[racer_ash]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Great analysis . ONGC should stop looking for shale oil or deep sea oil and start exploration of this "compressor oil".

In the parts list, I wonder what are X's, R's, M's and circles?

I think they are short for Super 'X' pensive, 'R'ip off and 'M'andatory items .

Its better to ogle at these beauties from a distance and maybe occasionally hire them. No point owning them

[ramgkulkarni]

15 lakhs for the damages sure looks very expensive. I can notice some abnormalities with bill as well.

There are a few items which appear multiple times on the bill. I guessed it might be because they may be for either side of the front facia but someone needs to check this.
11, 14, 15 Basic mounting
26, 27 Headlamp unit, etc

Some of these however have different prices as well.
38 and 39 are Charge air hose. One costs 24k where as the other one around 7k. Similarly with 53, 53 Cover substruct.

It is very disturbing to see how customers are being taken for ride. I may be wrong above but that repair work doesnt look 15 lakhs.

[speedguy]

I am still unable to fathom this. guys at Mercs should really look into this. I mean, the cost of repair would have brought Hexa (XM). What are these guys smoking?

[rav11stars]

I've recently moved out of India and this being the first time, I've got to experience that things can actually be done seamlessly too; even in a government office!
A colleague's Mazda CX-9 got hit from the rear while it was parked on a road. The vehicle which hit is a mini-truck. The driver parked his truck and called the police. My colleague was called and was provided the report. The report is available in a mobile app too.

He then takes it to Mazda where the insurance representative arrives, checks the damage, discusses with the service center and work begins. The entire rear door, bumper, tail lights were replaced.
All the while, all I can hear is him calling up Mazda asking if it's done and within a week the vehicle was ready! The amount claimed was about 10,000 aed.

More than the amount, it's the hassle-free method in which the party is treated by the police, service station and the insurance guys. Wish we too get a similar sort of workflow.

[M00M]

I was recently arguing a similar matter for a friend who owns a A180 cdi. His car hit a stone and the oil pan burst causing instantaneous oil leakage. It took 6 months for Auto Hangar to fix the car with numerous goof ups like they call and say car is ready but then on test drive its found that the horn doesnt work, or the oil is leaking again. Numerous calls to MB india including emails to MD resulted in squat, they are the most unhelpful people. They would not call back or give absurd answers or even pretend to be helpless at the hands of the dealer. The dealer took the matter like a joke, he didnt care if the car was at the workshop for 6 months (was one and only primary car of my friend). in the end repair bill came to about 7 lacs approx. Cost of buying the car ? 27 lacs. so basically 1/3 to fix this. Out of 3 years ownership car was has been in the workshop for 1 year at regular intervals to fix either the horn or this damage as mentioned above or something else.

They, the service guys say anything lower than a E is not a priority customer (dont understand this attitude). Then why sell cars under the E - MB India ?

Terrible terrible service support, cost of spares is a rip off, time taken is unheard of, i love cars, and aspire to own a german someday but stories like these convince me i am better of using a petrol high end japanese like my CRV which gives me piece of mind rather than a german which lets keep aside the costs but the time taken and the helplessness of MB india towards customers is shameful.

[GeeTee TSI]

In India we seem to have most of the premium car range sold around the globe, but what is lacking is specialised third party garages which have the skill to carry out complicated repair work on such cars.

More often than not, even cars out of warranty have no option but to to be at the mercy of the A.S.S. One does not get to converse in person to a technician in the A.S.S without being waylaid by ignorant front office staff and indifferent service advisors (who quite easily resort to bluffing when going gets tough). Anything beyond a regular service, I seriously doubt their skill level and inclination to devote attention.

[rvd8732]

Well, after reading this; I have started to love my 14-year-old Hyundai Accent.

[CarCynic]

Thanks for posting. Such threads are a good reality check for people like me who often get carried away while looking at low EMIs or enticing deals on TBHP classifieds. Sure, these cars seem much more within reach now compared to 10-15 years ago, but can all of us comfortably deal with such contingencies without feeling ripped off? I know, I can't.

The way I see it, I could buy an XUV, a Safari, a V-cross, or an S-Cross with the same amount of money it took to fix this Merc.

[vineetg84]

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[V.Narayan]

Statutory Declaration: I am not Merc lover or owner.

However I do believe we need to know the other side of this sad story to really understand where the delays occurred and which delays were caused by the insurer, which by the owner and which by the dealer-garage. Also unless we know from the dealer-garage as to what all he saw in the internal damage we really don't know. Of course it is quite possible that luxury car makers in India pounce on the opportunity to fleece - I wouldn't put that beyond them.

One chink in the owner's armour is the insurance. It seems he took it from a party the dealer-garage was not linked with (my assumption) and he declared a rather modest insured value. In all the 12 cars I have bought I always took the insurance from the dealers pet company because that ensures expeditious claim settlement if necessary. The premium may be a bit higher and the dealer probably collects an incentive but it delivers on service. In 2006 our Skoda Laura suffered a serious knock out of the entire front right side till the door by a Tata 407 driving on the wrong side. Partly because it was insured through the dealers recommended insurer the repair was closed in 3 weeks and the dealer & insurer did their own co-ordination.

In one of our business divisions we repair aeroplanes - the big ones. The visual view of an external structural damage usually does not give any clue what so ever about the damage to the internal wiring, hydraulics, electronic controls etc. The physical structural repair is usually the simplest fix. Similarly high end cars today are complex creatures and densely packed. A Merc dealer is also concerned (I hope so) of conducting repairs to a given standard and hence probably thinks let me change as many parts as possible and not be at risk of future blame. Having said all this I for one have chosen to sail away from the German III for their A.S.S. mainly.

[aabhimanyu04]

Nice thread this, I always feel these luxury car manufacturers must create an emergency assistance team that takes care of all the claims related issues hassle free, of course on behalf of their customers. Like a ticket with turn-around-time and unless the issue with respect to claims are cleared, the ticket will remain open and impact CSAT scores of the manufacturer. Yes, I am from the service industry and hence looking from our angle. I am sure they will have their process to deal with these accidents, but at the outset, they seem flawed

[soumna]

Thank you to the moderators for adding me to the group.

I am posting this on behalf of my dad, Mr Narayanan Nambiar since he is not a member of this group.

"There are one or two comments that the accident is not minor and the stone might have ripped up the under body of the car.

This is not true.

If the car had hit the stone at reasonably good speed, the several safety features of the car would have got activated. (Unless they have supplied a car without the much advertised safety features). The most important of these are the active bonnet and airbags. They even talk about some safety features which get activated even without hitting any objects. These are activated if you apply the breaks at good speed.

We had inspected the car at the dealers premises along with the assessor appointed by SBI insurance,the service manager of Akshaya motors and the technical head of Benz India. A technical person who had earlier worked with one of the Benz dealers was also with us. We have taken photos of all the parts damaged before and after dismantling. The damage was only to the front bumper,lights, radiator and air conditioning. As anyone can notice from the bill these were not fully replaced only some of the parts changed.

I have done a detailed analysis of the bill as follows.

Total bill Rs. 14,35,000

Consumable parts paid by us Rs. 62,000 (excluding cost of battery)

Amount paid by SBI insurance Rs. 13,73,000

Labour charges 148,000

Parts cost Rs. 12,85,000

The list is very long with 71 items. However out of this 17 parts account for more than 80% of the value. These are listed below. The remaining 20% is mostly for various types of oil, coolant, hose, mounting etc.

1. Screw (4 nos) Rs. 12,000

2. Inter cooler Rs. 62,000

3. Condenser Rs. 65,000

4. Water cooler Rs. 39,000

5. Blower Rs. 63,000

6. Day time running light Rs. 26,000

7. Under body protector Rs. 27,000

8. Air hose Rs. 20,000

9. Sender Unit Rs. 54,000

10. Licence plate Rs. 9,000

11. Head lamp Rs. 170,000

12. Head lamp Rs. 170,000

13. Radiator Grill Rs. 70,000

14. Panelling Rs. 79,000

15. Integral Carrie Rs. 125,000

16. Belt pully Rs. 27,000

17. Coolant pump Rs. 26,000

Total cost of these 17 parts Rs. 10,44,000.

As anyone can notice they have divided each item into different parts and is charging exorbitant prices for each.

I have checked the prices of these parts online and found that it is costing far less outside India. However they dont give us any option to buy the parts and get it repaired.

We decided to bring this issue to the attention of public due to two major reasons.

A) Pricing by Mercede Benz which is a real rip off. Even for regular service we notice that they charge exorbitantly for oil, break pads, labour etc.

- Can forums like Team BHP and online community do anything to reduce this exploitation?

B) There was a clear attempt to make the car a total loss and take it away from us. The first estimate was less than 75% of the IDV and there was no way they could declare the car as total loss. At the time of giving this estimate the dealer had made it clear that the actual bill may be higher or lower than this and they can determine the actual only after dismantling the damaged area. However there was a collusion between insurance company and the dealer with the simple aim of taking the car from us and therefore they issued a second estimate (before dismantling) which made the total cost of repair 76% of the IDV.

- this type of collusion between the insurance company and motor vehicle dealers are very common and they have succeeded in making several cars total loss. We have gathered evidence to show that some of these cars which were declared total loss were taken from the owners and sold privately and the buyers have repaired the same at much lower cost and are running on our roads for several years.

- They will not allow us owners to buy the damaged cars. They will demand a large amount for storing the car in the dealers premises for 3 to 6 months and this cost makes it impossible for the owners to take the car out and repair on their own. This explains why they took several months to investigate and approve the claim. It is a deliberate attempt to demoralise us and increase the storage costs.

If the public is aware of this when you face a similar situation you may be able to act in a informed manner.

"

Also to answer some of the other queries,

1) Akshaya Motors is part of Advaith Motors and is the licensed dealer to sell Mercedes Benz Cars in Bangalore.
2) I have no idea what M & R stand for. But the ones marked by crosses are the ones disapproved by insurance saying that they are consumables and was not covered by insurance as accidental damage.
3) The battery was not damaged in the accident and hence was not covered by insurance as accidental damage. I guess the battery just failed to work after sitting idle for more than 5 months.
4) The car completed 5 years in November 2016 and that is why the IDV was only around 23 Lakhs. We wanted to keep the car for sentimental reasons.
5) None of the parts that were replaced were given back to us.

[dark.knight]

Portion of email of OP as quoted by GTO-

Originally Posted by GTO

<Finally, around 6 PM, after an extensive drama show by Akshaya motors, we take the car home. Why do I call it a drama? It is the first time I am seeing where a pooja is conducted for an old car. Apparently according to them, this is common in the case of big accidents. In addition to the Pooja, they present Achan with a box of chocolates, a big car key and a Ponnada (This is a cloth usually wrapped around people if we want to show their respect).>

Very few things make me laugh, the joke really has to strike a homer to make me appreciate it and this one had me cracking up in the middle of day, seriously the funniest thing I've ever heard done by a service center, thus far. They have so much to do in terms of quoting an honest price, sourcing parts, informing the customer about the correct final cost (instead of reducing, hiking, and again reducing after customer intervention), and simply - handing over a cleaned, fully repaired automobile back to the customer.

This joke, simply doesn't stop there.. I was just about managing to keep a straight face when I read the "box of chocolates" bit and I lost it. Maybe these two, howsoever silly they are would've still sweetened the deal had they been transparent, courteous and co-operative till now but after all these all-out conflicts back and forth this simply looks way too forced, like some protocol.

That quote is least descriptive and will scare any normal owner into not even looking into it, its shocking how many things were struck off the list later, if that's what the crosses denote. More funny stuff, one of the parts is in French, grommet? People will just scratch their heads and say sure.

The OP has tons of patience for sure, what a mess.

[Mad4bhp]

Originally Posted by soumna

Thank you to the moderators for adding me to the group.

5) None of the parts that were replaced were given back to us.

Hi. Sorry to know that you had to go through all this. The old parts or 'Salvage' as it is called could have been yours for a paltry sum. I got all the old part of my Zen Estilo which was flood affected for INR 2500.00. The total bill was INR 1,48,000.00 of which the cost of new parts was about INR98,000.00. The insurance companies usually have a fixed amount for keeping the old parts and it is also mentioned in the insurance policy.

You could have taken the IDV and got the car repaired outside and you would have still been left with few lakhs in hand.

[suresh_gs]

Folks

Not sure if this is the right forum to post. The general mindset in India is if one own's a car, he or she is rich enough. Simple example. While buying vegetables from the road side vendor, if you happen to stop the car in front of the vendor, he or she charges quite a high amount for the vegetables. I faced this situation before
Next time i parked the car at a walking distance from the vendor, went to buy the vegetables by walk. I was treated on par with some other customers who also came by walk.