Approved-Used car problems

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Sorry I know it's another one of these threads but thought it was worth checking in case anything specific about our case was important.

We bought a 2008 Merc ML320 in June this year as an approved-used scheme car from an official dealer in Glasgow. Within a few weeks the satnav/music system stopped working so we took it to the local dealer and got it repaired under the 12-month Mercedes used car warranty. Nothing to write home about so far.

Literally a week after getting the car back, one of the front suspension springs just went, the car was sitting on our driveway and hadn't moved for over 24 hours. Car was recovered by the Mercedes Assist people, repaired under warranty and handed back to us.

Since then we've had to have one of the wing mirrors changed (again warranty) and it needs two new front parking sensors (warranty don't cover this apparently) and today it won't unlock with either of the remote fobs or the emergency keys. All of this in the four months we've had it.

To be honest I just want to get shot of it. Do we have any path of recourse with the dealer we originally bought it from or are we faced with selling or trading it in and accepting whatever financial hit that brings?

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hornetrider said:

I don't think you have any recourse no, as the problems that have arisen are all different and sound like they have been resolved to your satisfaction. Hopefully the locking issue will be resolved by MB as well.

Look at it this way - hopefuly when you get the niggles sorted it'll be a decent motor.

That's what I keep thinking, but the niggles just keep on coming. Granted, the warranty has covered most things but it will run out eventually. It's also a pain, we have a four month old baby so she has to get over to the dealer (usually in rush hour traffic), transfer the baby seat to the courtesy car, get back across town, then repeat later on. The baby has seen more of the staff at the dealer than he has his own grandparents.

shred2bits said:

Just wondering, the Internet is full of stories like yours about the ML, why did you buy one? Get rid and buy something else, to me it looks like the dealer sorted everything for you even the spring which I thought was something not covered by warranty, so just a rubbish car then

I spent a few evenings looking around and didn't find anything really particularly scary. The spring did get done on warranty. Thanks for your opinion

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OK thanks for the input. Had a feeling that would be the case, fair enough.

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Sheepshanks said:

I have a C Class and hanker after an ML but spending a bit of time on the main MB forum, ML's do seem to have a lot of niggles.

To be honest, your list doesn't seem terrible by any means. It's a £50K car which you probably paid £15K ish for - something has to give.

Why won't the Approved Used warranty cover the parking sensors?

Also, will the dealer not collect and deliver to save your missus hassle?

So are you saying you wouldn't think it unacceptable for a car to go wrong and require a visit to the dealer once per month? Also, to suggest that we should just put up and shut up because we didn't buy new is a bit ridiculous in my view. It's a few years old, granted, but had only done 42k miles when we got it and hasn't done a lot more since. To my mind stuff like I've listed just shouldn't be failing on such a lightly-used car as this.

The warranty wouldn't cover the parking sensors because the dealer told them they were stone chipped. I can't see any damage to them whatsoever. As for the dealer picking up and dropping off, they haven't offered but if need be then I'll ask next time.

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Sure, it could be worse, but for a 45k mile car from a supposedly premium brand like Mercedes I expected a lot better. The warranty was included in the price of the car (approved used scheme) but yes, having slept on it the current thinking is see how it's going around the time the warranty is coming to an end and decide whether to keep it and extend the warranty or trade it in for something else.

Thanks for the views and input.

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shred2bits said:

Did you not wonder why you can buy a 4 year older car than yours for 3k? Looks like the opinion on here is not to get on the dealer bad books, of course you can do whatever you want

Everything around the £3k mark (on Autotrader at least) is the previous W163 generation so I don't see your point, unless it's another smug way of saying you think we picked a crap car.

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StescoG66 said:

Not much help but a CR-V would have been a better choice I think. Better engineered and thus more reliable

No, not much help, you're right there. We looked at those but they're dog slow - granted this is a family wagon so doesn't need to be fast, but we need to cover miles with this car so it has to be quick enough as not to feel like hard work on long journeys.