Service History Issues

[thomasyan777]

Hi Mercedes Owners

Just wondering if anyone share the same frustration as me on these service histories...

On older cars, we will have to keep a thick pile of physical paper work to demonstrate the car is well looked after, so that we can retain the resale value. However I have too much paperwork and I don't want to carry those as they take quite a bit space & sometimes they got lost.

On newer cars, I know now the service histories are digitised. But I will have to pay for dealership money or go to approved garages to retain the digital service history rather than paying reasonable price. And sometimes the garages input some wrong data and could cause errors in my service histories - lost value of my car.

To me, car owners should own the car service history rather than OEMs as we paid for the service! But somehow OEMs have the ability to determine how to hold our data and who can get access to it. You have to ask for your service history printed out before selling so that you can show to the potential buyers - so unfair & annoying!

I am curious on what you guys think about my point above and let me know if you share the same frustrations...

Happy New Year to you all!

 

[BigJase88]

Keep both

Get digital service printed off [free]
And keep a file at home in a cupboard of the paper invoices.

Simple

 

[liamt]

On the newer vehicles with Digital Service Book records you should get a print out of the service each time the car goes into the main dealer or Independent specialist. Simply file these away along with the invoices.

I think the frustrations you have mentioned could equally be applied to cars with paper service history. Thanks to GDPR a lot of paper service history now gets binned by dealers taking cars as a trade in due to it containing the previous owners names and addresses. Having said that I spotted my Brother's old Peugeot 208 gti 30th for sale at a used car dealer down south. The photographs included pictures of the service history which contained my brother's name, address, phone number and email.

 

[markjay]

If you do not want to use dealers, and you do not want to use independent specialists (who will have access to the MB Digital Service Book and can update the service record) either, because they are too expensive, then just get the car serviced wherever you want and keep a printed copy of the invoice. If all you're after is 'service history' for future sale purposes, then all you'll need to keep is one paper invoice per year. In fact, private buyers will be happy with paper invoices instead of a DBS they can't access themselves (unless you have a printed copy of the DBS).

 

[AREA]

I share your frustration.

In my experience it's a rarity for a dealers to complete the DSB accurately or completely. Getting it corrected can be a nightmare as well. I therefore insist on being given the printed ESS completed by the servicing technician as proof of what has (or often hasn't) been done.

DSB is pretty worthless as, sadly, it cannot be relied on as an accurate record without other paperwork to back it up.

This is a raw topic at the moment.... one of our MBs is due a service under ServicePlan this month. I just know I'm going to have to spend time sorting out the horlicks that results.

 

[rf065]

I recently traded the SLC300 in to a dealer who shredded all my service paperwork due to GDPR laws, said he could not use anything with my details on it. Most of the service work was outwith the MB network, so would not show on Mercedes digital systems either.
He did not appear bothered by any of this and I wondered how important a documented service history really is. The car sold within a week, so I'm guessing not as important as we all think?

 

[markjay]

When I had the Merc, the dealer (MB Brooklands) gave me a printed copy of the full service history after each service.

The Suzuki I currently own, thankfully has an old fashioned paper service book which I keep fully stamped.

The Hyundai is on a lease, that covers servicing (every 2 years), and it goes back to the dealer at the end of the lease period, so I'll let them worry about the FHS records...

In short, right now, luckily I don't have any FSH issues... but I agree that it can be a nightmare.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Hi Mercedes Owners

Just wondering if anyone share the same frustration as me on these service histories...

On older cars, we will have to keep a thick pile of physical paper work to demonstrate the car is well looked after, so that we can retain the resale value. However I have too much paperwork and I don't want to carry those as they take quite a bit space & sometimes they got lost.

On newer cars, I know now the service histories are digitised. But I will have to pay for dealership money or go to approved garages to retain the digital service history rather than paying reasonable price. And sometimes the garages input some wrong data and could cause errors in my service histories - lost value of my car.

To me, car owners should own the car service history rather than OEMs as we paid for the service! But somehow OEMs have the ability to determine how to hold our data and who can get access to it. You have to ask for your service history printed out before selling so that you can show to the potential buyers - so unfair & annoying!

I am curious on what you guys think about my point above and let me know if you share the same frustrations...

Happy New Year to you all!

You do own the service history, you will receive a paid invoice even on a car with a Digital Service Book (DSB), just like you do on a car without a digital service book.

I have 2007 car which has a Digital Service Book, a print out of the Digital Service Book, two stamped service books, and every paid invoice.

Being digital is only a benefit, as I can keep paper copies, I can request reprints, and the digital version is there too. That’s pretty resilient from loss IMHO.

PS if you have your car serviced at a dealer or independent specialist with access to the DSB, then they should give you a print out of all services as a matter of course.

 

[liamt]

You do own the service history, you will receive a paid invoice even on a car with a Digital Service Book (DSB), just like you do on a car without a digital service book.

I have 2007 car which has a Digital Service Book, a print out of the Digital Service Book, two stamped service books, and every paid invoice.

Being digital is only a benefit, as I can keep paper copies, I can request reprints, and the digital version is there too. That’s pretty resilient from loss IMHO.

PS if you have your car serviced at a dealer or independent specialist with access to the DSB, then they should give you a print out of all services as a matter of course.

I was just about to reply with this. As far as I'm concerned the Digital Service History is better as that history will always be with the car and can easily be retrieved . Invoices and service books can easily be lost. Even more so now with dealers shredding paper service history due to GDPR. One of the main reasons to use either main dealer servicing or an Indy that can update the DSB.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Hi Mercedes Owners

Just wondering if anyone share the same frustration as me on these service histories...

On older cars, we will have to keep a thick pile of physical paper work to demonstrate the car is well looked after, so that we can retain the resale value. However I have too much paperwork and I don't want to carry those as they take quite a bit space & sometimes they got lost.

On newer cars, I know now the service histories are digitised. But I will have to pay for dealership money or go to approved garages to retain the digital service history rather than paying reasonable price. And sometimes the garages input some wrong data and could cause errors in my service histories - lost value of my car.

To me, car owners should own the car service history rather than OEMs as we paid for the service! But somehow OEMs have the ability to determine how to hold our data and who can get access to it. You have to ask for your service history printed out before selling so that you can show to the potential buyers - so unfair & annoying!

I am curious on what you guys think about my point above and let me know if you share the same frustrations...

Happy New Year to you all!

You can order a paper service book from the main dealer parts counter, and you can have it stamped and filled in when you have the car serviced (it does not have to be a main dealer).

 

[Fady]

I was just about to reply with this. As far as I'm concerned the Digital Service History is better as that history will always be with the car and can easily be retrieved . Invoices and service books can easily be lost. Even more so now with dealers shredding paper service history due to GDPR. One of the main reasons to use either main dealer servicing or an Indy that can update the DSB.

Bear in mind that digital service information can get 'lost' as well as is reliant on servicing dealer actually updating the history.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Bear in mind that digital service information can get 'lost' as well as is reliant on servicing dealer actually updating the history.

Possible but no more likely than paper copies. The benefit is that paper copies come with Digital Service Book and can be printed out at any time. Requires no more time, and effort or cost to keep paper copies and paper invoices than it does without digital service book.

 

[thomasyan777]

Keep both

Get digital service printed off [free]
And keep a file at home in a cupboard of the paper invoices.

Simple

Thanks BigJase

But have you ever experienced the trouble of dealer won't print out for you or someone input wrong info into the digital system?

e.g.someone input the wrong mileage & devalued your car

Basically you are rely on the dealers to take care of your history, and I don't feel comfortable with it.

To solve this, I want to build a platform for all car owners to upload their service history in one place regardless if it's from dealer or indie garages. It would become a portfolio to hold 'source of truth' for this car's history, then it's much easier to manage & share & transfer to the next owner & it will never get lost.


Do you think this is a good idea& would you use it?

Thanks

 

[thomasyan777]

On the newer vehicles with Digital Service Book records you should get a print out of the service each time the car goes into the main dealer or Independent specialist. Simply file these away along with the invoices.

I think the frustrations you have mentioned could equally be applied to cars with paper service history. Thanks to GDPR a lot of paper service history now gets binned by dealers taking cars as a trade in due to it containing the previous owners names and addresses. Having said that I spotted my Brother's old Peugeot 208 gti 30th for sale at a used car dealer down south. The photographs included pictures of the service history which contained my brother's name, address, phone number and email.

Thanks Liamt

This is another problem I want to solve with this new platform I want to build.
I want to add a functionality to allow car owners to block their personal info after uploading the receipts.
So that the info on the platform is all about this car itself.

This would protect the privacy of current owner when passing onto the next while not need to through everything away.

Do you think this is a good idea?

 

[thomasyan777]

If you do not want to use dealers, and you do not want to use independent specialists (who will have access to the MB Digital Service Book and can update the service record) either, because they are too expensive, then just get the car serviced wherever you want and keep a printed copy of the invoice. If all you're after is 'service history' for future sale purposes, then all you'll need to keep is one paper invoice per year. In fact, private buyers will be happy with paper invoices instead of a DBS they can't access themselves (unless you have a printed copy of the DBS).

Thanks markjay

I am totally with you.
But if there is a place to upload everything regardless where the receipts are issued, would you use it?

It would be much easier to manage & share with potential buyers. And you can also transfer to the new owner once sold.


Let me know, cheers

 

[liamt]

Thanks Liamt

This is another problem I want to solve with this new platform I want to build.
I want to add a functionality to allow car owners to block their personal info after uploading the receipts.
So that the info on the platform is all about this car itself.

This would protect the privacy of current owner when passing onto the next while not need to through everything away.

Do you think this is a good idea?

In principle it sounds like a very good idea but you would need to identify who your target audience is, car enthusiasts? The general public? Dealers? etc. In my opinion I think you would need to get dealers on board with such a platform in addition to private car owners to make it viable. I would say that a large proportion of service documentation gets lost as vehicles pass through car dealers for the reasons mentioned above, probably more than private owners not keeping/losing documentation. This is likely down to two reasons:

1) The dealer does not have the correct administrative tools to correctly redact information from documents in a way that allows them to remain compliant with GDPR. Therefore the documentation is securely shredded which mitigates the risk of personal information being leaked.

2. The administrative effort in redacting the documentation is likely quite high. Dealers tend to have a high turnover of vehicles therefore going through and redacting information from documents for each vehicle they buy in and sell is likely quite challenging, epecially for smaller dealers that don't have a pool of admin staff like larger companies.

If you could address the above then I think the idea would be great and could pitched to dealers in addition to the public. I don't have any stats but I imagine the majority of joe public will simply trade their car in for a new one rather than attempt to sell it themselves privately. Mainly due to people not having the confidence as there are various scams/risks that come with selling a car privately. Therefore I imagine there will be a higher percentage of cars passing back through dealers than private sales and therefore the potential risk of paperwork being lost in the name of GDPR compliance is higher. If your target audience is simply car enthusiasts/the public then I think it would have limited impact. Just my opinion of course, I'm not trying to bash your idea!

 

[Teego]

Paper is best. Printed receipts for everything down to lightbulbs. All info on spreadsheet cross referenced to date and mileage.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Thanks Liamt

This is another problem I want to solve with this new platform I want to build.
I want to add a functionality to allow car owners to block their personal info after uploading the receipts.
So that the info on the platform is all about this car itself.

This would protect the privacy of current owner when passing onto the next while not need to through everything away.

Do you think this is a good idea?

Ahhhh so you want input to a platform you want to build.

A few thoughts:

Have you Googled it? There are some online services already doing similar things.

If you as an owner don’t trust Mercedes - a large and very well established business which just take such things seriously - with this data, then why would other owners trust your platform with this data?

If one of your primary concerns as an owner is that your data is not safe, accurate and available with Mercedes, how will you assure owners about that their data is safe, accurate and available with you?

If another of your primary concerns as an owner is that Mercedes might make a mistake which has a negative impact on your cars value, how will you make sure that owners don't make the same mistake?

Further still there is a financial incentive for owners to make a “mistake” which has a positive impact on their car’s value, so how would you reassure future owners (buyers) that that is not the case?

How long would you commit to providing a fully resilient and secure service? Some people keep their cars a very long time, and others sell and so will you export the data to new or current owners.”?

How will you verify ownership initially and later when the vehicle has changed hands, to make sure that someone requesting access to records has a legitimate claim on that data?

How will will you monetise it, will it be monthly payments, advertising, selling the data to interested third parties, etc and if you can’t cover costs and the business folds then what happens to the data?

How much would be people be willing to pay for such a service, if they already have digital and paper records, and can photograph and store paperwork online for free through Google, Microsoft, etc?

If the owner doesn’t completely or successfully redact their personal information, who would be responsible for detecting and remediating it, and who would be liable for the risk?

Good luck with your venture

 

[ALFAitalia]

You might need to get out more Mr Teego!.....!

Id be interested to know if those of you with a full and fastidiously recorded service history actually do ever get more in PX at a Mercedes main dealer than those with a patchy and difficult to prove history......In my experience (including 17 years working in a main new car dealer) the answer is generally no. It seems to affect values in private sales more and even then only when its selling to an enthusiast. Current condition seems more important to most than its history.
Even in my current game (caravans) we have to destroy all the paper records due to GDPR....this effectively often means that there is no record at all as many manufacturers have no digital system and many customers use indies anyway who cant add a service to the factory system......To my mind GDPR causes more issues than it solves!!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

But have you ever experienced the trouble of dealer won't print out for you or someone input wrong info into the digital system?

Dealers hand it to you when you pay your service - they give you a print out of the DSB and a paid invoice. Subsequent owners who buy a car without paper records can ask dealer for a paper copy, and they provide it as long as they can provide confirmation of ownership.

How often do dealers get it wrong? Has it happened to you?