Missing A Service

[Mike Edwards]

I bought my 2005 CLK 320 recently and was assured it had a full Mercedes service history.

The first few three services were carried out by Mercedes dealers and the last two by a Mercedes specialist.

The problem arises because the last service at the main dealer was a B service and the next service by the specialist was also a B service. It would appear that there was no A service in the intervening 19,500 miles.

Would the variable service intervals on the car ever go 21 months and that sort of mileage without requiring an A service or have I been mislead?

 

[GP801]

They will normally only go around 15 months between services or around 10,000 miles. Earlier cars will go up to 2 years or 10,000 miles. Its unlikely to have gone that far without a service being due in the interim. However a B followed by another B woud suggest an A was possibly done but not recorded properly.

 

[Mike Edwards]

Or someone just left the service indicator until after the B service or reset it themselves without having the service done?

 

[GP801]

True. The reset is only a series of button presses on the steering wheel.

 

[Rory]

The problem arises because the last service at the main dealer was a B service and the next service by the specialist was also a B service. It would appear that there was no A service in the intervening 19,500 miles.

Would the variable service intervals on the car ever go 21 months and that sort of mileage without requiring an A service or have I been mislead?

I guess your car is petrol?

On the diesels, such as mine, they will go 2yrs between services - mine did between the last two, and I expect it will to the next.

Again, certainly on the diesels, the mileage resets to 13,000 between services, but it will stretch out by a factor of 1.5 depending on use. So the theoretical maximum is 19,500 miles.

I did a lot of miles in mine when I first got it, and it showed an A sevice for its first service, but then as the mileage got to about 17K it flipped to B. Apparently cars doing high mileages in a short time tend to always ask for B services.


I don't know if all the above applies to the petrol's too.

 

[Mike Edwards]

Ah, so it could well have genuinely switched from needing an A service to a B service after the previous owner ignored the original service indicator.

Does seem a little strange though.

 

[Rory]

Ah, so it could well have genuinely switched from needing an A service to a B service after the previous owner ignored the original service indicator.

He wouldn't have to have ignored it. On my first service I was starting get a bit un-nerved as the mileage built up so I booked it in when it still had a couple of K miles to go and it showed service A.

It would have worked out that the car was being serviced about 1K miles before it needed to be, but then literally a couple of days before I took it in the service warning popped up and it showed service B.

 

[Mike Edwards]

I'm just a bit confused as to what it did actually have as it was serviced religiously every year and 10k miles (-ish) except for this one aberration of two years and nearly 20k miles. I guess there is no way to know for sure sadly.