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thanx, BB
I like the car, but admittedly, I am more than a bit squeamish. Will these problems be correctable or do they represent, in your exeperience, problems that will likely stay with the car?
When everything is OK with my car, I absolutely love it. It has the exact combination of features, size and style for me. When I look at cars that I would purchase now to replace it, I just can't find one.
That said, when I have a problem (and for me that has been frequent) it is excruciating. Again, THAT experience will differ from person to person. Some people here have access to service departments that solve the problem quickly the first try, give loaners no questions asked, etc. That has not been my experience (even though I followed Mr Stroudmans advice and paid full price and continue to frequent the dealer that I purchased from).
So, based on that, Mercedes would have to pull off an AMAZING turnaround with respect to quality in order for them to extract nearly 60 large from me again.
Regards,
BigRob.
Did you find a solution to your problem, short of changing the changer?
Thanks.
Any ideas? Thanks.
I have had numerous electrical issues including a defective stereo, headlights shorting out when I go through a carwash, mirror signal lights shorting out, front signal lights shorting out when the car goes through the carwash. The moonroof sticks open occasionally and just keeps opening up over and over again on its own.
The rear struts both broke at between 10,000 and 20,000 miles. ( at separate times because they never fix anything even though they know it is defective). The front control arm on the drivers side was the last thing to just "break". Upon inspection they determined that the front coil springs were also defective. Upon tearing it apart further on my insistance they finally determined that the entire passenger side was shot also and they reluctantly replaced that also. The front end of this piece of crap car now clunks every time my wheel drops slightly into a road dip.
The attitude of my dealer in Massapequa, New York has been one that would shame any legitimate dealer. They told me the problems with the radio was unusual which I since found out was very common for the series of malfunctions. The service manager told me that the electrical issues were unusual but my service advisor pulls a bag of blown bulbs out of his desk drawer showing me what a common problem it is. He also tells me he never saw these type of "minor" problems at a different manufacturing company that he used to work at. (Starts with L). The service manager tried to tell me that the bulbs did not short out but rather were just worn out. Upon my continued screaming in the middle of the dealership that THREE LIGHT BULBS (that is $274 by the way) cannot short out at the same instant as they pass through a car wash they finally sent me home with my three lights replaced under warranty. A couple of months later the service manager then tells me that the shorting problem was my fault because the car had body work (which it never had) and that the seals were not properly done. Once again they sent me home with my free light bulbs replaced because I refused to leave the showroom floor to discuss the issue. Amazing how many customers AND MANAGERS listen when you do this in the showroom!!!!
The strut problems the same service manager tried to blame on excessive mileage (first at 10k, second at 20k, third and fourth at 70k).
To my amusement and pleasure this service manager was dumped the last time I went in and I spent a few minutes talking to the new service manager. He confirmed the issues that I referred to and told me that they were not that unusual, unfortunately, for my year and model car.
The unfortunate thing for Mercedes is that it was obvious that no one cares. I got through to regional managers who just send you back to the local dealer. I got through to a corporate manager who only referred me back to my local service manager. What they do not seem to care about is that customers like me (54 year old married professional) buy two new cars every 2 to 3 years.) I have owned Corvettes, Nissan 340Z, Saab Aero, Audi's, Dodge Stealth, Misubishi Diamante. Mitsubishi 3000GT, Subaru's, Mazda Millenia, etc over just the last few years and I have never had such a miserable experience, IN GRAND TOTAL, from all of those other cars and dealers combined.
I now go out of my way to be sure that I tell my story to anyone who is interested as to what a lousy car Mercedes has made and most importantly what a LOUSY COMPANY MERCEDES has proven to me to be. Problems can happen, especially in a redesigned car, but the lousy attention to customer needs and problems, have to be deep seated in Mercedes, right from the top.
NEVER EVER AGAIN. Buy any other car but don't get sucked and treated as if you are the problem. The repeated stories about Mercedes quality dropping fast are not exagerated.
I suggest you come over to the cross-manufacturer forums such as "Luxury Performance Sedans" or "High End Luxury Marques" and share your experiences there. You'll probably get more response than on this particular board.
If you haven't decided yet you should run the other way... as fast and as far away from Mercedes as you can get.
Worse than the car performance is the prevailing company attitude that seems to say "all customers suck and nothing is wrong with the German engineering".
Just read all of the other experiences and look for the common threads. Unfortunately I didn't look and I certainly didn't heed the quality warnings over the last few years for Mercedes.
I have run companies as large as $45,000,000 and have worked as an executive in the 8th largest corporation in the world and I have never seen such poor customer concern and service as these clowns display.
It is no wonder that the ratings for Mercedes continue to drop.
Where do I find those sites you mentioned?
I actually just stumbled across this site trying to do some proper research for the purchases of my next toy.
Thanks
Check out High End Luxury Marques and Luxury Performance Sedans
I think you'll find them entertaining to say the least!
If those links don't work for you, just go put those forum titles into the Search Forums "Enter Keyword(s)" box in left hand column.
He expects the car to start. I don't think that's asking too much.
It's only a car? If you consider the mechanical breakdowns of other late model MB owners to be so trivial, why are you posting to this message board? You're not having any mechanical problems, are you?
How about the new COMAND system in general? Same questions apply.
Thanks in advance.
1. Noise from the brake pump that also vibrates the whole car
2. Radio cuts out when I get a display malfunction or SOS tela aid malfunction
3. Brake light out warning comes on all the time and they have replaced the lights
4. The dynamic seat don’t always work and when you get the malfunction message the seats go nuts on there own
Dealer responces:
Brakes, can not duplicate the problem/or this is normal for this car
The electrical problems they just keep replacing the cluster but no change, than they said it was the DVD player we had installed so we disconected it and still have all the same problems
How do you get them to fix it?
That being said ... if you live in a smaller market, especially one where the MB dealership is owned by the same folks selling Lexus, Audi or any other competitor car ... I would strongly advise avoiding the brand. If the dealership is not hungry for your continued business, the car COULD be a nightmare if you do have quality control issues.
I'm from spokane, wa, and I would have to say our dealership is below avg on their long term customer care attitude. I have had ongoing minor electrical issues, and several times I have been essentially blown off when complaining about yet another light that is burnt out on my vehicle (several at 20K, another @ 30K and now another at 48K). How many lights will I have burn out prematurely on this car before they admit there is a problem??
Anyway, hope this helps.
1: Continue to replace burnt out lights on 2001 E320 4-matic - headlights (2) several tail and parking lights. Seemingly random, but have occurred as early as 20K and now again at 50K. A lot of bad bulbs for a 4 y.o. car.
2: AC/heat seems to put a lot of cold air out when heat selected (70F) and outside temps are moderate (45-60). Yes, the car is warmed up, and no, the dealer cant seem to duplicate the problem. I have tried running the selected temp as high as 80F ... the car seems to recognize the demand after several minutes, and then puts out warm air at both 80 and 70 ??
3: 4-matic trans feels like it has a "slip" at times when decelerating at speeds around 15-5 mph. Usually feels the anomally when driving in heavy city traffic. No other problems with transmission that are showing at this time. Has happened since the test drive. I have assumed this was just part of the 4-matic functions ... but could this be a sign of a future transmission problem ??
Thanks for any responses
A relative of mine brought his E320 into the Mercedes of South Orlando and had a similar miserable experience. The relative had to bring his car in on three different occasions for the same issue. The "expert technicians" at Mercedes came up with different excuses (and charges) for the problem but never fixed the problem. My relative sent an email and a written letter to Service Manager but never received a single response. The relative sent a copy of the letter to the corporate headquarters in Montvale, NJ and also never received a response. After calling the headquarters, their response was that "unfortunately each dealership is independently owned and operated." The representative at Mercedes' headquarters said said that they would input the issue in their records and refer the matter back to the dealerships management.
Bottom line: Mercedes is company that no longer values its reputation or its customers' satisfaction. I too, will go out of my way to discourage anyone I know from buying a Mercedes.
I have a 2000 E320 that I don't know which gear I'm in, I don't know what time it is and I'm not sure if it's hot or cold outside.
My A/C display is also going on the blink? What's up with this?
How hard would it be for MB as a corporation to train their dealerships in customer service and car maintenance and do some form of follow up testing/monitoring. A service rep claiming they've never seen that before when you see from forums like these that it happens all the time is not service. Telling a customer that it's supposed to work like that or thats' normal when it is clearly wrong is not service. Blindly swapping out parts in an attempt to fix a problem rather than taking the time to do real problem determination is not proper car maintenance.
I don't care if you can eat off the floor of the service bay or that there's fresh cut flowers in the waiting room. Iwant to be treated intelligently and with respect by an intelligent individual that knows at least as much about my car as I do. I want my car fixed the first time when something goes wrong.
Cars are mechanical things and there will be problems. Your MB ownership experience hinges entirely on the dealership you have access to.
Regards,
BigRob.
Saw an article sitting in my dentists office Tuesday that had Mecedes rated number 1 of 35 based on "Perceived Prestige" of ownership versus being 32nd out of 35 for "customer satisfaction". Those charts had it behind Daewoos and Isuzus and Chevys etc.
#32nd worst out of 35 for Mercedes. Three more spots to plummet and you can "grab the magic ring".
The article should be posted on the desk of every person in that company to see if maybe they could get anybody to care and to treat a customer right.
It was around 15k to 20k that everything started to happen.
NEW YORK — The U.S. Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre has relaunched the High Mileage Award to recognize owners' brand loyalty and their cars' durability.
The automaker offers the award free to owners of Mercedes cars that have traveled at least 155,000 miles. The owner has to complete a form and have the odometer reading verified by a company dealer. Badges and certificates are awarded for cars that reach the 250,000-, 500,000-, 750,000-, 1,000,000-kilometer and 1-million-mile marks.
The current high-mileage champion is Gregorios Sachinidis, a Greek taxi driver who holds the known record of more than 2.8 million miles in his 1976 Mercedes-Benz 240D. The latest Mercedes to be recognized for surpassing the 1-million-mile mark is a 1970 280SE recently acquired for the automaker's museum from its original owners in California who bought the car new and drove it for 1,019,000 miles.
For $100, Mercedes owners can also purchase a "Classic Certificate" that verifies a car's build date and original factory specifications. An order for a classic certificate records the owner's name in the Mercedes-Benz archives, integrating the owner with the car's history.
What this means to you: Funny how the 1970 Mercedes can manage a million miles but the new ones have to be recalled within days.
******************************************************************************************- ****
........The bad press doesn't just come from me!!!!!!!!
NEW YORK — The U.S. Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre has relaunched the High Mileage Award to recognize owners' brand loyalty and their cars' durability.
The automaker offers the award free to owners of Mercedes cars that have traveled at least 155,000 miles. The owner has to complete a form and have the odometer reading verified by a company dealer. Badges and certificates are awarded for cars that reach the 250,000-, 500,000-, 750,000-, 1,000,000-kilometer and 1-million-mile marks.
The current high-mileage champion is Gregorios Sachinidis, a Greek taxi driver who holds the known record of more than 2.8 million miles in his 1976 Mercedes-Benz 240D. The latest Mercedes to be recognized for surpassing the 1-million-mile mark is a 1970 280SE recently acquired for the automaker's museum from its original owners in California who bought the car new and drove it for 1,019,000 miles.
For $100, Mercedes owners can also purchase a "Classic Certificate" that verifies a car's build date and original factory specifications. An order for a classic certificate records the owner's name in the Mercedes-Benz archives, integrating the owner with the car's history.
What this means to you: Funny how the 1970 Mercedes can manage a million miles but the new ones have to be recalled within days.
Take my advice. Mercedes and their dealers will NOT listen nor will they care about any of these issues. The only way to make yourself heard is to NOT buy their products. They have NOT earned your business and they certainly won't attempt to retain it. Head to the nearest Lexus dealer. Do NOT pass go. I can assure you, you will never look back.
Thanks for the reply.
Right now the car is garaged, and I will have to get it towed to the dealer. Do you remember how much was the shifter+labor? It seems oddd that a spill like that would cause the shifter to jam into the 2nd gear.
Thanks again.
Much appreciated.
Indy.
So maybe the trick is to buy them slightly broken in ??
I also agree with rrc when he says that this is a small universe. In this forum you are listening to pretty much only those who have recurring or unresolved problems and not the entire population of MB owners.
Also, in today's Boston Globe, there was an article on the JD Powers survey on new cars and the MB wasn't 32nd as someone else inferred, it was one of the top 10 just below the Cadillac and ahead of Toyota.. However, I can't trust their survey until the reveal the questions asked. In the past they have asked some questions that have nothing to do with the quality of a car; such as "did it have more than one ashtray"? I guess their interpretation of quality has more to do with available features rather than how it was built . A big factor in the customer's perception of the car has to do with the dealer prep.. Geez, there we are again, back to the dealer....!
I think that we're comparing apples to oranges here. The 1996 E class was an entirely different car, built by an entirely 'different' company in 2003 and 2004. Mercedes hadn't bought Chrysler back then, nor had they gone on their insane effort to make a car for virtually every price point short of a Yugo.
For me the question is, has Mercedes turned a corner -- made real efforts to restore quality and reliability? I would be curious to hear more from 2006 buyers.
I drove a 2006 E350 today (second test drive) and must say that as far as the interior goes, this car was made on the cheap, IMO. From the odd "leather wrapped" steering wheel to the thin, mint wafer size heat/air conditioning controls, "flimsy" is what spoke to me. The COMAND system and the radio looks like something that belongs in Boeing 767 cockpit, but certainly not in a car. Being over age 45, my eyes can't even make out the tiny numbers and symbols on the dash. Not a strong selling point for this demographic.
I think that the car drives and handles well, but the interior forced a no-sale for me. The fact that the tires whined something fierce didn't help either.
I went to one of the quicky oil change places and they charged me 19bucks printed out the copy and reset the light in a matter of 2 minutes.
Code P0410 Sec. Air System Malfunction.
drove for a couple hours no light on yet, but does anyone know what the usually issue is with that code?
Thanks,