[PraNeel]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

My X3 had some minor damages to the front end when I accidentally hit a dog at 80 kph. The front bumper with its parking sensors, fog lamps and headlamps washers had to be replaced. Total bill came to 2.20 Lakhs.

The fog lamps look intact. After dismantling did they check / show you whether these parts really required replacement? Were old parts returned to you?

[audioholic]

Interesting thread. Especially after my cousins SX4 had a much more severe damage where the entire front right corner was demolished and the bill came to 45k (no comparisons between this merc though :P) to fix it back to shape. However, looking at the various points brought up on this thread,
1. Cost of spare parts are sky high since all of these are imported from Germany. And since this is a two version old model there could have been some delays in sourcing parts.

2. Regarding the huge estimate - This is undoubtedly one of the downsides of owning a premium brand. The engine bay is stuffed with a lot of expensive stuff. In this case, one main component of the bill is the radiator+condensor+intercooler combo which would have been damaged. If the damage was contained to the corner areas, the repair costs would have dropped down significantly. Expensive stuff.

3. What is really absurd is the labour costs. Come on, they are not employing engineers paid six digit figures monthly to repair this car. If not, then they cant charge insane rates just because of the premium factor. And to top it, the itemisation is like how Maruti charges for paid service, and then adds stuff like battery check, fluid check, brake cleaning etc. This should have not been done and rather the labour charges should have been more like a package to be fair. Charging separately for radiator support member replacement and radiator replacement is absurd. Same applies to bumper replacement and grill replacement.

This being an older generation car is so expensive. The upcoming E class or the current Gen E class has much more sophistication in the headlights and I hear each headlight assy. costs upwards of 3.5L to replace. Now thats a white elephant to maintain

[aargee]

Originally Posted by PraNeel

Things have changed a lot in the past decade. For the benefit of community...is not too much difficult.

Reality check!!
1. The verdict takes its own sweet time; here in Chennai it takes about 2.5 years minimum for the verdict (It used to be 1.5 years 10 years ago)
2. Every month you'll be called by the court for the hearing session of < 1 minute. The day is random & will be intimated ONLY if you attend the previous hearing. If you miss...God bless!!
3. And...to attend that 1 minute, be in the court premises from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM, leaving all your work no matter how important it is. And if you're hospitalized for some reason...run to prove it to avoid summons

Online clicks? Forget it!! It works, but you get nothing out of it. I filed an online petition for being ripped off for Rs 400 at a hotel in Kumbakonam. They laughed at me when I asked for a bill & gave a hand written bill that didn't have TIN or TNGST number (it had cash memo as heading). After 10 odd months I got an email from govt that the IT team had imposed a fine for Rs 15000 after an audit from that hotel recently, so my case was dismissed

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by PraNeel

The fog lamps look intact. After dismantling did they check / show you whether these parts really required replacement? Were old parts returned to you?

No, I wasn't around when they dismantled. I went with whatever they wanted to replace. Insurance took care of most of the bill. I paid about 5K. So I guess they took the damaged parts.

[prasadee]

Originally Posted by aargee

Place - Subway, Mall of America, MN
Ordered a 12" veggie delight & said "large coke no ice"; but the guy had already dispensed ice cubes on coke. I was expecting him to remove the ice & give me. Instead he threw away the entire large soda, gave me a fresh large soda in new glass without ice.

Place - Ritz Camera, MN - Got a $12 work done < $7 including tax.

What you end up getting charged is the business trying to make up for the mistake. That is not to say the business can do just as well charging the same to every customer.

I have gotten items for free when a product has an incorrect price tag on the shelf/rack, compared to the price on the product. It is not a rip-off but a screwup. For which the store is willing to make things better for the customer.

[PraNeel]

Originally Posted by aargee

Reality check!!....

I agree to your point that justice system in India is quite taxing. It requires an overhaul. However in most of the cases the companies try to resolve the matter on priority as soon as they see a legal intervention or social network defamation.

The consumer should make it clear to the company that he will go all guns blazing if situation doesn't improve. Usually the cases for big amounts land up in a stubborn court fight, and there a lawyer should be hired if the case goes on for long. That said I have witnessed positive outcomes for some of my friends.

One example of CCRC helping a Titan Eye consumer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMsKPMINqpM

[basuroy]

So a fender bender in Mercedes costs as much as a brand new Toyota Corolla? Seems fair. Accidents are a rip off in general these days, a friend of mine damaged his i-20 to the extent that air bags were deployed (he feels it was not severe enough for bags to deploy), otherwise from outside, the damage was very similar to this Mercedes (he had hit an iron pole at 20-30kmph when executing a turn) and the headlight was smashed. It cost him (or rather his insurance ) 2.6 L to get his car fixed. This is a car that a year earlier had cost his around 8 L. The accident was such that even if he were not wearing a seatbelt, he would have escaped unharmed. There was no damage to the engine or suspension though the car did require a fresh coat of paint around the damaged region. I shared this because I feel even in lesser brands, one may end up paying a massive sum to fix a relatively small damage.

And looking at the labour charge, I am clearly doing the wrong job .

[GTO]

Couple of points guys:

1. Soumya has registered on Team-BHP.

2. Zero-dep insurance is a must with the Europeans. Believe they offer it for up to 5 years now.

3. Getting this car fixed outside would have cost a fraction of this bill. But well, when the insurance is covering it, why would you consider the after-market?

4. Everyone is only talking about the cost. What about the 6 months that the car was off the road? The Germans take way too long to repair, even for far simpler tasks (from my Mercedes & BMW ownership experiences).

5. Irrespective of how major or minor the accident was, the spare part pricing is outright ridiculous! Refer to the headlamp & oil costs quoted by BHPians on the first page of this thread. Not to forget, a number plate something for ten grand.

[Axe77]

After seeing these eye watering repair bills, I wonder whether I should have bought the Endy after all instead of the GT. Lol

[drmohitg]

I fail to understand that why should they need so much time to repair your car. Cost is one thing and more or less a customer is knowingly taking that gamble when buying these cars. It is loot but still I would call it informed loot. But how do you explain the time taken to repair? Even if parts were to be flown down from Antarctica, how much time does it take to get them down to the workshop? Do they use ships to transfer these parts? Also what stops them from keeping an inventory at their Indian plant? After all there are enough number of cars on the road now for all of these luxury brands.

For example, I had to give my 3 series for front brake pad replacement earlier this month. On calling the service centre ( one of the bigger BMW dealers in NCR) I was told to hold on so that they can check if the part is in stock. I was shocked. How can you not have something as basic as brake pads in stock? I have never faced this with Toyota. Just for comparison my Altis had met with a minor incident too 2 years back and Toyota managed to return the car within 2 weeks. Here is the link for reference: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ml#post3445139.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by GTO

4. Everyone is only talking about the cost. What about the 6 months that the car was off the road? The Germans take way too long to repair, even for far simpler tasks (from my Mercedes & BMW ownership experiences).

Originally Posted by drmohitg

I fail to understand that why should they need so much time to repair your car.

This happens for a couple of reasons:

1) The technicians are trained to quickly identify parts that need to be replaced in case of normal fender benders. But in rare accident cases like this one where hundreds of parts need to be replaced, a few parts are always missed during the initial assessments. I guess you can classify this as technicians' incompetency or a problem with the process followed by the technicians.

2) Fast moving accident parts will be easily available. But rarely used accident parts require time to source.

3) Logistics issue. The company will not send each component via air freight. They will bunch them together

In my case, Chevrolet took 2 months to fix this -



The biggest reason for delays while rebuilding the car is frequent realizations like - "whoops, we need that little brackety thing to continue"

[rohitoasis]

Originally Posted by GTO

4. Everyone is only talking about the cost. What about the 6 months that the car was off the road? The Germans take way too long to repair, even for far simpler tasks (from my Mercedes & BMW ownership experiences).

Sir,

From the chronology of the events, we see 4 of the last 6 months spent getting approval from SBI Insurance. I have personally zero experience in claiming insurance on accident damage, so a noob question.

Is it natural for insurance agency to take 4 months to give an approval?
Is it the case that a large bill amount requires approval from certain authority at Insurance agency?
Do we have details about the communication in and out of the Insurance agency to understand why this happened?
Was there something the owner could have done to get this expedited?

Regarding the dealership: From spares being ordered on 4th November and spares finally arriving on 17th November, the dealer seems to have taken only two weeks to do the repairs which seems reasonable compared to some other bad customer support cases we get to read in this forum.

One more question in my mind is about the dealership name.
The text indicates Akshaya Motors, but the bill shows some Advaith Motors private limited. Are these two the same? Internet search shows both at different locations.

[coolclouds]

I also feel that underbody took a major hit though it looks like a "minor"accident.

Being German, spares are priced at an exorbitant rate and every owner should opt for additional cover. I think there was a considerable delay in approving from both insurance company and owner of the vehicle.

This Bolero too had a "minor"accident but the repair cost us about Rs. 1,20,000 and 45 days at ASS. No other visible damages than this image!

[smekad]

I had met Nambiar sir during my visit to 3M car care centre in Marathahalli. He had come across a thorough gentlemen, during our casual discussion he realised that I am a T-bhpian. He then narrated to me the ordeal that he had to go through with the german marquee.

Anyway, happy that finally this ordeal has ended for Nambiar sir- though it has taken quite a bit of time & effort.

-smk

[Khushrav]

I'm no servicing expert but going through the itemization, it looks as if there was a need to replace many parts including condensers, AC + the consumables.

I owned a C200 and there was a crash on that car too (some nut biker banged it and scraped the entire left side). Despite that the cost was approx 96K.

My experience with the Merc service was awesome and I'll be surprised if they had given this bill with the intention of fleecing the customer.