[S350L-E240]

Firstly,
let me put this up, I've owned enough Mercedes-Benz cars already, And find absolutely no issues related to service costs etc. I've even had my car serviced at Concorde Motors once and the bill was around 26K for the 2nd service which I find absolutely fine.

Getting to the fact that goodwill warranty has no legal worth, Well it does not, so what as long as you know everything will be done for you? And I'm not only talking about Air conditioning systems, I'm talking about wiring harness, Transmissions, Even a TYRE in one case (you should remember they dont usually take responsibility for the tyres) and I do not need to go to any manager since the owner of the dealership itself is a very close friend. And leave alone Honda Accords etc. Cause i'm not going to bother comparing any Honda / Hyundai etc to a Mercedes-Benz. And well at this time you might say one cant compare MB with BMW etc. so for that lets see when those guys come how different is their policy compared to MB's.

Languishing? Well they are infact getting better and you will see once the new SLK's & A's & CLS's are on the roads. And yes the bosses do know something is wrong and it's not just going to be a press release and that time will tell you or me cannot argue on that since it's only something time will tell so yeah we'll see where they are by 06'. Another thing one has to keep in mind is Mercedes-Benz has few things which no Honda's and Hyundai's have so when you compare it to the J.D.Power review you need to keep one thing in mind that in 1996 when SLK got bad marks no other cars had a Hard top convertible, No hyundai and Honda has a Active Body Control in their production cars. And you think Mercedes-Benz owners are not happy? Ask me how happy I am that I'm looking at something much more exclusive then the S350L...

And about the point where you said that quality does not come overnight, well it does not but if you run a business I'm sure you too at times try to make things change over night and thats what Mercedes-Benz is trying, It might not work but does that mean they can not try? Remember they just closed a large deal with Bosch? And joined Delphi?

I have enough faith in Mercedes-Benz, they know their faults and they will correct them and mark my words every new generation from now will be a Mercedes back in the old days...

I'm goin to put my pen away and look at this topic in 06'

Have fun... and thanx for the warm welcome Rudra Sen, rtech and aadix!

[lamborghini]

guys
me gettin scared now.......
my dad was plannin on getting a merc c class soon and hes hellbent on gettin a merc .....
but if these stories are to believed i will have to convince him to get the c220 to make up the service costs an all
and s350 - where were u all this time ........
btw , i find hp printers to be the most unreliable and always breaking down when needed

[_Crazi4Speed_]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (lamborghini @ Aug. 11 2004,11:24)]btw , i find hp printers to be the most unreliable and always breaking down when needed

Buy canon far superior just like an MB

no kidding

[S350L-E240]

Lamborghini,
Just a little too busy with work since I just joined. But well go ahead with the new C200K and you wont regret it.. Just spend a little and get the door handles coloured

[_Crazi4Speed_]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (S350L-E240 @ Aug. 11 2004,11:32)]Lamborghini,
Just a little too busy with work since I just joined. But well go ahead with the new C200K and you wont regret it.. *Just spend a little and get the door handles coloured

Whats up man..long time since you were on the board

Good to have you here once again...

hope you will cont..

[GTO]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
let me put this up, I've owned enough Mercedes-Benz cars already, And find absolutely no issues related to service costs etc. I've even had my car serviced at Concorde Motors once and the bill was around 26K for the 2nd service which I find absolutely fine.

Thats a one-off, and there have been some people who havent minded paying 70000 for their Mondeos cd player either. But the fact is...blatant exploitation is just that!!

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]

Getting to the fact that goodwill warranty has no legal worth, Well it does not, so what as long as you know everything will be done for you? And I'm not only talking about Air conditioning systems, I'm talking about wiring harness, Transmissions, Even a TYRE in one case (you should remember they dont usually take responsibility for the tyres) and I do not need to go to any manager since the owner of the dealership itself is a very close friend. And leave alone Honda Accords etc. Cause i'm not going to bother comparing any Honda / Hyundai etc to a Mercedes-Benz. And well at this time you might say one cant compare MB with BMW etc. so for that lets see when those guys come how different is their policy compared to MB's.

Like I said, its got no legal standing. Just like a guy taking 5 lacs of your money and not giving you any official paperwork for it. Of course, you know him and hes a good friend...but what if the relationship turns sour? You have nothing to fight on...legally speaking.

What would you prefer? A documented full coverage warranty...or a friendly pat on the back in the name of a goodwill warranty? Mercedes must be laughing all the way to the bank, knowing that it still has customers who dont complain when there are others who spend a fraction and get so much more.

Mercedes is languishing behind, not only in quality but also in terms of lost marketshare to Acura, Lexus and Infiniti. Know why? Coz these are hard-core reliable products which hardly ever break down. Coz their ownership and service costs are far more realistic. Its all about sheer value...and value (tangible and intangible ) accounts for most whether you are buying a $10000 car or a $100000. The JD Quality survey shows how satisfied the Mercedes Benz customer is...Of Course I am happy with the good part of my C Class too, but the bad part is horrendous. Not even my Esteem has had so many repairs in 8 years of its existence.

Sure their quality will improve, thats because THEY HAVE TO!! Its no longer a taken-for-granted and Mercedes will go down the tubes if they dont start building reliable cars once again. Just the fact that Hubbert says they will focus on quality now means that they have taken their customers for a R-O-Y-A-L ride in the last 10 years. I had an Accord in the US which had travelled 90000 miles when I got it. I drove it for another 20000 and it did not have one single breakdown ever!!! Now thats quality....thats reliability. The consumer has woken up, and no longer is he going to buy a product just because of the badge. He is going to look beyond it!! This is precisely the reason behind Mercedes' renewed motivation toward quality and reliability.

As the joke in the auto industry goes...Chrysler seems to have taught Mercedes more about quality (or the lack of it) than vice versa!

GTO

[ported_head]

both sides, very well put arguments. and s350, welcome back. this is what i make of it.
I do respect Mercedes for the fact that they have taken autmomotive technology where no car company had been before. Which other company would innovate fantastic safety features and still let the other car companies use them. that's almost as good as community service. but the fact is, electronics in cars have gotten too complicated for their own good, personnaly i would prefer things to work as they did in the good ole days. but it's not our choice, it's the manufacturers, and if they decided to tread what is the forbidden path for me, they should bloody hell be responsible for whatever goes wrong. small time mass market car companies like Maruti and Hyundai may consider service warranties as a USP, but for companies like Mercedes, not only them, but even BMW, Porsche, Ferrari etc, these things should come naturally. Just because i buy something that costs $100,000 doesn't mean i should be able to afford $100,000 worth service bills in a year. When i buy an expensive car, could very well be my entire life savings, i shouldn't have to have another life just to run it. when i pay top money, i expect top quality, and if in this case i can't get quality, i would want top service and free warranties, et al. crediblity against all criterias. it's a shame when renowned marques such as the above mentioned could have such appalling quality. while i might not own any fancy marques, i have decent exposure to them, if not a lot. and i call it like i see it. what also upsets me is that these manufacturers have different standards for different countries. i'd like to see what competition does for this. bottomline, i would like free services and yes them to be cheaper too, because they can bloody hell afford it. and reliable products, and if you can't give me those, go back to the drawing board.
on a brighter note, i hope a little reshuffle do some good for the Mercedes cars, because i quite like the new SLK.

[dipen]

I completely agree with GTO on this discussion .
Mercedes Benz have taken the Indian customer for granted.
They need to improve on quality.
Imagine the Hyundai was faster in giving clear lamps to the santro, and the MB india is the last in the market to offer clear lamps

Also can anyone explain the price raise in the C class
GTO , if I am right , U bought yr C-180 for 21.xx laks

today the same C costs abt 28-29 laks
this is an increse in cost of abt 7-8 laks
the difference is
1. Kompresor , additional power (25% increase)
Just note that the Accord v6 delivers additional approx 55 % more power
than the 2.4 liter accord , the price diff being 2 laks
2. clear LAmps
3. Wide rubber and smart alloys (which was necessry)
4. Rear Stop light
5. some electronics change
6. cd players
7. New improved manual gearbox.
I may have missed some points , fellow bhp-ians can add it

additional warranties and free services are a must.
Lazy MB India must grow with the compitition
extended warranty should always be an option.
Becoming pro-active is the lesson they should be learning from the Korean Hyundai (I fully understand MB ad Hyundai cater to a diff segment of customers)

Selling a 28-30 lak car des not mean that the services and repair should be expensive as hell.
its simply cheating. (maybe a harsh word , but true)
They must really stop banking on the 3 pointed star, which they are doing till date in India.

[aadix]

hi guys
this is just in.. one for my friends. who were the first in hyd to buy the new e240 are facing a lot of trouble, it all started when water went into the engine somehow 8 months back and it wasnt covered in the insurance or the warranty, they had spent close to 7 l to get it done,

now a couple of day's back again some thing like that has happened, but this time the merc guys have done it for free! good will gesture???

[GTO]

Team-BHP has 4 Merc's that have been spoken about...first-hand experiences by the owners.

Lets look at the problems one by one

Starting with mine, here are the problems that have surfaced in the first 18 months of ownership:

1. Entire A/c evaporator assembly replaced.
2. Interior light circuitry failed.
3. Plastic bits falling off in the interiors.
4. Control module failed. Lights, power seats, trunk, instrument cluster - All failed.


Sahils two C180's Report is down this thread

1. BAS, ABS etc. failed. Software glitch. Rs.80000 to repair.
2. Air-con conked off. Cost about 80 grand to repair.
3. Fuel tank leaking like crazy.
4. Clutch failure. Pedal got stuck completely inside. Merc blamed it on fluid overheat.


S350's E Class after a 500 km trip. Link to the entire thread is
here.

1. Gear shifting problems.
2. Dangerously instable braking. Car swerves to a side when brakes are applied. In his words - "Braking was scary".
3. Engine idling speed stuck at 3000 rpm. Would not go below.
4. Fuel average while coming downhill - 2.85 km/l. Whole trip - 4.6 kms/l !!!

To quote S350 "And it gave me a driving experience which could have been better in the Fiat,Now off it goes to the workshop"

Now, just two posts above...a friend of Aadixs has had two engine failures in his new E240. The first cost of repair was 7 lacs. Second time done under the so called "good will warranty".

Bear in mind that these are Mercs, and thus receive more caring and attention that the other cars. I can confidently tell you that my C is driven much more carefully than the Vtec. Also all these problems have surfaced in cars that are less than 2 years old

I just want to make it clear to Team-BHPians and regular guests that the new Mercerdes are horribly unreliable and problem laden machines. But the magazines somehow dont report on this. Actual owner experiences through a reliable medium is the only way to warn prospective buyers of the lurking danger ahead of them. Like I had said, if only I had access to such information before I bought my C Class...I probably would have gone for an Accord instead.

I'd rather have a reliable badge on the road than a three-pointed star becoming a permanent fixture in the service station.

GTO

[Rtech]

man, when you put it like that...its really shamefull! And to think MB used to be known for their bullet proof build quality!!

I just hope they get back to their old days. I'm sure they will eventually, but they really need to make that ASAP to avoid losing more customers.

RT

[ported_head]

Well add to the above list my brief stint in the C220 CDI. The ESP and the ABS refused to turn ON, once they switched themselves OFF. Also the horn would interfere with the music system, which was hard to press in the first place, acoording to Mercedes it is rude to honk in European countries. Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan. And to top it all off, the rear seat was squeaking out of control with the audacity of an opera singer. Almost paralysed everybody in the car. That's it for now.

[GTO]

Some interesting sites to visit:

1. Lemon MB - Navigate around here and read problems by model series. Actual user experiences.

2. Trouble Benz

3. Mercedes problems

4. Auto Insider Article

5. MB Spy. This one has detailed pictures of quality issues.

6. Fortune Magazine Article

7. Worthwhile mag

As you can see, its not only Team-BHP thats educating on the real story behind a Mercedes.

GTO

[Sahil]

Nicely put up GTO... as for the fuel tank issue with my C-class...it wasnt leakin coz of a dent or a hole in it, it was not fixed back by the mechanic in the service station! How irresponsible cant these guys get! The car had gone for service the driver took it out of the showroom and on the way home tanked it up, as soon as he did that and stopped at the next red light almost the entire tank was on the road!! Thank god there was no inflammable thing around or it could have take a hell of alot of lives that day.

[Aditya]

While Mercedes-Benz have gotten themselves into the pointless German power struggle with BMW and released a whole truckload of new models worldwide, they seem to have forgotten the most important aspect that their cars were famous for - Quality!

BMWs, Audis, Lexuses, Jags, all have probs with their new models, but, instead of just concentrating on releasing new models in quick sucession, they focus on improving the quality of their older cars. The S-Type Jag is a classic example. It was nothing but a Lincoln LS in drag - loaded with problems to start with. Jaguar worked hard to sort these out and today's S-Type is a very good quality product. The X-Type is being worked on now and the established XJ was always good. BMW has been doing its bit too. The probs with 7 series have been almost completely sorted out now.

What I'm trying to say is, introduce new models and more powerful engines if you want, but, maintain the quality of your established products. Your new models will have problems to start with. But, before you waste your resources on just releasing new cars and high power enigines, make your previous models troublefree.

It's sad to see such a traditional and respected marque lose ground.