[harit]

I do know for a fact that Mercedes has huge problems with their turbochargers/Kompressors. Sometime back another manufacturer had huge problems with their automatic gearboxes. These things do happen, the difference lies in handling, the dealers, the customers and the defects themselves. Here MBIL seem to be making errors. The dealers are often bullied, MBIL will go into minutest details, set targets, everything the dealer does has to be approved, even the shape of a teacup(not joking). Customers are often handled badly, specially those one-off or occasional customers. The pampered ones are the corporates who don't even check the invoices. They tend to move the cars on after a few years, no one is bothered. E and S class cars are normally corporate use cars, not enthusists cars.
Any defects need to be handled well, involve a PR team if the matter is sticky. Hiding leads to loss of confidence. All buy a Toyota inspite of them having massive quality issues a few years ago, capped by that cop being unable to stop his car. But they handled the issues rather well.

I wonder where this will lead to, I doubt much will change as MBIL is rather stubborn.

Audi and BMW seem to be good alternatives, but check your costs to run and maintain these cars, I have heard horror stories here also.

I will be keenly watching for developments with great interest.

Cheers harit

[esteem_lover]

Yes, Merc could have screwed up, agreed. And the dealerships also played along to earn their buck out of every screw up and every malpractice. Why should only this one particular dealer with probably a great "Reputation" start a hate website ? In their own website, they have admitted to playing along for many years, so how many customers would that be ?

"We ourselves were so embarrassed by the pathetic quality that we blindly carried out these measures"

It was only after many years that we could no longer remain in denial

And how this sudden fight for freedom and exposure of your previous bread winners ? huh ?

[alpha1]

For all the doubting Thomas on this thread:
So what if Cama was a cohort of MBIL and indulged/aided the malpractices.
If he does whistle blowing TODAY, consumers will get the benefit TOMORROW.

Don't try to plug that whistle!

Besides, corporate governance is really lax in most European firms when they operate offshore (away from their home country).
Our telecom fiasco is the biggest example - so I would not be surprised at this "negligibly smaller" incident.

[SDP]

The original article (and this thread) is dated 13th Aug. Its been 10 days already. Has Mercedes India even bothered to respond to these allegations? Or are they planning to take the stance - "I am not going to dignify that with a response"?

[kippu]

The noise or actually whispers made around here and on twitter , is really very small for mercedes to be alarmed about . Actually if they did start a case on it , then these facts and website will get onto other streams of media , which they really dont want . So for them their best course of action is to be silent and let his die down.

One of Mercedes employees , in his individual capacity, asked the author of this piece on twitter , to go ahead and expose the other luxury brands . He was not a bit apologetic or shocked that these things happen, maybe it is a bit more common in all the brands than we know?

[ghostrider]

Originally Posted by kippu

I was taken aback by this article which was linked to me at twitter just ten minutes ago :


Cama details the entire saga, as well as lists what they say are "Major Cover Ups" pertaining to :

• AC problems
• Air suspension sudden collapse
• Airbag replacement
• Clutch pedals of various models were known to stick while driving
• Constant "updation" of all software with new code secretly
• Corrosion of cars produced between 2000 and 2005
• Crank Shaft, Wheel speed, Steering angle and other sensor failures
• Engine idler pulley
• Fuel Leakage
• SBC brake failure
• Transmission Failure
• Water seepage
• Turbocharger

Wow. A couple of friends with Mercs (1 C, 1E) of different vintages have both had these problems. On a friend's E280, the crankshaft failed after just 32,000km. He claims it cost him almost a lakh to it sorted out.
He also had extremely expensive issues pertaining to AC failures, corrosion (in 2-year old car), and abnormally poor fuel eco - he would get an average of 4kpl. Another friend with a C230's also complained repeatedly about how his AC starts randomly blowing hot air at him, and other little niggles like temperamental power window buttons, etc. What's the most scary thing though is there's always a pervasive smell of fuel when you're in the cabin - he's complained about this numerous times but Merc always tells him there's nothing wrong.

There's a thread here on the forums about the nightmare that ML(320?) user's had to endure at the hand's of Merc.

Good cars let down by appalling service. Pity.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by ghostrider

Good cars let down by appalling service. Pity.

With those issues that you have listed, I dont think they can be called "good cars" to begin with! Mercedes has only made it worse by trying to rectify the problems in a hush hush manner.

And I dont think Cama Motors can be exonerated either, even if they are the ones blowing the lid off. Forced or not, they did carry out the orders from Mercedes India.

[ganesc]

First of all, hats off to Cama group for bringing this to light. This doesnt seem to be for cheap publicity. Lets not waste time in getting into why now. Would we do that if we were in their situation in such a politically dominated country?

We have seen and heard reliability issues with MB cars especially in India. And this is not the case with MBI alone as i remember reading in Autocar India forum about a BMW 5 series owner complaining against the manufacturer for the poor reliability and service standard provided saying "not a BMW ever in India again". This was from a guy who owns other BMW's in his home country. Unable to find those links now. Might have been removed by aci.
Shame on media for not supporting this.
Why do these guys take Indians for granted :(
so, even if you have the money, you still have to go with japanese?!

[MercLover]

Disheartened after going through the website, still cannot believe the brand to be associated with such malpractices. Thumbs up to the dealer but I would have really appreciated them if they had done this before they were fired from Merc as a dealer and not now.

[ACM]

Oddly we don't really have an update of how things moved further in this case. The issues listed do seem to be a reflection of the various problems that I have heard / observed owners going through. The charge of systematic attempt to cover up though is sad.