Rip-off Mercedes servicing

vikingaero

Doesn't matter about block exemption etc. As Aletank correctly points out you'll lose any Mobilolife benefits as soon as you step out of the official franchise service. Plus it effectively wipes out any hope of goodwill payment in the event of a major claim. My dads A-Class autobox failed and Merc wanted £6K for a replacement. When the dealer submitted a goodwill claim it was rejected because it had been serviced outside of franchises. Let's face it Mercs aren't Mercs anymore; they're not as reliable as they used to be.

vikingaero

pwhite8314 wrote: »

OK, so I know it's a 'premium' car, so I know that the servicing is never going to be cheap - around £380 for the service that's now due. However, today when I called the local dealer they've now introduced a new scam of charging £28.50 for the use of a loan car. Of course, I also have to provide insurance and fuel.

Is this unusal, or are all the dealers doing thing? I could fill a book with rants about Merc dealers (but won't, you've heard them all before), but this latest trick seems outragious considering the price I already pay for the service (2 hrs labour plus, say £80 in materials, so that's £150 an hour...)

All the local Merc dealers are owned by Lancaster, so doubtless they're all on the same scam, but as my commute is a 200ml round-trip, I'm sure I can find another dealer (it's less than 3 years old, so I'm assuming it's not a great idea to go to a non-Franchised dealer....)

Pete

Most Merc dealers and indeed more and more other marques are charging for loan cars/courtesy cars. Normally it's about £10 which is acceptable especially when servicing my Vauxhall costs £100, so they're not raking it in price-wise.

Don't you just hate the closed shop servicing in each County? Our local Merc dealers are all owned by Dutton Forshaw. When they were owned by Whitehouse they were appalling especially as if you had a serious fault to correct (or not correct for a Merc dealer) the chief engineer/troubleshooter would be the same muppet from the group whichever branch you took your car to. It's a very clever scheme to wipe out local competition on servicing and sales.

lapat

buy a bmw they dont charge.....recentley took mine in for a pollen filter and they even asked me what type of courtesy car i wanted i couldnt believe it i did have to provide a faxed cover note from my insurance but that was it.
i was going to take an x5 but insurance wanted £20 so for 1hrs work i left it

lapat

sorry this was williams bmw in liverpool

aeolus0-2

pwhite8314 wrote: »

OK, so I know it's a 'premium' car, so I know that the servicing is never going to be cheap - around £380 for the service that's now due. However, today when I called the local dealer they've now introduced a new scam of charging £28.50 for the use of a loan car. Of course, I also have to provide insurance and fuel.

Is this unusal, or are all the dealers doing thing? I could fill a book with rants about Merc dealers (but won't, you've heard them all before), but this latest trick seems outragious considering the price I already pay for the service (2 hrs labour plus, say £80 in materials, so that's £150 an hour...)

All the local Merc dealers are owned by Lancaster, so doubtless they're all on the same scam, but as my commute is a 200ml round-trip, I'm sure I can find another dealer (it's less than 3 years old, so I'm assuming it's not a great idea to go to a non-Franchised dealer....)

Pete

I just paid £374 for a B service on my C200CDI Estate in Inverness.
I`ve complained about this excessive charge.
Consider Mobilo life warranty good.

kazzy

Our mercedes was 1 month out of warranty and it suffered a major fault.The dealer would not honour the repair bill even tho the fault occurred mysteriously after a service.Customer service was s h i t. To cut a long stoy short we traded it in and got a toyota Prius.Would never buy a MB again.
BTW the Prius is brill and £15 a year road tax.,economical and loads of mile per gallon.The toyota dealership in Southampton was excellent too.

home_alone

I bought my daughter a new mini and I like the free 5 year servicing that comes with it, think it cost £100 when buying it, you would think that a car giant like MB could offer a deal similar to the BMW mini. I have 2 mercs so I know about high costs, they replaced wiper blades that I had only renewed 4 days earlier (they did give me my money back) and when asked why did they not check if they needed replacing they said its in the book replace blades, give me strength.
gary

Fruitcake

Our local Merc dealer doesn't do MoTs because the cost of doing one is about a third of their hourly rate.

As for,
"Rolls-Royce cars don't break down," ours did yesterday and had to be brought home on the back of a recovery truck, and it's only 33 years out of warranty. Mind you, I don't think BMW would be interested if I had 'phoned them about it.

Fruitcake

You Only Listen To Me When I'm Wrong

Ellie2758

Glad I found this thread. I was wanting to get a 2nd hand A class merc but wont bother now.

nrsql

It was before they changed their network but I had a Mercedes and whanever anything went wrong the garages needed about a months notice to book it in or to leave it with them for a couple of weeks and they would probably have time.
Also on one service they called me and said there was an advisory on a couple of things - total £3k. They said I should have them done. They managed the more expensive but not the cheaper - funnily enough it never got mentioned in future services.

I have a Ford Focus now and don't have any problems or stress. The engineering's a lot better than on my last Ford many years ago. Funnily enough I stopped buying Fords after being screwed by a dealer and Ford being uninterested in the matter.