benzbell

This is the mother of all stories. I know it's a long read but worth it. This happened to me in my GTR after two weeks and 200 miles. I copied it from an older post:


"Wow - what a story I hardly know where to begin. I was in Las Vegas (visiting) on Wednesday 1/17. I made a normal U-turn to head towards (the strip) Las Vegas Blvd. As soon as I completed the turn a warning light saying: "Electronic Rear Differential Lock Inoperative" next "Blind Spot Assist Inoperative" followed by"Malfunction See Owners Manual." I thought great - really. Next stop light, I turned the engine off and restarted it. All errors were gone. I thought okay maybe it was just a glitch or something.

Couple blocks later. I'm turning into the main valet at the Aria. As I put the car in park - all the warnings come back. Except this time it also says:" Engine Oil Level Cannot Be Measured."
Followed by the temperature light coming on indicating the car is overheating (It wasn't). I had no choice and turned the engine off. Then to my horror - it would not restart. Assumed because of the message about engine oil not being able to be measured.

If anyone here has ever been to the Aria - it is a busy place. Luckily, I was towards the front. So I hit the MBrace button and they are going to send a flatbed. I didn't want this car being yanked on to a flatbed and spoilers crunching and all of the other bad things that can happen. I had the cell phone number of the shop foreman at my dealership where I purchased it. I called and he picked up and I started to explain what was happening.

He said can you put the car in neutral and I said no. He said then you can't tow it. He also found out there is no emergency tow node for the vehicle. Also right about this time the whole car went dead like the battery was disconnected. So I hang up as he is going to check into some things on the situation. At this time the Aria valet guys brought out some go-jacks (those are jacks that lift the wheels off the ground a few inches and you can easily roll a car). The new plan was to roll the car out of the way until I could figure out what to do.

One of the jacks was missing a top bolt on the wheel and they didn't want to lift and roll the car because of liability. I then called the tow company to come out and do this - so now it was probably more like a service call. Since they are hired by Mercedes, they told me all they do is tow and this is highly irregular and they would have to call for authorization. Great! By now - I'm going on about two hours sitting there.

People were coming by constantly and taking pictures of the car and asking about it. I tried to keep a good attitude and would joke and say things like" If you have a car that runs I'll trade you." Next, I'm waiting for call backs and finally get one. Mercedes will authorize the tow truck company to do it. I call them back and they basically didn't want to do it. Made up a bunch of excuses. They just didn't want the job for whatever reason. Now I call MBrace back and they are calling around to see if a tow company wants to come out with gojacks and roll a car out of the way. They are having Zero luck. They even told me they got hung up on a few times.

Now it's over three hours in valet with the car. I decided and tipped the valet guys good enough to help me roll it out of the way. A suggestion by a supervisor was the car would be safer in the VIP area which was very shortly across the way. Luckily, someone came out and said don't. Reason is because there is a slight incline there that gets steeper fast. If the car gets away from us it could go rolling down the hill and potentially have rolled on to Las Vegas Blvd. How's that for a funny image?

I figured the missing nut on top of the wheels Shouldn't be too big of a problem. The weight of the car would hold it down and it did. We then got it up and rolled it off to the side. We had rags on the top of the tires and that's where we pushed. No hands on any painted parts. At four hours now. I'm done and want to go to my room. Thinking this will get figured out in the morning. It's very well lit and they have valet and security 24/7. They assured me they'd keep an extra watchful eye on the car.

Just as I get to my room I get a call from a technician from Fletcher Jones . He said he can come by and run some codes and jump the car. I almost told him no because I was prepared to deal with everything in the morning. So I said okay come by and text me when you get here. I get a text 30 minutes later and he says he is out front. I see his Mercedes Roadside Assistance Vehicle and I can immediately hear/tell my car us running. That certainly lifted my mood.

Battery was somehow dead and he hooked up the test and cleared the codes and the car started. Let it run for a while. There were no codes, battery was charging. Turned it on and off and it started fine. He explained there is something still wrong and we need to get it to the shop. I thought great I can at least drive it there tomorrow morning. I was certain If I didn't make a U-turn the car would be okay. I took it for a quick spin and the tech followed me for a bit then left. He offered to come down in the AM and follow me up to Fletcher Jones.

I didn't think that would be necessary as long as the car started. It started the next morning and I took it to Fletcher Jones. The technician comes out and I tell him the story and he drives the car back to start on it and said he'll know something in a few hours. By the way I found out the tech is a guy named Doug Wolf who is the: "Mercedes-Benz Global Tech Masters gold medalist" - and the team leader at Fletcher Jones MB. That's right the top AMG mechanic in the entire world. So that made me feel really good.

I hung out in the lounge for an hour and he and the service adviser came out and explained what he'd found so far. Said it should be done and fixed at the end of the day. I was really surprised. My biggest fear was a blown computer/module exclusive to this car and it would take weeks or months to get one at least. After that they offered me a loaner car or a ride back to the hotel. I opted for the ride back. A few short hour later they call me and say the car is done and send someone to get me. They even filled the car with gas for me.

Fletcher Jones was incredible and awesome in every way possible to help me. They really cared and it showed. Can't thank or praise them enough. Total rock-stars. Below, I've included the text from the tech (Doug Wolf) that was on my invoice for you to see. I know this was long but I wanted to tell this story. Apologize for any grammar. But I'm not writing this for an essay contest. Basically, this all came down to one chafed wire - lol."