Where to take your beloved Merc for servicing? Anywhere, but definitley not Colins F

[03E500]

Guys,

I understand that there have been a few posts on recommendations for a place to service or repair your Merc.

just want to share my latest experience with you.

My automatic transmission fluid was leaking last month so that I decided to take the car to Colin Ferns Near Richmond in Surrey for an inspection. Upon inspection, I was told that the oil coolant pipes for the auto transmission was corroded, one day later they called me and say that the radiator was also corroded.

Anyway, the end results was a bill of 1000+, with a labour charge of 8.5 hours.

I wrote to Merc to raise a complain about the quality of these pipes, there should not be any corrosion issues at this modern age, not to mention on a 4 year old Merc E500.

Anyway, they wrote back and told me that the repair should have been worth around 2.5 hours !! and with the car been repaired at Colins - there was no parts discount at all as well and no courtesy car.

So, I really doubt that these independent so called specialist is a good place to go to service or repair your merc. They may charge you a lower rate, but they will just charge you more hours.... I can accept it if they charge an hour or two more - but 8.5 hours !!!

I have to say that I have no confidence on the Merc cars nowadays, I was thinking of getting a CLS, now I am not sure anymore. However, I am still impressed with the response I got from the Brentford Merc, no I did not get the cost reimbursed, but at least the service manager is trying to make it right and offer me a free schedule service. A little bit late now, as i have sold my E500 and got a BMW 545. I just can not take any more nasty surprises....

Maybe I will wait a few more years to see if the quality of the once indestructible Merc will be restored to its glory days.

Cheers.

 

[Ian B Walker]

Please don't judge all indies the same way. BlackC55 has an excellent rep and so do others within these shores.

 

[Howard]

Stick to the main dealers then ...

Colin services my car ( 230CE ) my dads CLK430 and dads mates C55 .... He was recommended to us by another chap who uses him .

Never had a problem with him , ok , there's no courtesy car , but its not the end of the world .... he will collect and drop off though .

Brentford Mercedes are monkeys , i've had nothing but problems from them .... telling me that they could sort the alarm remote for my car out , i make a special journey down there , and then they say they can't .... told them to f*** themselves ....idiots.....

Colin is a Mercedes trained mechanic who went freelance some time ago. I would say that he is a specialist , not so called ... he's always been very reasonable time wise and price wise ....

Have you contacted him to explain the situation ?

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience ... once mans bread is another mans butter and all that ....

Glad you got it sorted ....

EDIT :- Colin does have a very good rep Ian

 

[Darrell]

Colin Ferns was reccomended to us by a Merc owner we did an extension for up in Sheen.There was an Indian dude there that did some work on the car,not a huge amount but we were dead pleased with the attitude,price and general frriendliness.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

With a 6 hour discrepancy, I would be demanding some very good answers on the reason. If none were forthcoming, I think court proceedings would be in order.

A magistrate would very likely be sympathetic to your situation, provided that is the independant doesn't have a valid reason for those 6 hours.

Stories like this are why I generally ask for the broken bits to be left in a bag in the boot once the car has been repaired (although generally I try to fix things myself).

 

[crockers]

Sorry to hear your experience has put you off Mercs - but did you talk to the mechanic afterwards and ask why he took 8.5 hrs - surely without discussing it with him how will you know he added on extra hours ? There may have been a reason ...

 

[Rory]

Guys,

I understand that there have been a few posts on recommendations for a place to service or repair your Merc.

just want to share my latest experience with you.

My automatic transmission fluid was leaking last month so that I decided to take the car to Colin Ferns Near Richmond in Surrey for an inspection. Upon inspection, I was told that the oil coolant pipes for the auto transmission was corroded, one day later they called me and say that the radiator was also corroded.

Anyway, the end results was a bill of 1000+, with a labour charge of 8.5 hours.

I wrote to Merc to raise a complain about the quality of these pipes, there should not be any corrosion issues at this modern age, not to mention on a 4 year old Merc E500.

Anyway, they wrote back and told me that the repair should have been worth around 2.5 hours !! and with the car been repaired at Colins - there was no parts discount at all as well and no courtesy car.

So, I really doubt that these independent so called specialist is a good place to go to service or repair your merc. They may charge you a lower rate, but they will just charge you more hours.... I can accept it if they charge an hour or two more - but 8.5 hours !!!

I have to say that I have no confidence on the Merc cars nowadays, I was thinking of getting a CLS, now I am not sure anymore. However, I am still impressed with the response I got from the Brentford Merc, no I did not get the cost reimbursed, but at least the service manager is trying to make it right and offer me a free schedule service. A little bit late now, as i have sold my E500 and got a BMW 545. I just can not take any more nasty surprises....

Maybe I will wait a few more years to see if the quality of the once indestructible Merc will be restored to its glory days.

Cheers.

I don't understand the connection with Brentford Merc?

When you say you wrote to Merc, did you write to Brentford Merc? Why would you do that??

If you're wanting to run relatively new Merc's, then it's probably worth buying ServicePlus.

 

[Fandango]

I know a lost cause when I see one...
If you're prepared to write off a whole mark because of one bad experience there's nothing this forum can do to change your mind (although we don't know what the extra hours where for, and it seems you didn't bother asking the garage)
Good Luck with your new car.

 

[03E500]

I don't understand the connection with Brentford Merc?

When you say you wrote to Merc, did you write to Brentford Merc? Why would you do that??

If you're wanting to run relatively new Merc's, then it's probably worth buying ServicePlus.

Well, I was advised by the Merc customer service to write to my local dealer... Brentford did an inspection on the radiator to check that water was not leaking into the auto box because of corrosion issues (a common problem with those valeo radiators. Well, I certaily did experience the same issue but the corrosion occured at the section of the pipe outside the radiator.

Ta

 

[03E500]

Stick to the main dealers then ...

Colin services my car ( 230CE ) my dads CLK430 and dads mates C55 .... He was recommended to us by another chap who uses him .

Never had a problem with him , ok , there's no courtesy car , but its not the end of the world .... he will collect and drop off though .

Brentford Mercedes are monkeys , i've had nothing but problems from them .... telling me that they could sort the alarm remote for my car out , i make a special journey down there , and then they say they can't .... told them to f*** themselves ....idiots.....

Colin is a Mercedes trained mechanic who went freelance some time ago. I would say that he is a specialist , not so called ... he's always been very reasonable time wise and price wise ....

Have you contacted him to explain the situation ?

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience ... once mans bread is another mans butter and all that ....

Glad you got it sorted ....

EDIT :- Colin does have a very good rep Ian

Well, I certainly will demand an explanation.

Not sure why people are so confident with the service from Colin....... I do not care about the courtesy car, but I DO care about being charged 8.5 hours of labour when it would have taken a Merc dealer 2.5 hours.

Will be forwarding the letter from Merc to Colin and demand a breakdown how how they spent the 8.5 hours.

I went to them because of the comments I saw on this forum, but I certainly will not be recommending any of my friends to go there. Maybe I am an outcast here, but I certainly do not feel that I can trust them....

Anyway, good luck to you all taking the car there.

 

[03E500]

I know a lost cause when I see one...
If you're prepared to write off a whole mark because of one bad experience there's nothing this forum can do to change your mind (although we don't know what the extra hours where for, and it seems you didn't bother asking the garage)
Good Luck with your new car.

You think that would have made some differences? I did not have anything to argue about the number of hours being charged. How silly would they make themselves look if they drop the number of hours back to 4 just because I asked?

I guess I will find out why it takes them almost 4 times longer to replace the oil coolant pipes and the radiator.

 

[Howard]

Please let us know what Colin has to say ....

People are confident with the service from him because, until you popped up , no one has had a bad experience there ....

Ergo , no one can post a bad report if nothing bad has happened ....

None of us have a tie in with him , we just recommend good service when we recieve it ...

You feel that you haven't , might be an idea to let him explain himself before the slagfest starts .... not saying he's in the right but you have to give them a chance to explain ....

Good luck with your new BM

 

[bolide]

Maybe you should have asked Colin before you started this thread?

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[03E500]

Sorry to hear your experience has put you off Mercs - but did you talk to the mechanic afterwards and ask why he took 8.5 hrs - surely without discussing it with him how will you know he added on extra hours ? There may have been a reason ...

Well, I did forward to bill charged by Colin to Mercedes.... if Merc said that the repair was worth 2.5 hours, then I don't see how any Merc specialist would charge 8.5 hours for the same repair.

I do not mean to offend anyone who is a regular customer of Colins, but tell me if this is what a good mechanic would do.

After taking the car there to inspect what the leakage was (I thought it was engine oil) on a Friday, I was later told that the leak was actually automatic transmission fluid because of corrosion. Then I got a call again on monday to tell me that the radiator required replacement as well. Knowing that a 4 year old Merc should not have any corrosion issues, I called Mercedes to see if I could get a good will repair and they told me to bring the car there. But when asking Colin if I could drive the car to Merc, I was told that he already taken the pipes off (even though the part was not available) and I would need to pay them the labour cost, and there is no guarantee that Merc will do it as a good will (Merc did offer to send a truck to pick up the car for free). Anyway, not wanting to pay the labour twice, I decided to let Colin repair it.

I don;t know about you, but I do believe that making a customer's car not drivable ASAP is a way for a garage to ensure a repair job is not lost.

My apology if I have offended anyone who loves Colin's garage so much. Not trying to influence your opinion on Colins, just stating the facts and have some constructive discussions.

 

[03E500]

Maybe you should have asked Colin before you started this thread?

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

Well, just got a reply from the Merc dealer today. So have not has a chance, I could not really question why it took them 8.5 hours because I had nothing to question their expertise.

Will definitely do this tomorrow.

Don't want this to turn into an argument. Based on people's responses, I am sure he certainly looks after you people well to have this kind of trust. Well, just did not work out for me ....

Thanks for all the comments. I will let you all know the response.

 

[Howard]

Does anyone on the forum have access to the computer programme that gives you job times for various things ?

I wonder if it's sour grapes on behalf of the main dealers because you took it to an indy ?

When you have asked how long it should take, whether they have thought ' Right, we'll stitch the indy up and then he'll come to us in future ' ?

If we could find out from the EPC or WIS or whatever how long the job should take, then we have a starting point.

Not saying it should take more or less than the times quoted ( and taken ) by both parties, just that it would be nice to check ...

I know there is a programme out there , because when i went to enquire about my wheel bearings, they looked up in front of me how long it takes for each side ( an indy ) ....

 

[BlackC55]

I can work it out using asra.

I need to know what was done exactly.

(BTW the rad removal is a real pain to do on that particular car and is quite labour intensive).

2.5 for the pipes alone is fairish.

6 hours for the radiator?

I would have to look it up.

 

[Howard]

As i said Ollie , i'm not saying anyone is right or wrong , just that it would be nice to know the timings ...

Could you look it up please ?

 

[BlackC55]

By the sounds of it MB does not know the extent of the job.

Did a service advisor quote you the 2.5?

If they did they don't know the full extent of the job.

I am not trying to defend anyone just getto the facts.

Could I see a copy of the invoice?

 

[BlackC55]

As i said Ollie , i'm not saying anyone is right or wrong , just that it would be nice to know the timings ...

Could you look it up please ?

I need the full details of what was done.