Discussion
niva441 said:
Yes they aren't as good value as other manufactures. The beat they can claim is that you pay the same amount for the life of the plan, avoiding price rises (and regional differences) and it spreads the cost out.
This. £1200 for our SLK350 for 4 years. doesn't seem much of a deal compared with £425 for 5 years on our 530D. Mind you at its first service we were sent a video of someone wandering about underneath it showing me that all was well and there was plenty of life left in the tyres. ( hardly surprising at 6500 miles). A lot of use that was.
Frankly I'd rather have lower servicing costs than pointless media gimmicks.
REALIST123 said:
Mind you at its first service we were sent a video of someone wandering about underneath it showing me that all was well and there was plenty of life left in the tyres. ( hardly surprising at 6500 miles). A lot of use that was.
Frankly I'd rather have lower servicing costs than pointless media gimmicks.
A lot of dealers, at all levels of the market, do this now.Frankly I'd rather have lower servicing costs than pointless media gimmicks.
With Mercedes, you used to be able to negotiate with the dealer and get a deal on service prices but it's increasingly difficult to do that - it's almost as if Mercedes is trying to make ServiceCare look like good value. They've even added £50 to service costs for the courtesy car or collect and deliver options.
It also depends which services you can cover and whether an ATF change will be needed. For normal mileage, there's a relatively service at 4yrs and I've lost track of where the ATF change is, but I think it's generally at 5yrs now.
So if you only cover the first 3 years, they're all pretty basic services and the plan is of questionable value. But most people (going off the MB specific forums) seem to take the view that the monthly cost is fairly small beer and they can just forget about hassle over service pricing.
If you're catching years 2, 3 & 4 it makes more sense.
MB's pricing is bonkers though - OK, they argue it's fixed, but they arrogantly assume you'll use the dealer and they don't reward customers' loyalty. It should be priced so that it's a no-brainer.
Edited by Sheepshanks on Tuesday 1st December 21:05
I found it good value
I always imagined it was just a way of spreading the cost (and another direct debit which I was wary of). I had a big 'B' service coming up last year on my 2005 slk55 (including plugs and transmission fluid). Cost was £1400 but by paying upfront for a service plan only paid £1030 plus also included the next 'A' service
I guess you need to take into consideration how old your car is and what services you have coming up but for me it was a no brainer.
For a 2015 car it would seem less so as I'm guessing you're not going to have the big ticket items like plugs and transmission fluid done for a while
I always imagined it was just a way of spreading the cost (and another direct debit which I was wary of). I had a big 'B' service coming up last year on my 2005 slk55 (including plugs and transmission fluid). Cost was £1400 but by paying upfront for a service plan only paid £1030 plus also included the next 'A' service
I guess you need to take into consideration how old your car is and what services you have coming up but for me it was a no brainer.
For a 2015 car it would seem less so as I'm guessing you're not going to have the big ticket items like plugs and transmission fluid done for a while
Edited by slk 32 on Friday 4th December 00:48
I found it good value
I always imagined it was just a way of spreading the cost (and another direct debit which I was wary of). I had a big 'B' service coming up last year on my 2005 slk55 (including plugs and transmission fluid). Cost was £1400 but by paying upfront for a service plan only paid £1030 plus also included the next 'A' service
I guess you need to take into consideration how old your car is and what services you have coming up but for me it was a no brainer.
For a 2015 car it would seem less so as I'm guessing you're not going to have the big ticket items like plugs and transmission fluid done for a while
I always imagined it was just a way of spreading the cost (and another direct debit which I was wary of). I had a big 'B' service coming up last year on my 2005 slk55 (including plugs and transmission fluid). Cost was £1400 but by paying upfront for a service plan only paid £1030 plus also included the next 'A' service
I guess you need to take into consideration how old your car is and what services you have coming up but for me it was a no brainer.
For a 2015 car it would seem less so as I'm guessing you're not going to have the big ticket items like plugs and transmission fluid done for a while
Edited by slk 32 on Friday 4th December 00:57
slk 32 said:
I found it good value
I always imagined it was just a way of spreading the cost (and another direct debit which I was wary of). I had a big 'B' service coming up last year on my 2005 slk55 (including plugs and transmission fluid). Cost was £1400 but by paying upfront for a service plan only paid £1030 plus also included the next 'A' service
I guess you need to take into consideration how old your car is and what services you have coming up but for me it was a no brainer.
For a 2015 car it would seem less so as I'm guessing you're not going to have the big ticket items like plugs and transmission fluid done for a while
Yes, they clearly work in that way, but they're still a lot more expensive than other manufacturers. I always imagined it was just a way of spreading the cost (and another direct debit which I was wary of). I had a big 'B' service coming up last year on my 2005 slk55 (including plugs and transmission fluid). Cost was £1400 but by paying upfront for a service plan only paid £1030 plus also included the next 'A' service
I guess you need to take into consideration how old your car is and what services you have coming up but for me it was a no brainer.
For a 2015 car it would seem less so as I'm guessing you're not going to have the big ticket items like plugs and transmission fluid done for a while
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 4th December 00:57
The trouble is the main dealer will try to flog you loads of extra services you really don't need like silver, bronze and gold engine cleaning services.
Not surprising as when I took my SL63 to my local main dealer there must be about 50 people working there, according to the video report I needed four new tyres and new wiper blades at an additional cost over my A service of £1500.
Now I'm a bit of a car nut and knew full well the tyres were a little worn on the inside but nowhere near in need of replacement and all I did to stop windscreen wiper smearing was to give them a jolly good clean.
I only did the A service through a main dealer because the warranty the Porsche Centre where I bought the car from required the car to be serviced at a main dealer so I complied in case something major went wrong.
There is no doubt in my mind that I will be spending my money with the very good trusted local independent specialist rather than paying the AMG tax at the main dealer.
Not surprising as when I took my SL63 to my local main dealer there must be about 50 people working there, according to the video report I needed four new tyres and new wiper blades at an additional cost over my A service of £1500.
Now I'm a bit of a car nut and knew full well the tyres were a little worn on the inside but nowhere near in need of replacement and all I did to stop windscreen wiper smearing was to give them a jolly good clean.
I only did the A service through a main dealer because the warranty the Porsche Centre where I bought the car from required the car to be serviced at a main dealer so I complied in case something major went wrong.
There is no doubt in my mind that I will be spending my money with the very good trusted local independent specialist rather than paying the AMG tax at the main dealer.
I had Mercedes extended warranty when my C63 went out of manufacturer warranty - not worth the paper its written on!
Everything, just everything is an excuse to not pay. I could prove issues all over the place and they were not interested.
Sold it out of disgust with Mercedes. I love the x63 AMG's but would never own another Merc.
Examples abound! Here is one:
Took car to dealer for service (20k miles). They tell me that the front discs are cracked, unsafe and require replacement at some ridiculous cost.
I told the dealer that it was still under warranty (merc extended warranty), a day later he called me and said actually discs are fine!!!!!
They refused to replace, but if I wanted to pay then they would, which is what they recommended.
I found genuine composite discs new for £300 and replaced myself.
Another example:
During another service, they upgraded my ECU without asking me, the car ran like a pig and fairly often the accelerator pedal did nothing.
They refused to acknowledge that the car was fine before the upgrade and even then, even under warranty they point blank refused to resolve the issues.
'no fault found' is all they said, even when I demonstrated it to them. (press loud pedal and nothing happens until you turn the car off).
Utterly useless.
Another example:
Car just stopped mid journey. Went to dealer and they replaced the manifold under warranty (???). However the AMG hand built badge was not on the new manifold.
A year later and hundreds of phone calls to dealer, customer service, AMG Germany and the answer was that it will arrive in two weeks. The same answer I got when the car was repaired in the first place. Sold it without the badge in the end. Simply useless!
It's all okay though, they offered me £100 off my next service! I told them to stick their £100 where - well you can imagine.
Many, more exmaples.
In short, maintain and get repaired by an indy that knows what they are doing. They DO exist.
Rather than some over trained clueless idiot.
Everything, just everything is an excuse to not pay. I could prove issues all over the place and they were not interested.
Sold it out of disgust with Mercedes. I love the x63 AMG's but would never own another Merc.
Examples abound! Here is one:
Took car to dealer for service (20k miles). They tell me that the front discs are cracked, unsafe and require replacement at some ridiculous cost.
I told the dealer that it was still under warranty (merc extended warranty), a day later he called me and said actually discs are fine!!!!!
They refused to replace, but if I wanted to pay then they would, which is what they recommended.
I found genuine composite discs new for £300 and replaced myself.
Another example:
During another service, they upgraded my ECU without asking me, the car ran like a pig and fairly often the accelerator pedal did nothing.
They refused to acknowledge that the car was fine before the upgrade and even then, even under warranty they point blank refused to resolve the issues.
'no fault found' is all they said, even when I demonstrated it to them. (press loud pedal and nothing happens until you turn the car off).
Utterly useless.
Another example:
Car just stopped mid journey. Went to dealer and they replaced the manifold under warranty (???). However the AMG hand built badge was not on the new manifold.
A year later and hundreds of phone calls to dealer, customer service, AMG Germany and the answer was that it will arrive in two weeks. The same answer I got when the car was repaired in the first place. Sold it without the badge in the end. Simply useless!
It's all okay though, they offered me £100 off my next service! I told them to stick their £100 where - well you can imagine.
Many, more exmaples.
In short, maintain and get repaired by an indy that knows what they are doing. They DO exist.
Rather than some over trained clueless idiot.
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