My first post. I need your collective advice on this please.
I own a W208 with full MB service history (private sale: '2000'yr model 230 CLK Kompressor '40,000' miles and full AA vehicle inspection).
After only covering 3000 miles myself, I was recently presented with an 'SRS' light on my instrument cluster.
I contacted Mobilolife helpdesk and was told that I had to have the vehicle seen by a technician if I wanted to retain the full 'Mobilolife' cover, I asked about the options available to me and the cost of the 'call-out' and was told that the service was free of charge.
The technician could not pinpoint the problem, but advised that the cost of a Mobilolife call-out would be incurred by me if I refused to use an approved Mercedes workshop for any repairs!
Shouldn’t I have been told this by the Mobilolife customer help-desk?
I could have easily taken the car to one of the many highly recommended ‘independent’ Mercedes service garages in London for a second opinion.
Despite this, the technician advised me to go to a Mercedes service centre to have the vehicle repaired. I followed his advice and took my car to the 'Mercedes Service Centre’ in Uxbridge, Middlesex'.
The MOT was running out so I could not just drive around for a better estimate and the Mobilolife cover would be breached if I tried to use an independent, the car had also been diagnosed and I would incur the Mobilolife call out charge, so I had little choice but to give the go ahead for the work to be carried out. I was told that a ‘further diagnosis’ would need to be carried out on top of the call-out diagnosis. Later, I received phone call to inform me of a 'wiring issue' with my car, a high-resistance fault/break was found in the cable harness behind the instrument panel, so the dash and centre console had to be taken apart and a wiring kit would ned to be ordered from Germany....TOTAL ESTIMATE: £1112.81 (including 20% discount for older cars).
I didnt have any issuses with Uxbridge, they were fine, gave me a replacement CLK for over a week while they repaired mine, so whats my argument?
I am annoyed that a wire failed in the first place, how could this occur? Is the harness so fragile that a wire can break, how else could this wiring fault have developed? I do not expect this in a high quality motor car with relatively low mileage, Mercedes or equivalent, I also do not expect any instrument panel to have to be taken apart at such an early stage/mileage of a vehicles service life, particularly for a faulty wiring issue related to the SRS system. In my opinion, a fault so simple yet so potentially serious is a manufacturing design fault, and therefore a financial burden that should not have to be placed directly onto a Mercedes owner.
As a result, I am now very concerned that my car will begin to give me major problems in the future, I expect a Mercedes to be very reliable for up to 100,000 miles at least.
What do you all think, am i right?, Technically I know that my warranty has run out but a wire in a harness should not just 'break' should it?
I wrote to MB twice and they just threw it back to the service centre who defended their costing, thus missing the whole point of my argument.
I own a W208 with full MB service history (private sale: '2000'yr model 230 CLK Kompressor '40,000' miles and full AA vehicle inspection).
After only covering 3000 miles myself, I was recently presented with an 'SRS' light on my instrument cluster.
I contacted Mobilolife helpdesk and was told that I had to have the vehicle seen by a technician if I wanted to retain the full 'Mobilolife' cover, I asked about the options available to me and the cost of the 'call-out' and was told that the service was free of charge.
The technician could not pinpoint the problem, but advised that the cost of a Mobilolife call-out would be incurred by me if I refused to use an approved Mercedes workshop for any repairs!
Shouldn’t I have been told this by the Mobilolife customer help-desk?
I could have easily taken the car to one of the many highly recommended ‘independent’ Mercedes service garages in London for a second opinion.
Despite this, the technician advised me to go to a Mercedes service centre to have the vehicle repaired. I followed his advice and took my car to the 'Mercedes Service Centre’ in Uxbridge, Middlesex'.
The MOT was running out so I could not just drive around for a better estimate and the Mobilolife cover would be breached if I tried to use an independent, the car had also been diagnosed and I would incur the Mobilolife call out charge, so I had little choice but to give the go ahead for the work to be carried out. I was told that a ‘further diagnosis’ would need to be carried out on top of the call-out diagnosis. Later, I received phone call to inform me of a 'wiring issue' with my car, a high-resistance fault/break was found in the cable harness behind the instrument panel, so the dash and centre console had to be taken apart and a wiring kit would ned to be ordered from Germany....TOTAL ESTIMATE: £1112.81 (including 20% discount for older cars).
I didnt have any issuses with Uxbridge, they were fine, gave me a replacement CLK for over a week while they repaired mine, so whats my argument?
I am annoyed that a wire failed in the first place, how could this occur? Is the harness so fragile that a wire can break, how else could this wiring fault have developed? I do not expect this in a high quality motor car with relatively low mileage, Mercedes or equivalent, I also do not expect any instrument panel to have to be taken apart at such an early stage/mileage of a vehicles service life, particularly for a faulty wiring issue related to the SRS system. In my opinion, a fault so simple yet so potentially serious is a manufacturing design fault, and therefore a financial burden that should not have to be placed directly onto a Mercedes owner.
As a result, I am now very concerned that my car will begin to give me major problems in the future, I expect a Mercedes to be very reliable for up to 100,000 miles at least.
What do you all think, am i right?, Technically I know that my warranty has run out but a wire in a harness should not just 'break' should it?
I wrote to MB twice and they just threw it back to the service centre who defended their costing, thus missing the whole point of my argument.
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