Technical Service Bulletins

[st13phil]

Our American cousins live in a much more open environment than us in the UK with respect to service information for our cars. This means that as an owner they can pretty easily find out if a problem they are experiencing is the subject of a Technical Service Bulletin, i.e. it is a recognised problem with a known solution.

Does anyone know if the Technical Service Bulletin identification numbering system for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars is a global standard, or local to the territory? If it's global then giving a TSB ID# gleaned from the USA to a UK dealer would be a good way to direct them to known solution to a problem and short-circuit the "no sir, never heard of that before" scenario.

Alternatively, if there isn't a global standard, is there a cross-reference facility available?

The USA TSB numbers I've seen seem to be in the form LI99.99-P-999999 where the 9's are any number.

Can anyone shed any light?

 

[190]

I did manage to find one service bulletin related to my front damper causing a knocking sound. That was a one off result of a general internet search and I didn't find a general source.

Like you I wish there was a source. I have literally hundreds of service bulletins for my BMW motorcycle and they are invaluable. It may not mean anything for MB but for BMW, US and European service bulletins were completely separate sets of documents.

Incidentally, even though I gave a copy of the bulletin to the garage they ignored it and failed to fix the problem at the first attempt !

 

[st13phil]

It may not mean anything for MB but for BMW, US and European service bulletins were completely separate sets of documents.

I was aware that the BMW North America TSB's were completely separate to the European one's and my guess is that the Mercedes ones are similarly kept separate.

The automotive manufacturers and their European concessionaires still think they can operate in a cosy vacuum and that their customers are all little islands who have no contact with each other through that infernal interweb thingy

I'd be happy to learn that Mercedes-Benz had a different attitude, but I somehow doubt they do.

 

[Codger49]

I suspect its more to do with keeping their US operating entity at 'arms length' from the total organisation.

Most multinationals strongly ring fence their US operations to help prevent US courts from being able to reach non US parts of the organisation. A common TSB system would be evidence of common operations.

Quite how this was achieved in the Daimler Chrysler era is another question though.