Car serviced yesterday by MB main dealer

[Thankyou4calling]

A "B" service, car has only done 18,000 miles.

My only request was that the washer jets were unblocked.

I drooped the car (SLK AMG Diesel ) off yesterday with a lovely man, put a couple of packets of biscuits in my pocket and supped coffee.

Picked it up this morning and it was all shined, paid my bill, £391 and left.

Now the car is leaving my house on a transporter as after driving 10 miles it won't rev, struggles to start and is running all lumpy.

They've promised a replacement tonight, I wonder what they'll send.

Normal, main dealer service I guess. Nice showroom, men in suits and branded ties but unfortunately the work on the oily bits has made a great car worse and I'm nearly £400 worse off for the privilege.

[Thankyou4calling]

matc said:

Things go wrong, it's how it's dealt with that will make the difference with your experience.

I agree things do go wrong and it's being dealt with very well.

However, unblocking washer jets shouldn't be hard.

[Thankyou4calling]

CB2152 said:

I may have missed it, but did they actually unblock the washer jets?

Forgot to mention. No, they didn't :-(

[Thankyou4calling]

CarAbuser said:

Wasn't aware that AMG did a diesel engine car.

You learn something every day .

[Thankyou4calling]

An update.

MB assist contacted Europcar as the SLK has to go back to the dealer.

Europcar said at that late hour last night they could deliver me an Insignia which I declined.

I'm off to London so they've an alternative address to drop off something suitable at 11am. I think it may soften the blow, we shall see.

The service after the event has been superb I will but really dissapointing that it happened in the first place.

[Thankyou4calling]

Quattromaster said:

I'm 2 months in to owning the exact same car, and although not had a service yet I've found the whole dealing with the dealer no problem at all.

I usually use local indies but unsure of a "Merc" one, so was thinking of going main dealer route with this car, watching this thread with interest.

Mines leased so you have to stay in the dealer network.

The guy who collected mine ( not AA but similar) said it looked like it had been worked on very poorly just going by how the uncerbonnet service points were all shoddy.

Still, I feel a partial refund coming on.

[Thankyou4calling]

Monkeylegend said:

Symptons seem very similar to the problems they had with fuel injectors about 3 years ago.

Have they diagnosed the problem yet?

You are correct!!

Although a bit more to it than that.

They fitted new injectors at the service as MB had issued a directive ( I wasn't told) but the new injectors were fitted incorrectly hence the problem at the mo. So they have to refit, or tweak these plus of course unblock the washers!

On the plus side they delivered a ML 350 to me which is superb.

I can understand those who say things go wrong and they are putting it right very well but it really shouldn't have happened I feel.

[Thankyou4calling]

Dog Star said:

Where are you getting an SLK B service for £391? Mine pinged up needing a B about six weeks before it was due to go back and MB Leeds wanted £500 for it (it's an oil change and compulsory (IMO totally unnecessary) brake fluid change. I gave the car back and got the new one delivered early.

Got it done at Bedford.

Conditions were:

Leave it all day.
No hire car.
No valet.

And definitely no biscuits.

They did say it was heavily discounted.

[Thankyou4calling]

Dog Star said:

Those were the same conditions I had for the £500.

I think it was the lack of biscuits that was the clincher, I'm a big eater :-)

Anyhow, should I ask for a refund in the light of what's happened? I'm still driving the ML?

[Thankyou4calling]

CraigyMc said:

The car was only back in BMW for a free reflash of one of the electronics modules (the one that drops the window when someone uses a plain screwdriver on the lock, permitting access to the OBDII port and allowing the car to be driven away without the alarm tripping).

As I was there anyway, I asked for a set of wiper blades to be supplied.
I didn't actually ask for them to be fitted at all - I specifically asked for them to be put in the boot (I wasn't planning to fit them then and there).

Even if I had asked for them to be fitted, it's a 30 second job to do both of them (I'm actually sad enough to have done it against the clock).

This was the email exchange I had with one of the sales guys later:

Hi <SalesBod>,
  I needed to change the address on the mails you send me as they were causing a problem at work.
If you could cancel anything that is sent to me that would be very helpful.

  For the record, I probably won't be buying any cars from <BMWDealer> after your service department
attempted to charge me £13.40 to fit a pair of windscreen wipers to my car.

  This was utterly ridiculous on two grounds:
    (a) I asked for the parts to be put in the boot of the car, and
    (b) it takes less than 30 seconds for me to fit them myself. That's an hourly rate of about £1608.

  In terms of revenue, that's £13.40 up, and about £40K down (my last BMW was £38600).

Call it petty if you like, but they won't be having any business from me in future.
Voting with your wallet is the only way to get the behaviour to change.

It does seem petty to me.

No way that I would end up buying a car I didn't really want just to get one over the dealer like that. Just seems like cutting off our nose yo spite your face.

[Thankyou4calling]

Baryonyx said:

There's your problem right there...

Haha! I'm not going to bite. Anyhow, the service fella called me today and said they'd have to carry out further investigations which could take 2 or 3 days and was I OK with the loan car, which I am.

Funny thing is my new E Class Cab arrives Friday so I'll be running a little fleet.