Further nails for the coffin
It appears that the less than satisfactory reports I'd read here and on another forum came out a little too late for me! I'd done some research to find a good independent (having read fairly terrible things about London based dealers) and the good reports I'd read about Mr Fraser persuaded me to go there.
George is without doubt a very friendly fellow but I was somewhat taken aback when, having specifically asked for a gearbox oil service along with a fairly substantial list of other work, it obviously hadn't been done. Also the car was returned with a broken door check strap and a knock from the front suspension. To his credit, he carried out the oil change and repaired these items free of charge including collecting and re-delivering the car.
However, as I've already mentioned in other posts to this forum, I only managed about 20 miles before the gearbox sump seal split, had the car recovered to him again that evening where Mr Fraser himself fitted a replacement seal, only for that to fail about 80 miles later. I have since fitted a seal myself and just completed a 2500 mile tour of Europe with no problems so his suggestion that the sump pan was distorted is obviously incorrect (I'm an engineer and checked it before refitting!). In my opinion the failure was caused by a) the bolts being done up too tight (I even asked him for a torque figure to which he replied "nip them up quite tight - they're supposed to be 8Nm which is certainly not "quite tight"!) and b) the sump pan has a locating lug that needs to sit in a slot machined in the gearbox housing and it clearly wasn't which was distorting it i.e. incompetence on the part of the mechanic (and specialist mercedes training isn't require for this!).
Given the above failings, I would not recommend him to anyone and will certainly not be using him in the future. It was certainly disappointing as I rarely use garages, prefering to do the work myself, but was pestered into it by my wife who now wants me to sell the car and take a boring lease vehicle through her work scheme!
Comments about his staff being young are certainly true for some of them but I would not necessarily consider this a problem if they have been properly trained, although I'm certainly not sure this is the case.
I hope this helps people make informed decisions about where they have their car serviced in the future...
Regards
John
You pay the court costs and I'll slag 'em off.
