Discussion
Hi ppl!
I know all the comments about aftersales service quality surrounding Merc dealers at the moment, but heres something different as to why I think they're useless now! They have young, inexperienced ppl working there that don't seem to know very much.
Went to the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Show on thursday in Norwich. Went to the local dealer's stand to ask a few questions.
I asked one guy if he knew when the new 32 valve V8 engines will be released. His response "I dont really know about any of the technical stuff. You probably know more about it than me". Now to me, i think the dealers should be kept up-to-date on these things!
On the stand, they also had (taking pride of place i might add), a perfect 300SL Gullwing. So i asked this same guy "Is that Gullwing a resto?". He replied "Oh no, no. It drives fine". A little confused? - I was! So then i said "Its worth about £250-300,000, yer?" (trawling thru a few classifieds with these cars, it seems to b what mint 300SL's go for) "Oh no over half a million m8" was his response. Right im gunna go now i thought!
My finally point in this post and some tactics Mercedes use. I have a W124 230E (weighing in at about 1200kgs - this info is important later on!). I was at Uni, so took to the local dealer in Loughborough because of slight misfire. Any way, a young mechanic came out and 1st looked for the bonnet release lever under the drivers steering wheel (quite surprised because as every good Merc mechanic should now a RHD W124 has this lever on the passengers side). So he looked at the exhaust and saw a crack in the exhaust manifold. He told me i should get it replaced immediately because it could break completely and snap the brackets holding the down pipe in place. He then told me "Now if you're doing 70-80mph, that could flip the car". Now this sounded a bit worrying to me (and quite frankly unbelievable as the car weighs so much), so gave my Merc specialist back home a call. He comfirmed that this would be extremely unlikely, and sounded surprised that this mechanic told me this.
So my point is: are mercedes getting that desperate to get customers of older models back into their service department, that they resort to scare tacticts!!??
So i throw this open to the forum. Your thoughts please
Darren
>> Edited by iluvmercs on Saturday 2nd July 19:54
I know all the comments about aftersales service quality surrounding Merc dealers at the moment, but heres something different as to why I think they're useless now! They have young, inexperienced ppl working there that don't seem to know very much.
Went to the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Show on thursday in Norwich. Went to the local dealer's stand to ask a few questions.
I asked one guy if he knew when the new 32 valve V8 engines will be released. His response "I dont really know about any of the technical stuff. You probably know more about it than me". Now to me, i think the dealers should be kept up-to-date on these things!
On the stand, they also had (taking pride of place i might add), a perfect 300SL Gullwing. So i asked this same guy "Is that Gullwing a resto?". He replied "Oh no, no. It drives fine". A little confused? - I was! So then i said "Its worth about £250-300,000, yer?" (trawling thru a few classifieds with these cars, it seems to b what mint 300SL's go for) "Oh no over half a million m8" was his response. Right im gunna go now i thought!
My finally point in this post and some tactics Mercedes use. I have a W124 230E (weighing in at about 1200kgs - this info is important later on!). I was at Uni, so took to the local dealer in Loughborough because of slight misfire. Any way, a young mechanic came out and 1st looked for the bonnet release lever under the drivers steering wheel (quite surprised because as every good Merc mechanic should now a RHD W124 has this lever on the passengers side). So he looked at the exhaust and saw a crack in the exhaust manifold. He told me i should get it replaced immediately because it could break completely and snap the brackets holding the down pipe in place. He then told me "Now if you're doing 70-80mph, that could flip the car". Now this sounded a bit worrying to me (and quite frankly unbelievable as the car weighs so much), so gave my Merc specialist back home a call. He comfirmed that this would be extremely unlikely, and sounded surprised that this mechanic told me this.
So my point is: are mercedes getting that desperate to get customers of older models back into their service department, that they resort to scare tacticts!!??
So i throw this open to the forum. Your thoughts please
Darren
>> Edited by iluvmercs on Saturday 2nd July 19:54
It's not a huge surprise that the dealers are rubbish. We all go to them anyway (convincing ourselves we're getting a better service), so from the dealer's point of view, what's the point in spending more money to make them better? 
If I was cold hearted, I wouldn't bother offering a decent service either if all my customers were as stupid as we general public sometimes appear to be!
Good way to make lots of money and be buying your own SLR by the time you're 35!
Except then it gets delivered and the 'service manager' crashes it getting it off the delivery truck...
payback!
Russ
>> Edited by pentoman on Wednesday 6th July 14:49
If I was cold hearted, I wouldn't bother offering a decent service either if all my customers were as stupid as we general public sometimes appear to be!
Good way to make lots of money and be buying your own SLR by the time you're 35!
Except then it gets delivered and the 'service manager' crashes it getting it off the delivery truck...
payback! Russ
>> Edited by pentoman on Wednesday 6th July 14:49
Wacky Racer said:
Don't tar all dealers with the same brush....
i totally appreciate that. Its just unfortunate that all the dealers ive been to ive received a poor service. When i was 17 and even now at 19, id take me car into a dealer and they would just turn their nose up at me or just ignore me completely wen i went to the service desk.
but yes, ure very right not to tar all dealers with the same brush!
Darren
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