitted that he found my car was OVER-ENGINEERED!!. Well that was nice to hear.
Anyway after my car was taken to this mercedes specialist i had to fix a dent that had appeared on my car, and a general feeling that things were not as smooth as they should be. Also this mercedes specialist told me that i needed a new, Light Control Unit, which just made me suspicious, even though i know nothing about it really.
So, last week i went back to mercedes, had a full major service, all niggle fixed, loose connection or something simple like that, that was causing the warning light problem, was fixed....NOT £200 LIGHT CONTROL UNIT, that the greedy little mercedes guy was trying to tell me i needed. Luckily he was one of those guys that just oozed the feeling of greed and deceipt, so as he was telling me, in a very impatient manner what he wanted to do, i said I'd like to come and collect the car and get back to him at a later time, maybe it was him that dented my car out of spite because he wasn't going to get an easy score. I suppose i'll never really know who did it.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on. I suppose my point really is this, I personally am going to always go to mercedes from now on, it's always that bit more, but i'm sure if you add everything up it's worth it, unless of course you are lucky enough to live close to one of those rare little diamonds that love and know all about mercedes and have the gear to do it all properly, and don't want to overcharge you.
One day i'll live next door to one of those guys....I just know it.
I forgot to mention that i already have a full set of new tyre to go on the wheels. They were about £69 each from the mercedes garage.
I want to get some new wheels for my car. I looked around a bit and found the alloy wheels direct website, i actually saw that someone on here had mentioned it so i had a look. I found the wheels i wanted, they were £598 for a set of 4 which sounds great, far cheaper than i was expecting new wheels to be.
The thing is that if I were to buy these wheels, and the bolts which is an extra £45 on that particular website and then pay someone to put them on for me, instead of going entirely through the main mercedes dealer, would i really be saving a significant amount of money?
I don't know how much it would be at an average garage to have these wheels and obviously the tyres, fitted. But let's add it up roughly.
Wheels = £598
Bolts =£45
Fitting =??, maybe someone could give an educated estimate. For now i'm going to guess all the fitting at £100.
That would be £743, maybe minus a bit, to do it the website way, and there may even be other delivery costs etc, that i havent considered... and i would always have that feeling of uncertainty that maybe the wheels werent balanced as perfectly as they would be if done at the local mercedes garage. I'm sure that sounds silly to some but i'm really not good with car repairs so my view on theses matters is very simple i suppose.
Anyway, to get the wheels, bolts and have the whole thing done at my local mercedes garage would be £209 per wheel plus £49 for the bolts, so in total it would be £885, which suprised me.
So all in all, there would be a saving, but not that big, I personally would and will choose the mercedes garage just for the peace of mind, and the extra service history credit doesn't hurt i suppose.
I got my mercedes around a year ago now, and at first i tried to find a cheaper way with someone a friend reccomended, it never felt good, i never relaxed after the service, and then he found mercedes specialist for me when i had a warning light issue, because he admitted that he found my car was OVER-ENGINEERED!!. Well that was nice to hear.
Anyway after my car was taken to this mercedes specialist i had to fix a dent that had appeared on my car, and a general feeling that things were not as smooth as they should be. Also this mercedes specialist told me that i needed a new, Light Control Unit, which just made me suspicious, even though i know nothing about it really.
So, last week i went back to mercedes, had a full major service, all niggle fixed, loose connection or something simple like that, that was causing the warning light problem, was fixed....NOT £200 LIGHT CONTROL UNIT, that the greedy little mercedes guy was trying to tell me i needed. Luckily he was one of those guys that just oozed the feeling of greed and deceipt, so as he was telling me, in a very impatient manner what he wanted to do, i said I'd like to come and collect the car and get back to him at a later time, maybe it was him that dented my car out of spite because he wasn't going to get an easy score. I suppose i'll never really know who did it.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on. I suppose my point really is this, I personally am going to always go to mercedes from now on, it's always that bit more, but i'm sure if you add everything up it's worth it, unless of course you are lucky enough to live close to one of those rare little diamonds that love and know all about mercedes and have the gear to do it all properly, and don't want to overcharge you.
One day i'll live next door to one of those guys....I just know it.
I forgot to mention that i already have a full set of new tyre to go on the wheels. They were about £69 each from the mercedes garage.
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