SledgeHammer01

I've recently come over from BMW, so this is my first MB ever. A new 2023 C300. When I bought the car, I saw a $2300 charge that the dealer tacked on as "Accessories". I asked what that was about and the finance guy claimed it was a "paint protection" that they automatically tack on that will cover rock chips, scratches, etc.

Is this actually true? I've never heard of a car manufacturer doing that. I asked if it could be removed and he said no.

This dealer has already lied to me about two other things:

* claimed the car had "hey mercedes", which I now know is only on the sedan and CLE
* claimed the car had the mild hybrid, which I now know is only on the sedan and CLE

Is this the 3rd lie?

I do see Zurich Shield and Zurich PDR (paintless dent repair?) which adds up to $2290.

From what I can tell from Google, since this is all MB vagueness, ZS is basically just a fake coating akin to Monster cable, ceramic coating, etc. although the finance guy made it sound like I can just bring my car to the dealer and they'd fix every little scratch or rock chip. Charging me $900+ for PDR protection is certainly a scam since I could get an indy PDR guy about 3-4 times at least for that.

superswiss

This is all dealership upsell tactics. Tacking on crap with a large profit margin for themselves. Walk away or refuse to pay it. My dealership tacked on an edging service with the same explanation that they automatically add it to every vehicle. It was less than $100 and I was too lazy to argue with them, but the gist is don't pay for anything that you didn't ask for. If you want paint protection such as PPF, get it yourself from a reputable installer and a reputably film such as XPEL, so you know what you get.

SledgeHammer01

They wouldn't take it off. Sure, I could walk away, but unfortunately, I needed a car since my previous one got totaled.

But I will put the $2300 "insurance policy" to the test next week as I noticed a weird mark on the passenger side door. It's one of those, you can only see it if the light hits it right, but then you can see it across the parking lot. I'm no paint expert, but it looks like its in the clear. Although if its in the clear, that should theoretically be covered under the warranty.

giovane

it's a typical dealership scam. Ask a different dealership, it won't be difficult to find one who doesn't add those useless charges.
You will actually find ones who offer discounts off msrp.

SledgeHammer01

This is my first MB 3 weeks old and I've already been lied to like 4 times... might be my last.

* I wanted the C300, and because its discontinued, they aren't doing builds anymore so it was inventory only. Fine. I knew that going in.
* I went to the dealership 10 mins from my house to test drive the car in general, I told them I wanted a specific color and it was at a dealership like 40 miles away, so I wanted to try it locally before making the trek. They offered to call up the other dealership and try to trade them to bring the car down. The other dealership refused. Never had this issue with BMW. They were able to get a car from half way across the country to meet my specs.
* Was lied to about hey mercedes
* Was lied to about the mild hybrid / battery
* Now to top it off, I called up my local dealer about looking at the paint issue and they told me I might be charged, so if I don't want to be charged, go to the dealer 40 miles away. Wtf? I wouldn't have bought the car if I had to take a day off of work and drive 80 miles for 2 hrs to get the car serviced. The 40 mile dealer away told me all the warranties can be done at any dealership. If I had to take a day off of work to get my car serviced under warranty, I might as well pay it out of pocket or not buy the car, since i'm contracting right now, I'm by the hour so it'd be more expensive to get it under the so called "free warranty". Confirmed like 7 times through out the sales process that I could do EVERYTHING at my local dealer under warranty.

giovane

Most dealerships' associates know absolutely NOTHING about the tech on the cars they are supposed to sell, so I don't know if they lied to you or it was just plain ignorance.
I would totally drive 40 miles to buy a car without unrequested services attached to it (I would to go out of state if I had to), and yes, ANY MB dealership has to perform services and warranty claims for any car under warranty, no matter where you buy it. EDIT: Unless it's a scam "warranty" sold to you, in that case only that very dealership should cover for it.
Sorry to say this but you made a poor decision buying the car at that dealership.
Are you located in US?

superswiss

You seem to have gone into this quite naively and were taken advantage of by a snake oil salesman. Nothing to do with MB. Dealerships are independent franchises. Factory warranty work can be done at any dealership, but the paint stuff falls under the bag of add-ons they tricked you into buying. That stuff is likely only honored at the dealership you bought the car from, because these are not warranty services provided by MB. As I said, you should have walked away from this deal, or at least be much better informed. The C300 coupe is an old generation now, so no Hey Mercedes, because it doesn't have MBUX. The C300 sedan is already a new generation, but MB discontinued the C and E class coupe, replacing them with the CLE as you probably know now. The CLE 300 is the replacement for the C300 coupe, but not sold in the USA yet as far as I know. The model is brand new.

SledgeHammer01

Yes, I am in California. I did drive 40 miles to buy the car with the understanding that they would deliver it in return for making me drive up there. Which they did. I did ask them what the $2300 "Accessories" was for and if it could be removed and they said no. The "scam warranty" is Zurich Shield. Isn't that a legit warranty?

giovane

Let's say it's useless. If you install good PPF on the hood and front bumper, you don't need any paint insurance. Try to get out of it.

SledgeHammer01

Tricked? I called them out on it. Isn't it a coating akin to ceramic? How do you take that off? Although I'll be the FIRST person to admit that ceramic coating is a scam. I also specifically asked if it was serviceable at any dealership. I made it 100% clear to them up front that I wouldn't be driving up there to service my car ... EVER and confirmed that I could do everything locally 7 times. Either way, I could have either taken the "add ons" or not had a car.

Naïve? As I mentioned above, I knew 100% going in that this was the last year of the C300 and it was discontinued. I bought it because I needed a new car NOW because my old one got totaled. I SPECIFICALLY bought it because I didn't want to wait & spend an extra $20k on the CLE. P.S. I hardly paid sticker on it. I negotiated the price down quite a bit which was another reason I went with the close out model. I didn't even know about Hey Mercedes or the battery going in until the salesmen mentioned them. I hardly buy or don't buy my cars because of a gimmicky voice assistant. I have used Siri on my phone a total of about 1 time lol. It was more a comment that the salesman claimed it had both.

SledgeHammer01

The defect can probably just be buffed out tbh. Not asking them to repaint the car. I have an appointment with my local dealer tomorrow. If they don't cover the ZS, then I'll certainly call the other dealership manager to complain about it. Doubt it will do much good. As for calling them about the Hey Mercedes and battery, not like I could prove they told me that even though I had a 2nd person with me. I couldn't even prove they told me the ZS would be covered at any dealer. It's all he said, she said.

As a result of totaling my previous car, I was in the hospital for a few days and the hospital told us some questionable stuff, so we filed a complaint with the state about it. Same thing. They investigated and the hospital denied everything. The investigator did cite them on some other stuff related to my stay, but bfd, just a slap on the wrist.

superswiss

It's a paint sealant, which is essentially largely useless. What I'm getting at, is that dealership scam you into this stuff by applying it (or at least claiming that it was applied) w/o consent of the customer and then just charging for it. If they'd give the customer the option to have it applied before taking delivery that would be another story. Basically, they added something to the car that you didn't ask for and wasn't a factory option. You came in to buy a car as spec'd from the factory and not one with a bunch of aftermarket stuff added that you didn't have any say in it. That's basically a huge red flag. Most of these sealants and stuff are snake oil. Plain and simple.

Again, you can service and have warranty repairs done at any dealership. If they tell you otherwise then they are reaming you a second time. It's MB policy that the factory warranty is honored at any dealership. Zurich Shield doesn't cover paint damage. Read their FAQ. They only cover fading, oxidation and stuff. Basically long term wear to the paint that they claim their product prevents. Reality is unless you plan on owning the car for 10+ years and keep it parked outside under the sun all the time, then these are not even concerns. I've never owned a car where the paint faded or oxidized with simple proper care. No sealant required.

https://www.zurichshield.com/home-1-2

SledgeHammer01

Hmm... reading the fine print of the contract, it seems like the ZS is paid to ZS ... and per ZS's web site, its supposed to be serviced at ANY dealer.

SledgeHammer01

Yeah, it's like the old under coating scam of the 80s-90s. I'm not even sure what the "damage" is tbh. It doesn't appear to be paint damage, Could just be that the ZS didn't cure evenly or whatever, who knows. If anything, I could argue that it falls under the "loss of gloss" category.

As for the car itself, again, I'm not as "stupid" as you guys are portraying ... I didn't drive 40 miles just to buy a car because it was the only one in the country. My local dealer had several. This one was my preferred color + mostly spec'ed how I would have spec'ed it except I would have picked the other rims. It did have a few extras above what I would have picked, but not any super pricey ones.

My previous car (the one that got totaled), I flew to another state to buy it. I sure as hell wouldn't do that again. Not worth the hassle. Although I loved that car and kept it for 17+ years in pristine condition. RIP .

superswiss

Fair enough. Perhaps I was a little harsh in my judgment, but you did come across somewhat inexperienced. Hard to capture the whole experience and exchange in a forum post I suppose. There are definitely some things that you didn't seem to do your due diligence on ahead of time. Point stands that where you get the car serviced doesn't matter as far as the warranty is concerned and even with ZS you can submit a claim right through their website if you ever should have to. Most of these programs are on a reimbursement scheme anyway. You file a claim and they send you a check. As far as paint damage goes, unfortunately paint isn't really covered under warranty to begin with, unless it's a clear manufacturing defect. They may claim that the damage occurred after you drove it off the lot. Hopefully they are fair and if they can see that the sealant wasn't applied cleanly, then they should redo it, but then again it wasn't them who applied it, so they are not gonna do it for free. That's really the thing that would annoy me most. I hate when somebody just applies stuff to my car w/o asking. I even hate when they clean my windows after a service, because it's usually all streaked afterwards and I have to clean them thoroughly myself.

The one point I would make is that you generally get preferential treatment at the dealership where you bought the car. So your local dealership may not go the extra mile since you didn't buy from them. The dealership I bought mine from is 20 miles away and depending on traffic it's anywhere between 20-60 minutes one way, but I've so far had the car serviced there, because they treat me well, even though I have an MB dealership in my city that would be much closer.

SledgeHammer01

I don't buy cars regularly, if you want to call that "inexperienced". As I mentioned, I kept my previous beloved car for 17+ yrs and would have kept it longer since I would have rather used the money on a new house instead and the car still held its value quite well after all these years ~50% (E46 M3). In general, I'm saavy about avoiding snake oil and pretty much always avoid extended warranties & add ons. I did buy the extended warranty on this car though since I'll probably keep it past the original warranty period and it wasn't that much money.

If they don't do it for free and ZS doesn't cover it and they just want a couple of hundred for it then I'd just pay it before I take a day off of work to go to the other dealership unless they'll do it mobile or on weekends. If they tell me its $1000, then I'll call up the other dealership to talk to them. I don't think its in the paint layer and they'd have a hard time claiming I did it when its inside one of the clear layers. So my guess is your assessment about it being in the sealant is correct.

If it was 20 mins away, I'd have just gone to the other dealership during lunch lol. It is probably 20-30 mins away with no traffic, unfortunately "no traffic" isn't a thing in southern california. During a week day, I'd be sitting in traffic for an hour+ each way.

As for the car wash lol, on my previous car, I kept a roll of painters tape in the trunk and would tape over my Nav unit after some dbag sprayed cleaner on the screen and ruined it and it cost a lot to replace plus a ton of hassle. Good luck getting the front line ticket guy to convey to some random towel guy in the back not to spray anything on the screen.

Jgleason

Recently purchased my wife a 2018 x5 from a BMW dealer and they tried to pull the same stuff. It was a $3k dealer accessory package that they tacked onto the price at the very last second after thinking I would just pay it. I refused to sign and had them itemize their "accessories" that cost $3k. It was essentially floor mats, locking lugs, and nitrogen in the tires. Went back and forth, and almost left without the car because of it, they kept telling me that it had to stay on the contract per dealer policy, and I ripped them a new one for the unethical shady practice. At one point they said they couldn't take it off because then they would have negative margins on the car, called him out on his BS and said if you're only making a profit on a scam then you don't deserve to be in business. Ended up getting them to take it off the contract (still got to keep the add ons). Like someone else said, make it an option that I have the opportunity to decline and that's a different story.

BobZEQEC300

40miles in CA is local.