Worried about after-sales

[newmbuser]

Hi all,

I'm looking into getting a new E-class which looks like a great car but I'm a bit worried about dealer service and all the 'after-sales' stuff. Up until now I've always been with Toyota/Lexus who've always been great but reading about Mercedes (from Jeremy Clarkson and the like) they don't always seem to care after you buy the car.

Are Mercedes dealers actually that bad? and is there any other way I could get a full service history (for when I want to sell it on)?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[panason1c]

My experience regarding after service, though brief, has been very positive so far.
I have recently purchased a 2001 ML from a private seller and discovered that the windscreen was leaking (it was a replacement and had been fitted badly) and also there was an intermittant 'buzz' from a relay somewhere under the bonnet, as the original warranty is still in force untill september i went to my local MB dealer (who had never seen the car before) and they immediately booked the car in for the screen to be removed and refitted and replaced the faulty relay, i didnt have to produce any paperwork whatsoever and on collection i just signed a 'work completed' form with no charges to me.

 

[OlafMaxwell]

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: Yes they are worse than Jeremy Clarkson says.

Dont touch it with a barge pole. Look at this site closely, and then look at the TopGear site, its full of tales of woe. I have never seen anything like it. Grown men and successful business men reduced to tears from trying to deal with the unbelieveably bad quality and arrogant Mercedes Benz.

I have been driving one for 4 years.....their customer service is bad, quality is bad, their dealers rude and ill mannered, don't reply to correspondence.

As for repairs, they take at least three attempts to fix anything.

My advice, dont souch, dont be seduced by the drive, the feeling of comfort and smoothness. They are all there but at a horrific price. Bills of up to £5k in one year, dishonoured warranties, Mobilo warranty not available outside office hours.

Stay with Lexus and keep smiling. It may not be a Merc, but you will be smiling every time you pass yet another one on the hard shoulder.

 

[guydewdney]

jeez olaf - you are so negative...

my CL has been fine apart from a slight missfire (decent service from an indy fixed that) and has done 160,000 miles.

i have seen several of your posts all deriding the marque - so why do you drive one? sell it and go buy a lexus!

Yes - 210s rust, early 140s have wiring issues, 168 (MLs) when built in america are crap, but the 202 is pretty good, the 124 indestructable, the 208 has been good (afaik) etc etc...

find a decent dealer - andy gale (indy in brum) or purslows (MB dealer in basingstoke iirc) are just two that spring to mind.

 

[ML350]

I'm only new so I'm sure no-one will really care but I feel I have to say I am surprised that this Olaf Maxwell fella is allowed to get away with what he does on here - nothing more than spam.

Are there any other more serious (i.e. not infested with spammers) MB forums around ?

 

[NormanB]

Olaf can defend himself BUT a forum populated by people who would not broker any criticism of the marque would be the poorer for it.

The facts are that there are issues with MBs, particularly of late and good dealerships are not in abundance.

If I had spent 20 or 30 thousand (and more) pounds on any motor I would expect at the very least unswerving support from the dealer and manufacturer. Truth is I have not spent 20 thousand buying cars in the 30 years I have been driving - but thats me - tight!!

 

[guydewdney]

I dont disagree - but if you scroll through all the postts by this chap (es?) he has said nothing imho that is useful, just pure unadulterated critisism...

which is not helpful to anyone - yes, he has an issue with the reliability of his mode of transport, and i feel for him if it was / is an expensive car (expensive is relative to the person) - but ranting about it isnt going to fix it..

 

[Morzine]

Stirling of Worcester are good, I was over there in my Eclass from Germany and the cruise control came off when my lad was playing in the car (yes I know), they organised a new one from Germany the next day and fitted it free of charge. I also used them when I took out a pheasant at 55 miles an hour in the cotswolds but that did cost me 80 quid for a new fog light etc.

Good luck,

 

[ivehadenoughofmb]

Refiendly advice - do not touch MB with a barge pole.

The dealers just get worse. Switched to my local dealer after shoddy service from Greenoaks several years ago. Dealer was initally good and managed to fix 10+ serious problems in my lemon of a 2001, C240.

Wife bought C180K sports coupe on the strength of improved after-sales. Dealer fitted a phone console and managed to damage both the console and the glove box. Went in to have glove box replaced and the idiots have ordered the wrong colour trim - I am being unreasonable but this strikes me as just plain dumb.

PX'd my C240 couple weeks ago for a new E320, had to have the front passenger seat replaced prior to that but dealer fitted a damaged part - explantions on a post card please. Back to the E320 - phone keypad is dicky, sat nav has never worked properly, even when it was being demo'd to me in the showroom when I collected it. 2 attempts to fix so far, 2 failures. One more chance and then I'll see them in court. Shame, it seems like a nice car (when it works)

For the nay-says who will accuse me of just slagging off MB I can list over 5 other bad experiences in the last 12 months.

I never had these problems with BMW or Saab (or Vauxhall for that matter)

 

[IanB]

I have to say that I am becoming increasingly disheartened about MB in general and their after sales service. I thought I was buying into a quality product.

Having purchased my ex-demo E270CDI without seeing it in the flesh (as it was at Derwent in Huddersfield and I'm in London -I know, big mistake) I found after delivery that the steering wheel was off centre. I had of course fallen for the "quality used car" line, guarantees etc. etc. and assumed that it would be fixed under warranty at first service. It didn't occur to me that they would sell me a car that had effectively been damaged. Turns out from the local dealer that it was caused by hitting curb or pot hole. Despite numerous phonecalls Derwent refused to pay or contribute to the £200 repair bill.

There are other smaller problems with the car (damaged trim, sun roof noise, intermittent heater problem, kickdown delay etc. etc.) but put them all together and I'm starting to wonder whether a MB was a good idea. I had always wanted a MB, but now I'm not so sure.

 

[teky]

this is where people get confused, mecedes sell good cars and the optimum word there is "sell" as for backup aftersales they are no different to any other garage, the badge is a symbol for wallet mugging and mb repair garages are the best at that, many standard garages give much better service because its there bread and butter "mb sell good cars" :idea: and dont think other garages dont know the merc because many of the techs did courses on the mb and many other cars so they know their job :wink:

 

[OlafMaxwell]

I am sorry it seems I am negative. I did not wish to be a nuisance on the site. I certainly do not believe in spam.

However to put a few things in persepctive.

I am working from fact. Six attempts to get an oil sensor problem fixed, a car sent back twice in a dangerous condition. Ongoing electrical problems too, never fixed. Three attempts to fix air conditioning. Eight hours labour looking for the problems. The answer was on this site, without that the dealer would still be looking for the cause. Cost of repair ?1,250, problem was failed condenser radiator, part cost ?230. A brake failure last August, fixed in England wih no problems, excellent service in Coventry, failed in five months, same leak same place. original repair had a two year 'Pan European Warranty'. MB refused to repair it, refused MoboliLife Cover, missed a ferry to England, lost ferry fare, incurred flight costs, car hire costs. Total ran to over ?600 plus lost two days at work. Breakdown service on 11 Feb had towed a few 2004 cars. Not good. Bills from end Feb amount to ?5,400 excluding breakdown costs. About ?1,200 would be wear and tear, filters, brake pads etc.

I sat in a new 320cdi estate on the dealer forecourt. With options they cost about £65,000 sterling over here. In anyones language that is not cheap. Its not about what one can afford, more like what you get when they have your money. All we ask is that it come with some service. We expect parts not to be cheap, we expect competent dealers to have to charge to stay in business, about ?75 hour we pay here is ok with me. But the dealer gets no support from the factory. We also expect that any items in warranty will be fixed correctly instead of sending the car back in dangerous condition or unrepaired. You want to see the tyre they sent back having charged for taking the wheels off and checking them and rotating them? Its here and very illegal.

My correspondence to MB was ignored, if I thought someone from MB would talk to me I would listen. However another reader informed me that customer service is not in the factory but is now out in Strasbourg.

Am I angry? Yes. Disappointed? Yes. Would MB talk to me? No. Their warranty man was 'unable to telephone a dealer to sort out a problem'. They actually regard four times off road in three/four months as 'normal for a four year old car'!! This is even though it is always serviced in main dealer outlets!! Do I have a unique car? Any clients I have who drive MB say no, its normal!!

If I had access to what I read elswhere on this site I would have been far more aggressive with the dealers over the service I got.

I would be the first to praise a dealer for addressing a problem and sorting it out.

The service Guydewdney gets from his car is like what I hoped for. It is, from what I see on this site becoming increasingly rare. I only have to poll my clients for an answer on that one.

As for other sites, they are all the same, look at TopGear.com, msn.com in cars. They all have similar feedback about customer service, dealer quality and reliability issues. Great cars to drive, I do agree with that.

Good dealers over here are vey rare unfortunately but MB dont want to know about that.

This last you will see for a while. My sister is a journalist in USA and they just got a cdi to do a road test. She has asked for all the documentation and correspondence to do a feature on the car. Seems they are afraid of diesel over there.

If MB want to contact me I will listen!!

Olaf Maxwell.

 

[guydewdney]

Eight hours labour looking for the problems. The answer was on this site, without that the dealer would still be looking for the cause.

were you charged for the eight hours?

if so - why? esp when you told them (presumably) how to fix it...

i'd talk to the equivilant of citizens advice / your lawer about the leak on the brakes...

you cant blame merc for missing your ferry...

the tyre thing is scary...

mb uk are prats - talk to mb germany (they speak excellent english)

unfortunatly, i take my car to andy gale / george fraser et al cos its cheaper





so - why dont you sell it? i think you have an issue with a) your car - it sounds like a friday afternoon job, and B) mercedes ireland

i agree that mb dealerships are sh1t.. i hate going to them - snobby little oiks (once saw a mechanic ram a new E class up the kerb at 25+mph - told the service manager who didnt seem to care - and it was presumably a customers car as it had plastic covers on the seats )

but i love my car...s

 

[OlafMaxwell]

Guy,

I dont blame Merc for missing the ferry, but I do blame them for not honouring the warranty. Missing the ferry would be normal in the circumstance and a matter for me to sort out but the mobilo is supposed to sort some of these out. The rest is down to me and thats ok, it has its limitations as it must to protect the manufacturer too.

I only found out how to fix the aircon problem after six hours labour, I dont have any comeback on that. I would have had no problem if it had been fixed. The garage is two hours away from me though.

On the tyre issue I had expected some contact. When you get that and two brake failures you worry mostly because MB dont want to know. They wrote to the dealers and the dealers ignored the correspondence.

The whole thing is with legal eagle because of the refusal over the brakes and the other issues. I tried to sort it out amicably to no avail. For someone who works in dispute resolution in construction industry this is a sad state of affairs.

Why dont I change it? I like diesel and from what I see a new one would not be any better. Prefer to have a problem car I know rather than one no one knows. Plus the new one has a smaller load capacity and sloped back restricts the laod somewhat.

Your comments are very constructive and I am sorry if I caused offence to you.

Olaf

 

[OlafMaxwell]

I spent a little time looking at some websites today, partly in response to the suggestions about replacing the car. I have a problem though. You guy have a car which quite clearly has been reliable and trouble free. I have one of those too, but its not the Mercedes. Its a 1995 Peugeot and not one of the things that went wrong on the Merc has been replaced in the Peugeot. It has 95k and never let me down so I kept it when I got the Merc. I had three Fiats [remember the 128? 131? Regata, the worst of them?] that all went over 120k with a fraction of the trouble and none of them ever failed.

Today I went to a few websites. Can anyone tell me one that is positive about NEW Mercedes as opposed to the earlier unburstable models? The ones aboutt he ML are worse and my comments are very mild by comparison [follow the links from msn.com]. You had the answer which I will pursue. A W124. reading this site it is clear a W124 300D has an edge in reliability and to be honest I always liked it. A freind had an 87 one for 16 years, went like a dream. Plus, like you say, some good specialists will surely keep it going. seems to me the better option is buy a W124 and spend a large sum 're'newing it. How about messrs Gayle or Fraser setting up over here? We have a site in a perfect location that would be good for their business!!!

 

[jon_harley]

I am working from fact.

In another recent message you asserted that it is inevitable that all MBs end up on the hard shoulder, yet I've never seen one there, so what is your evidence for this 'fact'?

As for other sites, they are all the same, look at TopGear.com, msn.com
in cars.

Yes, but people who have had satisfactory service do not feel motivated to post to the internet. ("Hey, guys, I just had a normal experience, let me tell you all about it!") People who're unhappy like yourself do feel so motivated. The set of people who post to internet boards are not a random sample and therefore can't be taken as representative.


Jon

 

[NormanB]

I am working from fact.

In another recent message you asserted that it is inevitable that all MBs end up on the hard shoulder, yet I've never seen one there, so what is your evidence for this 'fact'?

As for other sites, they are all the same, look at TopGear.com, msn.com
in cars.

Yes, but people who have had satisfactory service do not feel motivated to post to the internet. ("Hey, guys, I just had a normal experience, let me tell you all about it!") People who're unhappy like yourself do feel so motivated. The set of people who post to internet boards are not a
random sample and therefore can't be taken as representative.





Jon

Well said that man!

 

[DavidBoot]

I brought a second hand 2002 model clk from MB of Redhill, I would never buy from them again if my life depended on it.

On deciding to buy the car, the entire episode was a farce from start to end. I arranged a delivery date to my home, I phoned up to check what time of day the car would be delivered and they hadn't got the car booked down.

The car came unvaleted, there wasn't a full check performed on the car (the paper work indicated this) there were no mats (as agreed). Part of the sales negotiation included the salesman arranging a tracker be fitted by the garage - on phoning tracker to arrange the subscription, the tracker had always been fitted to the car. The handover process was not very comprehensive either - nothing was explained on the "used and approved" scheme that Mercedes blow their own trumpet over as being " as comprehensive as buying a new car".

2 months after delivery of the car I phone the DVLA to see where the log book was, I was told that the details had never been sent to them by MB of redhill.

The salesmen there can't even be bother to return calls, and the customer is treated with contempt once the dealer has the money. I raised the issue with Mercedes Benz UK in the end to make sure all of the above was dealt with. I won't be buying a mecedes benz again; even though the car is nice, having spent £32,000 on it I thought the dealer would ensure a little more customer focus.

 

[daveedin]

Sounds like you had a horrible experience David and I would not blame you for not wanting to work with a $tealer again.

However I am sure for 1 bad story dozens more could be told that would persuade most to buy a MB, I am sure it can only get better for you now!

Good Luck

Dave

 

[OlafMaxwell]

http://www.topgear.com/content/features/stories/tarnishing_act/01/

Never seen a Mercedes on a hard shoulder? Might I suggest contacting any of the major recovery companies and asking them for data on their recoveries?

Seems lack of customer satisfaction is a fact. This website says it all. Neatly, precisely, bluntly. But its only saying what we already know.

There are a lot of threads around about customer service whereas the site should really be about enthusiasts looking for and exchanging technical information. Thats not my fault, I dont make the cars. I drive one. Post a message about being new to MB and you are inundated with negative comments. If I leave the site for a month there are plenty more who will write negative comments. Its the very same when you are out anywhere and the talk turns to cars.

This is in itself a reflection on how we are being treated. However in my case the issue will bear fruit but I will never ever buy another Mercedes. Not because the car ever went wrong [all cars have teething problems] but because of their incompetence and treatment. The survey mentions Fiats, I had them and all of their problems [generally fixed promptly by courteous dealers] but the worst arrogance I ever encountered was from Mercedes. Nothing gets fixed first time, they dont care. Blowing bulbs from new was a nightmare, no dealer could fix it....but a mechanic in one Main Dealer was able to sort it with a ?4 part. Two weeks and no blown bulbs. Wow, we should be grateful for this???? Sorry, but I don't subscribe to this level of grovelling.

I work in a service industry. I also work in a manufacturing industry. In neither case could we ever countenance treating our customers like we are treated by MB. We listen to customers, follow up each transaction for feedback, including problems and responses to them. Order a car, dealer gets it wrong, not valeted, delivery date wrong, paperwork not sorted? Thats not one single forgiveable error, its a series of cock ups. Sorry your business means nothing to us...sure its only £30k like, thats not important. Anyone who wants to take issue with this clearly condones this sort of treament and by doing so ensures it will continue, driving down secondhand values right into the ground.

Mercedes may design the best cars, they are great to drive, smooth, everthing it says on the tin. The theory is great but they dont do it for long enough. Remember the great British motorcycle industry? They designed the best bikes, performance, handling, everything. It took the Japanese to show them how to build them. Thats not knocking British, a UK Nissan Bluebird is the only car I had to go over 100k without one single unscheduled part replacement, not even in any routine service. Why cant Mercedes try to match that.??? Look at Jaguar, embracing diesel....they are after Mercedes big time. And they will get there too. Maybe it will take the Japanese or British pride to show Mercedes how to build cars and then we might get the best of both worlds.

The moral is that one must listen to your customers. And the customers must speak out.