Paid $2,000 for a service, ended up with $20,000 in Damage!!!

**DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR HERE** Mercedes-Benz of Marin



I took my SLS AMG for service here. The car only had 25K miles but I opted for the 40k mile service which cost me $2000. That service included the transmission/differential fluid change. Everything went fine and the service advisor was very nice.

After taking the car home, I noticed a small spot of oil on the ground under the transmission. I contacted the service advisor and he said bring it back in but no rush since it was a very small drip.

I brought the car back for the inspection. The same AMG certified mechanic performed an inspection. The mechanic said it looked like it was leaking from the top part of the side cover. He also said that when he previously serviced the car, there was no oil or leaks so it had to be related to the service. He said he tightened the bolts on the cover to get them to "seal better".

In parallel, the service advisor contacted an expert at the AMG center in LA. The expert told him it's common to get some oil to come out of the breather on top if the transmission if it was even slightly overfilled. But he said if you drive it enough, that oil will eventually purge. I keep my car as a collector vehicle so I only drive it on special occasions, so its hard to put a lot of miles on it. They told me to take the car home and see if it goes away.

I try to put some miles on it to clear the excess fluid as recommended, but the leak persisted. I told the dealership, but the previous service advisor had left and they started to play dumb about the issue. I thought it was related to the lack of background with the issue due to the advisor leaving, so I didn't think much of it. Again, they had me bring the car back in. This time, they said they found a hairline in the front area of the transmission. This was surprising because that's not where the leak was previously. They said it was likely due to a defect in the transmission that coincidentally failed at the same time as the service. I'm a mechanical engineer and I started to get suspicious of this story because a crack doesn't randomly propagate without a stress. But the dealership said MB USA should do something in goodwill since I did nothing but follow their recommended service. The new advisor gave me the contact for MB USA customer care and sent me off. I contacted MB USA only later to find out MB USA silently denied my claim because they contacted the dealership and the dealership told them I denied service from them to repair the transmission...WHAT???

OK, long story short, the transmission died and this time I took it to Mercedes in Walnut Creek. They were shocked by the whole story of my experience with MB Marin. They took out the transmission and found what was clearly not a "hairline crack". Not only that, the crack started from one of the threaded holes of the bolts that the Marin mechanic tightened during the first inspection. The Walnut Creek mechanic said that over-torquing that bolt should have never been done and is undoubtedly the reason for the crack. He said the transmission is not an an allowed serviceable part per Mercedes USA and over-torquing by definition is a damaging act.

MB WC was very nice and escalated the issue with the regional manager. That gentlemen contacted MB USA to see what they would do to help me out given my overall experience Mercedes Marin. They came back and said they would pay for half of the replacement cost. I was hoping for all of the bill, but I know that was very generous of them.

I contacted MB Marin and asked them to just cover my portion of the repair, ~$10k. I didn't ask them for the whole sum of damage that was done by their dealership, damage to my garage floor, nor damage to the value of my collector car for no longer being original, lack of use of the car, the days lost dealing with this whole issue, and the pile of stress I had to deal with. I thought that was more than a fair request since they unquestionably did the damage to my car. I was contacted by their "Fixed Operations Director" that told me over-torquing the bolt is not a definitive reason for crack, ignored all the other facts, and gave me an offer for $3500 with no admission of fault. Along with the offer, they said they'd require a non-disclosure agreement so I'm not allowed to discuss or post my experience. I was so disgusted by the offer and told him that's not a fair offer and that he should explain to his management that my request wasn't even for all the damage. He came back with the same offer, and shortly after even withdrew that offer and effectively told me I would have to sue them.

To me, posting my experience so no one else goes through such an experience with this dealership is worth more than $3500 of $20,000 in damage they did to my car. Hope this review helps anyone that reads it to make a wise decision on where to take their car for service.

 

Make sure you report this on Google reviews and any other place that you can tell your story...the dealer may get back to you and offer a solution.

 

It wasn't until Covid19 hit that I had time to put my story out, but at the same time I posted it on Google, yelp and a couple other sites. I even told them that I would do that and possibly sue them for the damages, I just haven't had time to do that until lately. I hate suing so I haven't pursued that option, but recalling all that happened when I put this post out reminded me of how angry and stressed I was with this dealer so I might sue before the statute of limitations runs out. It's really not my personality to seek legal recourse so I gave them every option to settle this for literally only my out of pocket cost, not even the whole damages. They gave me that ridiculous offer of $3500, then retracted that when I got a statement from the SA at WC MB that they measured the torque on the adjacent bolts and they were all over-torqued. You would think showing them they were clearly at fault would humble them, not get a pissy response and say they retract their token offer. Just shows you how little they really care about customers.

The part that really angers me is if I had them replace the transmission instead of WC, they wouldn't have disclosed the crack was from the bolt they over-tightened. Pretty much what they did on the second inspection when they told me the leak was from a "hairline crack" and didn't mention how it was leaking from a different area now.