Autohangar tried to dupe me!!

[EVO6]

Sahil,
You should write a long complaint letter to DCIL...
If you need the right person details ... I will gladly furnish them to you ..
PM me if you interested ..
Cheers
EVO6

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by aseem

I think everyone is this forum is missing the point. What I have mentioned is very practical. See we all go and see movies in PVR and pay 150 bucks whereas we can see the same movie in a front stall at some local theatre for 20 bucks. So we pay 7 times more and than also spend another 300-400 bucks on snacks. So we pay at least 20 times more to watch a movie in PVR as opposed to watching the same movie at a local theatre. But we pay that for the ambience, for the infrastructure that PVR provides and for the comfort.
Same is true in your case with your MB dealership. They are charging you more for the same thing than a local mechanic outside simply because the peace of mind they provide. I agree that they are overpriced, but they provide quality service to their high profile and valued customers. Like stated previously, if you are fed up with being overcharged and dont want to pay 20x times more on repairs, than consider Baleno, City, or Sonata they are excellent VFM with good service and cheap spears.
No hard feelings.

DUDE! U have lost the plot.....Being overcharged is different from being cheated!!! They r charging me for something thats perfectly fine!

@Suprise...If it were a real damage maybe i would claim insurance, but its wrong on autohangars part to force me into claiming insurance just so that they can earn more for something thats not damaged.

[maedi]

dude aseem....you seem to have gotten this all mixed up...

forget buying a INR 150 ticket...this is more about buying a gold class ticket for 20k instead of INR 500, PVR selling you a ticket for a movie other than you wanted to see and you justifying the expense as for ''peace of mind"! at the end of the day it is good money and no one likes doing business with people who aren't honest!

your logic is twisted...it not that sahil minds paying bills that are genuine...am sure he was aware of the kind of bills that MB spares would result in and made an informed pruchase...its just that no one wants to get fleeced! is it really that difficult to fathom?

[sivadas]

Originally Posted by aseem

I think everyone is this forum is missing the point. What I have mentioned is very practical. See we all go and see movies in PVR and pay 150 bucks whereas we can see the same movie in a front stall at some local theatre for 20 bucks. So we pay 7 times more and than also spend another 300-400 bucks on snacks. So we pay at least 20 times more to watch a movie in PVR as opposed to watching the same movie at a local theatre. But we pay that for the ambience, for the infrastructure that PVR provides and for the comfort.
Same is true in your case with your MB dealership. They are charging you more for the same thing than a local mechanic outside simply because the peace of mind they provide. I agree that they are overpriced, but they provide quality service to their high profile and valued customers. Like stated previously, if you are fed up with being overcharged and dont want to pay 20x times more on repairs, than consider Baleno, City, or Sonata they are excellent VFM with good service and cheap spears.
No hard feelings.

Sahil is lucky that only AutoHangar is aware of of Aseem's peace of mind funda

[navin]

hey, Autobahn (are these guys related :-) ) tried to charge me for fixing an auto tranny in my RS!

[Revvhead]

Assem Dude, When one pays a premium for a car, one expects the car not to visit the mechanics. Also the reason why you pay a premium for spares and service, is that you epect a certain qulaity of service in return. getting cheated is in no way peace of mind
Unless the 1.5 L was troubling you wallet and you were looking for a way to get rid of it

When you pay your 200 buck ticket in pVR, you get comfier seats, a better AC, a better theatre and screem with better projection and sound, and the crowd that you will be sitting with will be different

If they charged you 200 and gave you a steel chair in a paan stained theatre you wouldnt be too pleased would you

And it would be even worse that after they took you money, they saidm actually we are going to show you a 10 min govt documentary, and while you paid for the seat, you havent paid rent for the land the seat is on, so that wi8ll be 500 bucks more

Thats what autohangar is doing to this guy
To give a false quote is a vary worng thing- everyone pads their quotes, but there is a huge differece between padding a quote and charging for things that are not spoilt

Sahil, i think you should raise a huge hue and cry about this
bare miminum write to MBIL and CC a copy to the Midday & Mumbai mirror

[GTO]

Holy Cow!! Its absolutely disgusting to hear about such an incident, and why an expensive quote was made to you without even first checking for defects. What further attests their gross error is another authorised dealership approving the parts for use. That in effect means that the parts Auto Hangar wanted to change dont really need to be at all. Why they did what they did is anybodys guess. I dont care whether insurance was going to be claimed or not - Somebody would have to foot the bill that was not required.

This incident is yet another eye-opener for Mercedes Benz owners....If I were you - Heads would be rolling by now.

GTO

[ajmat]

Anyone heard of the consumer courts?

[aseem]

[quote=Sahil]Buddy my decision to never buy a merc is not coz of one dealer...its due to the series of problems that my car has faced.... i have mentioned the same in previous posts....I own two C180's both... i''ll repeat few of the major problems for u once again
-The fuel tank leaked in the middle of the road...all the petrol dropped .... just thank my stars that there was no fire around or else this would be MAJOR!!... i dont even expect this to happen in the worest of cars.
[/QOUTE]
Feul tank leaking is something that is unheard off. This doesnt happen in any Maruti cars. Since MB repairs are costly and you are having problems affording them, I strongly recommend/suggest that you should consider Maruti Baleno. Its the most recommended car at TBHP. This way you will be able to get your car repaired at the MARUTI showroom itself without having to drive to Pune every time you have a problem with your car or go to a local mechanic.

Originally Posted by Sahil

- Once on my way to nasik i pressed the clutch to shift up and the clutch refuse to come back out....it just got stuck in .... i was luckily at just 30km/hr and hence managed to control it to a hault somehow! Called the MBIL helpline and they are like yaa such things happen when the oil in the clutch gets heated, just turn the car off for a while and the oil will get a little thin so u can use it then. The car was not even overheating!

The clutch of Baleno never gets stuck. If it does you could afford to get it replaced cheap. This way you wont get angry/aggitated/dissapointed and come to this site telling us about the costly repairs. You will enjoy peace of mind.

Originally Posted by Sahil

- The AC just stopped cooling one day ...took it to the service center they gave an estimate of 80,000 as some major part had conked off.....i instead took it to my local ac guy and filled up the gas and the ac was back to perfect! Again this time they tried to cheat me. For a minor problem of gas filled to an 80,000 component!!

Again to reiterate the point. If you go to a local mechanic he will charge you cheap. He doesnt have engineers working for him, or a dealer network whose salaries have to be paid for. He doesnt give any garantee on the part he replaces. Simply speaking, cars like Merc are known for their high maintainence costs. But still people buy them, but if you have to buy them and later go to local mechanics as price from show room is too high, than I must suggest you reconsider your decision to buy such an expensive car to maintain. Again Baleno has the best AC in its class. Most TBHPians and auto magazines can vouch for this.

Originally Posted by Sahil

- Electronic braking system started failing.... I was driving down marine drive once, enjoy my car and suddenly the screen flash ABS fail!! BAS Fail!! Imagine at 120km/hr the car just tells u that the major braking systems have jsut conked off !!

I garantee your ABS WILL never fail in Baleno, as it doesnt have ABS. Such fancy systems are not designed for Indian conditions, of dust, rain and dirt. Baleno relies on old is gold technology of non abs, drum/disc brakes that will never give you a FAIL ABS screen.

Originally Posted by Sahil

Well these r jsut the few MAJOR problems that i can think of now.......there have been several other small problems which i have tried to let go..... This is why i said that a BMW is going to be my next car and not a merc.....not that i have faith in the future BMW dealers but i have faith in the brand. Mercedes comes up with millions of problem which causes owners to go back to the service center and hence gives the cheats like autohangar a chance to swindle us.... but i have faith that BMW wont make me visit the service center as often apart from servicing so that reduces the chance for the dealers to cheat us.

Please dont make mistake of going for BMW. As the AC repairs from show room for BMW wont be less than 80k, and I would hate for you to buy such an expensive car and go stand in front of a local mechanic to fix the AC.

Originally Posted by Sahil

Compensate their expensive living by cheating customers!!??!! I didnt not want to claim insurance because i have a high no claim bonus.... its upto the customer to decide if he wants to or not....fine if i have told them that i wanna claim insurance and then they bump up the estimate to cheat the insurance company then its between the two of them as the insurance is not their customer.... but when i have said that i am not goin to claim insurance then why cheat me for things that r not damaged!!?

Ideally Merc owners should not worry about the no claim bonus etc. Rather they should be enjoying the peace of mind of having a luxury car. Minor expenses will come and be taken care of by insurance but what you are getting is peace of mind. However I do agree in your case 1.5 lakh turned out too much, and thus I strongly recommend Baleno. It has Maruti *** and will give you peace of mind. On performance too, its evenly matched with your Merc C. Below are the specs:

Mercedes Benz C200 CDI (0-100) 12.43 secs
Maruti Baleno (0-100) 12.77 secs

As a Team Bhpian my role is to advise you. I can follow the crowd and crib about the dealer etc. But like I said, the dealer will always cost more than a local mechanic. I stick to my PVR example... you pay for the comfort/investment/infrastructure of Merc network as opposed to getting it fixed from a local guy.

[aseem]

Originally Posted by Sahil
Buddy my decision to never buy a merc is not coz of one dealer...its due to the series of problems that my car has faced.... i have mentioned the same in previous posts....I own two C180's both... i''ll repeat few of the major problems for u once again
-The fuel tank leaked in the middle of the road...all the petrol dropped .... just thank my stars that there was no fire around or else this would be MAJOR!!... i dont even expect this to happen in the worest of cars.

Feul tank leaking is something that is unheard off. This doesnt happen in any Maruti cars. Since MB repairs are costly and you are having problems affording them, I strongly recommend/suggest that you should consider Maruti Baleno. Its the most recommended car at TBHP. This way you will be able to get your car repaired at the MARUTI showroom itself without having to drive to Pune every time you have a problem with your car or go to a local mechanic.

[Sahil]

Man Aseem there is no winning with you dude.... sorry to say but u r too thick in the head sorry to be so harsh but you make no sense to me or for that matter to most of us here. I dont wanna waste my time and answer each of your statements with stupid answers like you did for mine. I rest my case i think everyone knows why haha.... just got one thing to say ' I VALUE HARD EARNED MONEY'.

[EVO6]

did u get my PM sahil regarding the fax no.

[Revvhead]

Aseem,
Why does sahil have to buy a Baleno to be assured of releability
If he has paid 20+ lackhs or whatever for his Merc, why is it wrong for him to expect reliability
I'm sure if Some marui dealarship tried to con you ino buying an ECU and a new AC when nothing was wrong with it, you would be pissed off. Of is it that by your apparent philosophy you would settle, say i deserved this for buying a Swift, I should buy a scooter which has no ECU and has no AC so it can never go wrong.

Guess what, his fuel tank leaked, damn all cars have one, so lets go get a bicycle, they dont have fuel tanks.

The chap is trying to sort out a serious problem here, which could have cost him a helluva lot of money, If you cant be sympathetic or part of the solution, try at least not to be part of the problem

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by Revvhead

Aseem,
Why does sahil have to buy a Baleno to be assured of releability
If he has paid 20+ lackhs or whatever for his Merc, why is it wrong for him to expect reliability
I'm sure if Some marui dealarship tried to con you ino buying an ECU and a new AC when nothing was wrong with it, you would be pissed off. Of is it that by your apparent philosophy you would settle, say i deserved this for buying a Swift, I should buy a scooter which has no ECU and has no AC so it can never go wrong.

Guess what, his fuel tank leaked, damn all cars have one, so lets go get a bicycle, they dont have fuel tanks.

The chap is trying to sort out a serious problem here, which could have cost him a helluva lot of money, If you cant be sympathetic or part of the solution, try at least not to be part of the problem

Well said buddy!! Thnx! I didnt wanna waste my time answering this guy anymore but you put it just right.

@EVO6 - Thnx buddy I did get the contact for the DCIL guy.... gonna speak to my dad abt this issue and get a complete list of problems that have occured in my car to prove to them that the cars they have given me are defected or they just SUCK ! And i am going to fax them the estimate given to me by autohangar and the bill from millenium to show them how dishonest Autohangar are. Also does anyone have the contact details for ACI and a newspaper that would really take an effort to look into this matter and print it well? These guys need to be taught a lesson, both DCIL and autohangar.

[aah78]

Sahil:
don't know whether your car is under warranty but if it isn't, if you are a car enthusiast (which would be natural, since you are a member of team-bhp) and also to save dealer prices, i would recommend going through some of the mercedes-bernz forums MBWorld Discussion Forums.
these forums generally contain a lot of DIY repairs that one can perform using general tools and save a Huge amount on simple repairs for which the dealers would charge an atrocious amount.
also try to get your hands on the factory repair manuals which you can get on CDs/DVDs off ebay which give you specific Part Numbers and dealer prices.
a lot of online stores carry OEM parts for your car, or can easily source them for you at a MUCH lower price than the dealer. (this would be easier for you as i see New York mentioned in your Location)

we have an e38 bmw 750il which is out of warranty and i rely whole-and-soul on BMW E38 Links and BimmerBoard.com to perform simple repairs.
to give an example - my headlamp washers had conked-off. dealer quoted $86 ($43 each) for the nozzles and $105/hour labour (yes, BMW mechanics get more than Doctors and even Lawyers.. ).
anyways, a Do It Yourself job cost me the headlamp washers at a bargain price of $56 ($29 each) from Bavarian Autosport and around 1 hour to replace them myself - not to mention the Immense amount of satisfaction I get on getting my car 1 step closer to perfection.

ad