Mercedes benz service

onetruevoice

Dear all

my merc( 5 year old C 200 ) is due for a B service which will cost me about £300 at the dealer. The local kia garage is offering to service it for about £100

I have tended to use main dealers because its meant to maintain its value but in reality, does it really make any difference to the 2nd hand value? I am not intending to change the car for a good few year

OTV

harveybobbles

It wont add a real value to the car to have the 3 pointed star in the service book, it just makes it more desirable.

Sandoval

As long as the service is done as per Merc's specifications I can't see that it would affect the value in any significant way.

haveibeendone

Have you looked at the MbiloLife 30 year warranty that is invalidated by using a non MB service centre although cars made after 2004 (I think) can have the warranty reinstated if the car goes back to a MB service centre. Earlier cars lose the Mobilo Life permanently. As always opinions on the worth of Mobilo Life are varied from vital to useless.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Some Kias use Mercedes engines. I don't see a problem using the Kia garage.

Over time the value of your car will not be affected so badly that you'll lose money over servicing at an MB garage.

Flying-High_2

Find a good Independent MB specialist.

Had a reasonably new C Class circa 2003 and it came with Full MBSH and 65kmiles... Wanted to keep its History up so we sent it into Mercs for service and the first part which was the oil change and the inspections they carry out came to around £350:rotfl::rotfl:

Then another £1200 of work they had spotted during inspections... :rotfl::rotfl:

Took it from there and found a MB trained Specialist... All genuine parts..Software etc used but at a much much smaller price.. Of the £1200 of extra work recommended he could only find a couple of things on the list that needed attention. Never looked back after that and used him whilst we owned the car over 2 years and 80kmiles for servicing and MOTs

From what I remember the "B" is essentially lots of extra Inspections over the "A" and an Oil and filter....

I'd check to see what Oil and filter brand... ideally genuine or at at least OE spec the Kia dealer would be using and use them at £100

Lemonade_Pockets

Find a good Merc specialist, much better than taking it to Kia (Or possibly Merc).

I go through quite a few cars and if i was looking through a merc service book that had Kia stamps and god knows who else stamps in it, i'd probably rightly sumise that the owner had skimped on costs and just had the bear minimum work done for as cheap as possible. A full set of stamps from either the MFR or a specialist implies that the car has been looked after and is likely to be a good proposition.

So while it may not drastically affect re-sale value especially if your px-ing it i'd know which i'd rather buy so you might find it difficult to sell on with out dropping the price.

Older_but_not_wiser_2

as above, definately find a local MB specialist.

have a look on http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/ for a local specialist.

If you don't fancy that and want to keep your MB service history, then play off one against the other. Don't be afraid to haggle and ask them to price match the local MB dealers against one another.

Also, if you do take it to MB for servicing, supply your own oil, which can be bought at a much cheaper price than MB are charging. ( just make sure it's the correct spec for your car - should tell you in the service book, or a quick google will do the job.)

Strider590

onetruevoice wrote: »

Dear all

my merc( 5 year old C 200 ) is due for a B service which will cost me about £300 at the dealer. The local kia garage is offering to service it for about £100

I have tended to use main dealers because its meant to maintain its value but in reality, does it really make any difference to the 2nd hand value? I am not intending to change the car for a good few year

OTV

To be honest with you, it's a Merc, you have to accept that they don't hold value as well as you'd think.
The sort of teople who buy Mercs, won't normally buy second hand (it just wouldn't look good at the golf club), therefore the second hand values take a serious hit.

My friends C320 was £18'500 second hand (1 year old), 4 years later worth no more than £4000 (private).

It's wise to keep history of services, but you certainly don't need to go to the stealership.

sassy_one

Just a point to note, I was told as long as you have a service book and it's stamped and the car has been serviced by a garage, that's fine.

Mine has all stamps in the service book, even nearly at 100.000 miles I still have it fully serviced, and it's done by not only main dealer Ford but by my local family garage which stamp it, still as good - don't worry - I'd say go with the cheaper service £100 sounds good to be, I nearly pay £135 for my fully service!