Is this what to expect from MB dealers? (long)
10-15-2005, 03:54 PM
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2005 C230K SS
Is this what to expect from MB dealers? (long)
Sorry if this is long, but I felt the whole story needed to be told...
I'm looking for a little feedback, because I'm pretty sure this is NOT the type of treatment I should expect from Mercedes Benz.
I bought a new '05 C230K from Ewing Autohaus in Dallas Texas at the end of August, and since then have received very mixed results when working with the dealership.
I started dealing with them about a week before their "summer to remember" sales event was over at the end of August. That sales event as you might recall gave the dealer a $2000 incentive from the MB factory.
Therefore, between the fact that they were trying to get rid of their 2005 models since the 2006 cars are out, and the incentive, the dealer was willing to negotiate for as much as $1000 below invoice, much less MSRP, so I was pretty anxious to get the deal done in a hurry.
In any case, I asked the dealer to locate a white 2005 C230K with automatic.
Well I went out of town on vacation right after telling them to find me a car, and returned back home two days before the incentive ran out. During my vacation, the dealer didn't contact me with any updates on what was/wasn't happening with regards to finding a car.
After leaving several messages, during that time, I finally was able to get a hold of him in person, he apologized for not calling me back, and claimed he had written down my phone number incorrectly. Ok.. No probelm... He said he had found a car that matched what I wanted but it was in Georgia and it would cost a lot to ship it, but wasn't sure they still had it on their lot since it had been a week or so since he said he first found it.
Apparently there were not any cars that fit my desire in town, but the good news was that after I got bacck in touch with him, he was able to locate one from a dealer in Tyler TX (about 2 hours away). It was loaded with a lot more features than I was looking for, so the price was a bit higher than we had originally discussed but so far it's been a great car, and I'm glad I got the extra features.
So....I told him to go ahead and secure the car, and gave him my CC number over the phone to do so, although as it turned out he didn't bill it for anything.
I suspect looking back, that he was only trying to be certain I wasn't going to back out of the deal should he go ahead and do the deal to get the car from the dealer in Tyler, which is why he asked for my CC number.
In any case, the day I picked up the car, everything went smoothly but when he was going over the specifics of how to operate all the internal stuff on the car, he had another customer that came in to pick up their S class car, which had apparently been in the shop.
He asked if I minded that he was going to step away and leave me waiting with my car while he took care of the other customer, an older lady, whom I suspect was a longtime customer of that dealership, that was in a hurry to get her car back before her husband came back in town to find out that she had messed it up
In any case, I told him ok... But frankly was a bit annoyed that he would leave me hanging in the middle of closing the deal on my car.
To be fair, perhaps he didn't intententially double-book himself, and the old lady came in early or at the wrong time, but still...
He also failed to give me a tour of the dealership, introduce me to his boss, or introduce me to the service department before I left with my new vehicle.
Well I took ownership of the car, and have been very happy with it, however I did have an issue with my plates.... The first set of paper plates expired, and I had to get a second set before my "real" license plates arrived.
The dealership and my sales guy blamed this on the dealership in Tyler TX, and did apologize for this, but I must have placed at least a half dozen calls to my sales guy during that time to find out the status of my plates and received VERY few return calls on the issue until a day or two before the real plates finally arrived.
When I got my real plates and took them home to put them on the car, I found that the dealership had stripped out two of the four screws on the back of the car that held the plates on.
I suspect it was due to swapping out the two sets of paper tags by the use of a drill with a screwdriver bit, which I saw them use, rather than doing it by hand.
I’ve also seen this occur to others on this forum, see this post for specifics, so perhaps this is a defect with the C-Class plate screws, but it seems more like human error to me:
https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w203/122505-my-dealer-broke.html
Now before I had received my plates, I received my satisfaction survey in the mail, and low and behold, there was a whole section about being introduced to their service department and what I felt about that process. There was another section about my sales guy, and how responsive he was to my needs and returning my calls and so forth.
Well, while my sales guy was always friendly, and polite, the guy had a REAL problem returning calls.
I’d say that from the time I first started working with him until this writing I’ve left 2 dozen calls and only had about 4 or 5 returned!
Therefore, they didn’t get a very good review from me, I didn't try to throw them under the bus, I was just honest.
Here is where things get interesting…
After sending in the survey I get a panicked call back from the dealership from some manager of relations or whatnot by the name of John Meadows, who told me that my survey ranked something like a 68 and that their average is a 98.5 !!!
He asked what went wrong, and I asked him if he had seen a copy of my survey, he said he had, but apparently he was unclear as to what caused such a poor raiting.
Well…After telling him my story, he apologized, and said that the next time I call or come in, if they don’t leap to their feet and bend over backwards to make sure I’m happy when they hear my name, that he wants to know about it personally.
Likewise, he told me that when I next come in to ask for him specifically and he will personally give me the tour/introduction to the service department and the whole process of getting a loaner car setup and so forth..
He went on to tell me that my survey would have a negative impact on my sales guy for the next 6 months and would also affect the dealerships ability to acquire cars from the factory! Wow, I thought, I wondered if they were going to fire my sales guy or something! I felt pretty bad about the whole deal, because my sales guy is a nice fellow and I got a great price on the car, but maybe this customer relations guy was just exagerating?
Well….about two days after his call is when my metal license plates arrived (this was around the 30th of September) so when I had the problem with the stripped screws I was pissed off in a big way.
I called my sales person, as usual, he didn’t answer so I ended up in his voice mail, as usualy I left him a message, and guess what….
He STILL hasn’t called me back, and it’s been over two weeks since that happened!
So much for the dealership jumping up and down to make sure I'm happy with their service.
I’ve also tried to reach John, the manager fellow that promised me the moon, and have left him two messages to call me about the stripped out screws and lack of response/returned calls, but both messages have gone unanswered!!!!
To be fair, they said he was on vacation the first time I called….But still…..This is getting ridiculous!
In addition, to make things even stranger…. I received a Williams and Sonoma gift in the mail about a week ago from my Sales person!!!
I’m not sure if the customer relations manager had a talk with him, or if this was standard practice, but it was unexpected.
So I called him, and of course got his voice mail again, left a message thanking him for the gift and asked him to call me… As you can guess no returned calls and that was about a week ago (Oct 7th or so)
I’m not sure of what to make of all this…. It’s really getting annoying to say the least… On one hand, they fall all over themselves to apologize for not being response to my needs when I am able to speak with someone in person, but then on the other hand, they don’t return my freaking phone calls!!!!
I’ve stopped by the dealership twice since getting the car, and both times my sales guy wasn’t in, so I wasn’t able to talk with him in person. I’ve been out of town pretty much since the end of September on business so haven’t had a chance to go back in.
But… My car is coming up on it’s first 1000 miles very soon, so I’ll take them up on the free “inspection” offer that I got in the mail from them, and will be sure to address all this with someone at the dealership when I bring it in, in a few weeks.
Until then… I was wondering if this is typical for MB dealerships or is it just Ewing Autohaus here in Plano (Dallas) that has these customer relations problems?
Anway, I hope to hell that their service department is more responsive than their sales department.
Again, sorry this was so long, but felt I needed to tell this story and see what sort of feedback you folks had for me.
Best regards,
Jay J.
Allen TX.
I'm looking for a little feedback, because I'm pretty sure this is NOT the type of treatment I should expect from Mercedes Benz.
I bought a new '05 C230K from Ewing Autohaus in Dallas Texas at the end of August, and since then have received very mixed results when working with the dealership.
I started dealing with them about a week before their "summer to remember" sales event was over at the end of August. That sales event as you might recall gave the dealer a $2000 incentive from the MB factory.
Therefore, between the fact that they were trying to get rid of their 2005 models since the 2006 cars are out, and the incentive, the dealer was willing to negotiate for as much as $1000 below invoice, much less MSRP, so I was pretty anxious to get the deal done in a hurry.
In any case, I asked the dealer to locate a white 2005 C230K with automatic.
Well I went out of town on vacation right after telling them to find me a car, and returned back home two days before the incentive ran out. During my vacation, the dealer didn't contact me with any updates on what was/wasn't happening with regards to finding a car.
After leaving several messages, during that time, I finally was able to get a hold of him in person, he apologized for not calling me back, and claimed he had written down my phone number incorrectly. Ok.. No probelm... He said he had found a car that matched what I wanted but it was in Georgia and it would cost a lot to ship it, but wasn't sure they still had it on their lot since it had been a week or so since he said he first found it.
Apparently there were not any cars that fit my desire in town, but the good news was that after I got bacck in touch with him, he was able to locate one from a dealer in Tyler TX (about 2 hours away). It was loaded with a lot more features than I was looking for, so the price was a bit higher than we had originally discussed but so far it's been a great car, and I'm glad I got the extra features.
So....I told him to go ahead and secure the car, and gave him my CC number over the phone to do so, although as it turned out he didn't bill it for anything.
I suspect looking back, that he was only trying to be certain I wasn't going to back out of the deal should he go ahead and do the deal to get the car from the dealer in Tyler, which is why he asked for my CC number.
In any case, the day I picked up the car, everything went smoothly but when he was going over the specifics of how to operate all the internal stuff on the car, he had another customer that came in to pick up their S class car, which had apparently been in the shop.
He asked if I minded that he was going to step away and leave me waiting with my car while he took care of the other customer, an older lady, whom I suspect was a longtime customer of that dealership, that was in a hurry to get her car back before her husband came back in town to find out that she had messed it up
In any case, I told him ok... But frankly was a bit annoyed that he would leave me hanging in the middle of closing the deal on my car.
To be fair, perhaps he didn't intententially double-book himself, and the old lady came in early or at the wrong time, but still...
He also failed to give me a tour of the dealership, introduce me to his boss, or introduce me to the service department before I left with my new vehicle.
Well I took ownership of the car, and have been very happy with it, however I did have an issue with my plates.... The first set of paper plates expired, and I had to get a second set before my "real" license plates arrived.
The dealership and my sales guy blamed this on the dealership in Tyler TX, and did apologize for this, but I must have placed at least a half dozen calls to my sales guy during that time to find out the status of my plates and received VERY few return calls on the issue until a day or two before the real plates finally arrived.
When I got my real plates and took them home to put them on the car, I found that the dealership had stripped out two of the four screws on the back of the car that held the plates on.
I suspect it was due to swapping out the two sets of paper tags by the use of a drill with a screwdriver bit, which I saw them use, rather than doing it by hand.
I’ve also seen this occur to others on this forum, see this post for specifics, so perhaps this is a defect with the C-Class plate screws, but it seems more like human error to me:
https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w203/122505-my-dealer-broke.html
Now before I had received my plates, I received my satisfaction survey in the mail, and low and behold, there was a whole section about being introduced to their service department and what I felt about that process. There was another section about my sales guy, and how responsive he was to my needs and returning my calls and so forth.
Well, while my sales guy was always friendly, and polite, the guy had a REAL problem returning calls.
I’d say that from the time I first started working with him until this writing I’ve left 2 dozen calls and only had about 4 or 5 returned!
Therefore, they didn’t get a very good review from me, I didn't try to throw them under the bus, I was just honest.
Here is where things get interesting…
After sending in the survey I get a panicked call back from the dealership from some manager of relations or whatnot by the name of John Meadows, who told me that my survey ranked something like a 68 and that their average is a 98.5 !!!
He asked what went wrong, and I asked him if he had seen a copy of my survey, he said he had, but apparently he was unclear as to what caused such a poor raiting.
Well…After telling him my story, he apologized, and said that the next time I call or come in, if they don’t leap to their feet and bend over backwards to make sure I’m happy when they hear my name, that he wants to know about it personally.
Likewise, he told me that when I next come in to ask for him specifically and he will personally give me the tour/introduction to the service department and the whole process of getting a loaner car setup and so forth..
He went on to tell me that my survey would have a negative impact on my sales guy for the next 6 months and would also affect the dealerships ability to acquire cars from the factory! Wow, I thought, I wondered if they were going to fire my sales guy or something! I felt pretty bad about the whole deal, because my sales guy is a nice fellow and I got a great price on the car, but maybe this customer relations guy was just exagerating?
Well….about two days after his call is when my metal license plates arrived (this was around the 30th of September) so when I had the problem with the stripped screws I was pissed off in a big way.
I called my sales person, as usual, he didn’t answer so I ended up in his voice mail, as usualy I left him a message, and guess what….
He STILL hasn’t called me back, and it’s been over two weeks since that happened!
So much for the dealership jumping up and down to make sure I'm happy with their service.
I’ve also tried to reach John, the manager fellow that promised me the moon, and have left him two messages to call me about the stripped out screws and lack of response/returned calls, but both messages have gone unanswered!!!!
To be fair, they said he was on vacation the first time I called….But still…..This is getting ridiculous!
In addition, to make things even stranger…. I received a Williams and Sonoma gift in the mail about a week ago from my Sales person!!!
I’m not sure if the customer relations manager had a talk with him, or if this was standard practice, but it was unexpected.
So I called him, and of course got his voice mail again, left a message thanking him for the gift and asked him to call me… As you can guess no returned calls and that was about a week ago (Oct 7th or so)
I’m not sure of what to make of all this…. It’s really getting annoying to say the least… On one hand, they fall all over themselves to apologize for not being response to my needs when I am able to speak with someone in person, but then on the other hand, they don’t return my freaking phone calls!!!!
I’ve stopped by the dealership twice since getting the car, and both times my sales guy wasn’t in, so I wasn’t able to talk with him in person. I’ve been out of town pretty much since the end of September on business so haven’t had a chance to go back in.
But… My car is coming up on it’s first 1000 miles very soon, so I’ll take them up on the free “inspection” offer that I got in the mail from them, and will be sure to address all this with someone at the dealership when I bring it in, in a few weeks.
Until then… I was wondering if this is typical for MB dealerships or is it just Ewing Autohaus here in Plano (Dallas) that has these customer relations problems?
Anway, I hope to hell that their service department is more responsive than their sales department.
Again, sorry this was so long, but felt I needed to tell this story and see what sort of feedback you folks had for me.
Best regards,
Jay J.
Allen TX.
Last edited by Jay J; 10-15-2005 at 04:31 PM.
10-15-2005, 04:07 PM
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Silver 2002 C32, Silver 2006 CLK 350
that's really bad service! I would call the manager and tell him your concerns. if he does not response then I will write a letter to MBUSA. I hope you good luck!
10-15-2005, 05:17 PM
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C320 Sport Sedan 4MATIC, Cayenne S, Bayliner Capri V8, Subaru STi
Originally Posted by Trekman
that's really bad service! I would call the manager and tell him your concerns. if he does not response then I will write a letter to MBUSA. I hope you good luck!
I wrote a very nice letter to the President of the MB Dealership for something concerning their SA .
I went direct and skipped the chain of command whatever they had for a problem I had with my C320 SS 4-MATIC.
He called me set another appointment and handled it personally himself.
Going direct works.
So try writing th President of Ewing Autohaus in Dallas Texas for your problem and see what happens....
10-15-2005, 09:10 PM
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2006 C280
OK, reading that with a couple of beers in me...time to vent a little myself.
I won't name names, but there is only ONE MB dealer in my town, so you can figure it out from my profile if you like. They know they are IT too. My sales guy treated my wife and I with friendly indifference, if there is such a thing. I feel like a mark rather than a customer really. Told me the car would be ready on a Tuesday. Tuesday comes and I have to call at 3pm to find out WTF. No, sorry, car isn't ready, we're working on it right now, tomorrow. Wednesday, same deal. You can have a loaner if you like. Oh, thanks, how about the car you told me would be ready yesterday? Which should be ready today? Now you want to loan me a car?! Thursday, same deal, but find out they _just got the car_. Friday, 5pm, way across freakin town, oh, now it's ready. Saturday morning I pick it up. Got a 5-10min overview of car and see ya bud. Never a word about the freakin spoiler I asked for and that was not on the freakin car. Only ever met one other person at the dealership who was some head paper pusher who needed my signature. Sorry I don't own a yacht and maybe took a couple of minutes away from you selling a $100K car you f***.
Leasing a C-class...I guess it really is pretty far down on the scale!
Oh well, I feel marginally better now. Haven't gotten my survey yet. :v
I won't name names, but there is only ONE MB dealer in my town, so you can figure it out from my profile if you like. They know they are IT too. My sales guy treated my wife and I with friendly indifference, if there is such a thing. I feel like a mark rather than a customer really. Told me the car would be ready on a Tuesday. Tuesday comes and I have to call at 3pm to find out WTF. No, sorry, car isn't ready, we're working on it right now, tomorrow. Wednesday, same deal. You can have a loaner if you like. Oh, thanks, how about the car you told me would be ready yesterday? Which should be ready today? Now you want to loan me a car?! Thursday, same deal, but find out they _just got the car_. Friday, 5pm, way across freakin town, oh, now it's ready. Saturday morning I pick it up. Got a 5-10min overview of car and see ya bud. Never a word about the freakin spoiler I asked for and that was not on the freakin car. Only ever met one other person at the dealership who was some head paper pusher who needed my signature. Sorry I don't own a yacht and maybe took a couple of minutes away from you selling a $100K car you f***.
Leasing a C-class...I guess it really is pretty far down on the scale!
Oh well, I feel marginally better now. Haven't gotten my survey yet. :v
Last edited by DSlater; 10-15-2005 at 09:47 PM.
10-16-2005, 10:10 AM
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Volkswagen Golf
I must say that the overall performance of that dealership sounds rather poor! I wonder if it happened to any of the other people who filled out the surveys and not it really bother them?...Or maybe that relations manager was lying about their 98.5 overall rating!? Anyway, I would not let it go unnoticed and follow the suggestions by the other members who have responed to your thread! That dealership needs a wake up call and if I were you I would not go back to that dealership at all! Regardless of how "nice" the empoyees are!! :v 
10-16-2005, 12:03 PM
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05 C230 Sports Sedan, Previously owned an 02 C230 Sports Coupe
I wouldn't feel the slightest bit bad about filling out the survey exactly as you did - honestly. We've all run into people like this everwhere - service departments, restaurants, various businesses. Some people, no matter how nice, shouldn't really be in the positions that they're in.
Write a follow-up letter to MBUSA directly after dealing with the Owner/ President of the dealership. It is rediculous to have to follow through with every small item yourself.
My dealer/ salesperson took the time to acutally do everything right. They did everything on the survey. They even placed a call to see how everything was going a week or so after I took delivery of the car, sent gifts, etc. Very nice experience.
I did get a letter explaining what a bad survey would do to them, but they had nothing to fear. They were spot on with their services.
Now, that being said, 2 years ago the experience at the dealership was a bit different. I like to believe that my honest surveys corrected the problem.
Write a follow-up letter to MBUSA directly after dealing with the Owner/ President of the dealership. It is rediculous to have to follow through with every small item yourself.
My dealer/ salesperson took the time to acutally do everything right. They did everything on the survey. They even placed a call to see how everything was going a week or so after I took delivery of the car, sent gifts, etc. Very nice experience.
I did get a letter explaining what a bad survey would do to them, but they had nothing to fear. They were spot on with their services.
Now, that being said, 2 years ago the experience at the dealership was a bit different. I like to believe that my honest surveys corrected the problem.
10-16-2005, 12:34 PM
#7
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That's the worst service ever... No offense to you, but i'm 17, and I got treated way better than that... Like during test drive, of course I was with my dad, and after the test drive the guy gave me a cool MB light up car...
When l wasn't with my dad, I needed to get some things fixed, so I called and set the appointment with them. When I got there, it was just me, and they came straight to me and asked me what I needed and they even fixed a problem the car had that I thought was just a regular thing and didn't even mention to them...
That dealership is Lokey of Clearwater, Florida... Best Service Ever I think...
So try to get a hold of the idiots up at that dealer... Good Luck though man...
When l wasn't with my dad, I needed to get some things fixed, so I called and set the appointment with them. When I got there, it was just me, and they came straight to me and asked me what I needed and they even fixed a problem the car had that I thought was just a regular thing and didn't even mention to them...
That dealership is Lokey of Clearwater, Florida... Best Service Ever I think...
So try to get a hold of the idiots up at that dealer... Good Luck though man...
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10-16-2005, 02:03 PM
#8
Jay J, I would copy the exact text from your post above, and paste it in a letter, addressed to Ewing management. Call the receptionist at Ewing and get the name and address of the regional sales and service manager for MB. Add that name and address as a cc to your letter.
During your 1000 mile checkup, hand deliver the letter to the highest ranking person at Ewing, and watch patiently while they read it. Tell them the cc will go in the mail to the regional office the following morning, unless you get some commitments from them you can rely on. See what they say. If they make commitments you like, tell them you will hold the letter for a couple months to be sure they follow-through to your satisfaction... if they don't send the letter with a cover letter explaining to regional that you gave them 2 months to improve.
There is nothing unreasonable that you stated in your post above.
BTW, I got my MB serviced at Ewing/Plano during its warranty period. You will have a dedicated service consultant assigned to you. Tell Ewing Mgmt that you want their best Service consultant assigned who knows the value of returning calls, etc. because that is obviously important to you (as it is with all of us). I had to keep after my service consultant all the time.
During your 1000 mile checkup, hand deliver the letter to the highest ranking person at Ewing, and watch patiently while they read it. Tell them the cc will go in the mail to the regional office the following morning, unless you get some commitments from them you can rely on. See what they say. If they make commitments you like, tell them you will hold the letter for a couple months to be sure they follow-through to your satisfaction... if they don't send the letter with a cover letter explaining to regional that you gave them 2 months to improve.
There is nothing unreasonable that you stated in your post above.
BTW, I got my MB serviced at Ewing/Plano during its warranty period. You will have a dedicated service consultant assigned to you. Tell Ewing Mgmt that you want their best Service consultant assigned who knows the value of returning calls, etc. because that is obviously important to you (as it is with all of us). I had to keep after my service consultant all the time.
