Almost l-o-st p-a-t-i-e-n-c-e

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Aswall

Active Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2003
Messages
537
Location
South Yorkshire
Car
CLS 350
I know it's on it's last few weeks of life with me but the stupid machine is driving me nuts again. After having to wait a week for them to fit me in, I took my car in to the dealer on Tues as the roof had stopped working (it stuck halfway up and I had to call the Mobilo clowns out). Today being the first decent day since then, I decided a bit of roofdown was called for but ........... the f%@~in thing won't go down :mad: The rear screen goes up in the air and the windows dropped and that was that.

The next time I can get to the dealers is next Thurs so that's another week of blazing sunshine I'll have to endure without being able to drop my top (and put up with all the comments of "why buy a car like that and drive with the roof up")

I even asked them if they were absolutely sure it was fixed and the told me they had found out exactly what the problem was and fixed it :crazy:

This is the 3rd dealer I've tried as they're all a bunch of useless t##ts. I was talking to one of my customers, who has recently switched to BMW after 20 yrs of owning Mercs, about it and he said "The dealers have always been s##te son, it's just that now the cars are s##te as well, you notice it more"

I'll be glad when the stupid thing goes

Rant over
 
Aswall said:
the stupid machine is driving me nuts again.
Machines can't be stupid. Their designers, producers, or owners can.
Aswall said:
The next time I can get to the dealers is next Thurs so that's another week of blazing sunshine I'll have to endure
Doubt it. Heavy thundery rain forecast this weekend.
Aswall said:
This is the 3rd dealer I've tried as they're all a bunch of useless t##ts.
Absurd and unsustainable generalisation. Some of them are very good. Perhaps the ones you 'tried' just don't like you and/or your attitude?
Aswall said:
I was talking to one of my customers, who has recently switched to BMW after 20 yrs of owning Mercs
Please join their ranks and leave us in peace. You're in the wrong place with the wrong product.

Have a nice life :)
 
fwb44 said:
Doubt it. Heavy thundery rain forecast this weekend.
Not here pal, 31 degrees and sunshine for us
Absurd and unsustainable generalisation. Some of them are very good. Perhaps the ones you 'tried' just don't like you and/or your attitude?
Well excuse me Mr High 'n' Mighty. You're right in that I have "only" tried 3, but each one of those has been unable to fix faults on my car multiple times. I have been patient and polite to them way beyond what I perhaps should have been for a car that cost close on £37k and has had 21 faults that needed to be fixed by a dealer in less than 2 yrs

Please join their ranks and leave us in peace. You're in the wrong place with the wrong product.

Have a nice life :)

I never usually respond to trolls like you and am never rude on the net, but I'm sorely tempted to in your case. You're just not worth it though
 
I agree with you Aswall - he was out of order being rude like that.

One of the points of a forum (imho) is to be able to blow off steam when needed.
:D
 
Temper temper temper...

Enjoy ur BM Aswall :).
 
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I'm with you too Aswall, I think fwb44 came over a little too terse . sure there are good dealers and bad ones and also within good dealers there are bad staff and vice versa. it is common knowledge that MB have a customers service problem, but so do Audi - not sure about bmw . There are also "bad cars" or "friday cars" as well as many that are ok. It seems you have been very unfortunate and I cant blame you for throwing in the towel - I also have no problem with you expressing your personal experience /view on here .. thats what we are here for.
 
Aswall said:
I never usually respond to trolls like you and am never rude on the net, but I'm sorely tempted to in your case. You're just not worth it though
Bye bye!
 
steve_bcs said:
I'm with you too Aswall, I think fwb44 came over a little too terse
I just don't suffer fools gladly and I can't be bothered to pussyfoot around
 
fwb44 said:
I just don't suffer fools gladly and I can't be bothered to pussyfoot around

I think you crossed the line well and truely with your last remark fwb!

Lets try and keep things in perspective, we are all here with a common interest and a common goal.

As you can imagine poor Aswell is deeply frustrated with his car problems... he really doesnt need more aggro here.

Lets try and keep this thread civil so it can remain open and hopefully someone will have some helpful suggestions as to what can be done to alleviate Aswells issues.

Shall we? :rolleyes:
 
fwb44 said:
I just don't suffer fools gladly and I can't be bothered to pussyfoot around

In what way was Aswall being a fool.

He has a car that doesn't work properly and the faults appear to be unfixable by three dealers. He is rightly somewhat upset about this.

Maybe Aswalls post was a bit hot headed but you could have simply said "cool down a bit".
 
fwb44 Perhaps the ones you 'tried' just don't like you and/or your attitude? Please join their ranks and leave us in peace. You're in the wrong place with the wrong product. Have a nice life :)[/QUOTE said:
fwb44. Aswall has been around here a while. His car breaks down , he gets bad service and then lets off steam on here. He is not a first time barry boy user slagging MB off but a owner in difficulty.

Maybe an apology from you might stop you getting banned yourself. Otherwise we might all be saying "bye, bye" to you not Aswall.
 
Aswall said:
I never usually respond to trolls like you and am never rude on the net, but I'm sorely tempted to in your case. You're just not worth it though

here here :)



Sorry to hear about yet more problems dude :(
 
Francis(fwb44) has made comments on other threads that are verging on the trouble making/inappropropriate reponse category :rolleyes: :rolleyes: such comments are best ignored ;)

Aswall - sorry you got the lemon - hope you're happy with your replacement and it's trouble free. Nthing more frustrating than a car with lots of niggles - especially the unsolveable ones :mad:
 
pammy said:
Francis(fwb44) has made comments on other threads that are verging on the trouble making/inappropropriate reponse category :rolleyes: :rolleyes: such comments are best ignored ;)

Aswall - sorry you got the lemon - hope you're happy with your replacement and it's trouble free. Nthing more frustrating than a car with lots of niggles - especially the unsolveable ones :mad:

Dont sit on the fence Pammy - Say what you really mean

Gunny
 
MB secrecy

I think many of these problems stem from Mercedes-Benz obsession with secrecy particularly in the UK. Witness their great reluctance to publish detailed maintenance,servicing and parts information. They only published manuals in the USA because legislation forced them to. They want to make money selling you the product and then as a "captive" customer extract more cash from you. I should add they are not unique in this respect! They made a mistake in making their recent models too complex electronically and the customers are now acting as development testers/ quality control.
I wouldnt be surprised if this climate of secrecy exists within the organisation also which means the technicians trying to repair your car are almost as much in the dark as the customer. Just as other organisations are plagued with "mission statements" and "targets" thought up by a bunch of "suits" far removed from reality they will not have the information to hand necessary for efficient speedy repair of the cars they work on. It would be intersting to hear the comments of some forum members who work for MB to hear their side of things, but they probably had to sign a "confidentiality agreement" as part of their contract of employment. Its all down to COMMUNICATION :crazy: :crazy:
 
Aswall said:
I know it's on it's last few weeks of life with me but the stupid machine is driving me nuts again.

Hi Aswall,
Sorry to hear about your problems, did you purchase your car locally?

I ask this because I am amazed at how you are being treated. If the canopy fails to work, then the car is not doing the task that you paid a lot of money for.

The dealer should be bending over backwards to keep you, the person who parted with a lot of money on side.

I think I have asked before about writing to Mercedes-Benz UK. Ranting on a forum is a good way of letting off steam, but it rarely accomplishes very much. It takes a bit more effort to actually put pen to paper, but at least there is then a documented history of your many grievances?

I cannot imagine our dealership treating me in such a manner. (It would simply not happen) The car would be off the road and I would be sitting in a very nice courtesy car.

Sorry to hear of your problems and hopefully your next experience will be less painful.

Regards,
John
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I hold no grudge against the gentleman concerned, I'm sure with a bit more life experience under his belt he'll make a good forum contributor.

John, no the car wasn't purchased locally. It was bought through my company and ended up coming from Mercedes London, who can't really be blamed as they would only have done the PDI. This was the most expensive car I have ever had and that makes niggles all the more annoying. I think I have detailed many of the problems here, but gave up after a while as it was becoming depressing. What has annoyed me most is not just that the car had faults, but that on ringing dealers I would be told that it would be a week or so before I could get booked in. I would then change my day off so that I could bring the car in and often find that they had forgotten to reserve a courtesy car (though I once got a sales manager's S Class for the day which was not unwelcome :D), or initially denied that my car was booked in, before finding it. One dealer staggeringly told me that they would be unable to do any more warranty work on my car as it was a grey import !!!! They backtracked when they checked again but time and again I was given a demonstration of unparalleled incompetence.

On this last occasion, they rang me at 2.30pm to tell me my car was finished and when would I be coming to collect it. I pointed out that they were supposed to be picking me up to take me back there. Their driver subsequently picked me up at 4.15pm as agreed and when I arrived at the dealer my car wasn't finished at all and I had to wait another half an hour!

So today, on my way home from work in the 31 degree sun as forecast, I was the only soft top on the road with the roof up - again.

I came back to Mercedes after a bad experience with a C Class I bought when they first came out and decided to give them one more chance - that has now gone and I will not purchase another one, and this is undoubtedly down to the dealers rather than the manufacturer. If all the faults had been fixed quickly and first time, I'd probably have forgotten about them. To be honest I can't be bothered with writing to MB now as it will be gone before I get a reply from them anyway, and it would be too little too late.

Incidentally I'm not going to BMW, don't like anything they have to offer at the moment and have decided to go for a complete change and have a fully loaded Golf GTI DSG. Never had a hot hatch before so should be a laugh and free off some funds to hopefully get a Porsche 997 in 18-24 months

I'm not going just yet though, I'll take some farewell pics when it is cleaned and after the personal plate has come off and post them up
 
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Aswall said:
It was bought through my company and ended up coming from Mercedes London, who can't really be blamed as they would only have done the PDI.

Hi Aswall,
Thank you very much indeed for a most informative answer.

There is NO excuse for bad service and only a fool would try to defend the shocking experiences that you have suffered.

Unfortunately your comments highlight what can sometimes happen though when a car is not purchased locally. I appreciate this should NOT happen but it is a situation that occurs time and again with most manufacturers.

I am not being silly when I say that a dealer can hire a vehicle to give out to customers that are having warranty work carried out. I forget the name of the hire company that is used down here, but it is a national one and might be contracted to Mercedes-Benz. The last time our vehicle went in we had a hire vehicle (E200 Kompressor) Might have been something like Enterprise!!

I understand your reasons for not writing to Mercedes-Benz UK, but it would be doing us all a favour if you could spare the time, and tell them how you have now been let down twice and as a consequence you are taking your custom to another manufacturer! Please ;)

:eek: On the plus side this last disaster might have saved you from sun stroke! :rolleyes: :eek: :cool: The temperature has indeed been uncomfortably hot (9-30pm, my windows are still all open and the fan is working overtime) Seriously though I would be mega disapponted at not cruising with the hood down in this weather.

Good luck with the Volkswagen, and thank you again for the reply,

Kind regards,
John
 
Interesting reading this thread as ironically I was considering upgrading to your car for a everyday run around town and the fact that I always wanted a soft top after the mrs has her eye on the c-coupe. Shame to see your car and dealers are not treating you well, best of luck getting what you can out of it before it goes. I imagine the golf will be quite a change ;)
 
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Aswall said:
Incidentally I'm not going to BMW, don't like anything they have to offer at the moment and have decided to go for a complete change and have a fully loaded Golf GTI DSG.

Good choice, lovely cars the new GTI especially with the DSG box.

Aswall said:
Never had a hot hatch before so should be a laugh and free off some funds to hopefully get a Porsche 997 in 18-24 months

The 997 is absolutely gorgeous, that's what I working towards next too. In fact I've already got the private plate waiting for it - 997 xxx (where xxx = my intials) :)
 

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