BREAKING NEWS! Dealership Service Departments SUCK!
11-08-2011, 05:24 PM
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'00 CLK430 & '08 Lexus RX 350
BREAKING NEWS! Dealership Service Departments SUCK!
I have a short story to tell and would love to ask for your opinion once you have suffered through reading it!
Additionally I ask that you please forget we're friends, colleagues and fellow MB lovers...just read the story for the details. Consider that this could easily be your own story. What is your opinion? How would you feel? What if you were the service manager making the decisions in this matter? What say you?
Without further adieu;
My story begins on a normal workday morning as I pull into the parking deck at work. Unbeknownst to me, as I hop out of the car, lock up and head for the office, my headlights were were still shining on the parking deck wall behind me.
I left my headlights on for only a few hours and sure enough, as I approached the lifeless vehicle with visions of a nice lunch hour, I realized my remote would not unlock the doors. She was dead! Really dead and in need of a jump start. I pulled out the phone and dialed up the trusty MB Roadside assistance and asked them to dispatch a tech to my location and deliver me from my dead battery situation.
About 4 hours later, the very polite MB roadside tech arrived, jumped the car, I tipped him, paid for his parking fee in the deck, thanked him and showed him where to exit and be on his way.
Almost immediately after the guy was out of sight and my attention was back on my car, I noticed that neither of my headlamps were working. I called MB roadside back for advice and they suggested I go to the dealer service dept.
To make a long story short(ish), I brought my car to the MB Buckhead service department where they promptly declined responsibility for shorting out two lamp ballasts / igniters and the cost to replace both would be roughly $2600.00.
I feel it is important to mention at this point that both headlights are relatively new. One is a mere 3 months old and the other only 3 years old. The original lights I had in the car lived for over 7 years before I had to replace them due to an accident. Mind you...these things are built to last years if not for the life of the car. Bulbs you replace, but not $1200 headlamp assemblies unless you've had an accident and crush one to bits!
Thankfully, one of the lamps was still under a 12 mo. parts warranty.
Given that they were stonewalling me and my efforts to have the dealership admit liability were going nowhere, I asked them to go ahead and replace the battery and the one headlamp that was under warranty and declined the replacement of the headlamp that was no longer under the parts warranty.
I made this decision for two reasons; 1) I could not afford to replace the $1300 headlamp and 2) because I felt MB Buckhead and their roadside assistance should acknowledge that the jump they provided was the root cause for both lamps to be blown / shorted simultaneously....I just needed a bit more time to convince them.
Boy that was wishful thinking!
In fact the service adviser tells me that he can "hypothesize all day long" but can not tell me what caused such a short on two virtually brand new and completely separate units.
So much for a diagnosis!
Isn't the simple definition of diagnosis the act or process of identifying or determining the nature and cause of a disease or injury through evaluation of history, examination, and review of relevant data? So if you are charging me full price I want a full diagnosis...I want to know what caused this. Of course they were not about to give me the cause because I believe that would leave them liable.
What the service adviser was able to tell me is only that they were both blown (Duh!), that they would warranty one, wouldn't pay for the other and just how much it was gonna cost me!
Soooo. I figure I'll find a way to get the other headlamp working on my own dime and not involve MB Buckhead any further than the new battery and the one lamp replaced under warranty. After 6 (S-I-X) business days, I arrived to pick up the car and planned to pay only for the new battery.....but nooooooo!
How could I be so naive!? There's that obligatory "Diagnosis" fee of course! And as described above, I got a partial diagnosis at best and to boot they determined that one of two lamps was under warranty! So b/c it was a warranty issue I shouldn't have to pay for the diagnosis of that right?
WRONG!
MB Buckhead charged me $150 diagnostic fee for determining that a warranty part was blown. I argued that I should not be charged since the "diagnosis" led to a warrantied item but b/c I declined the one lamp replacement that was not under parts warranty, they saw fit to charge me.
Assuming there was a trace of good customer service practice in their blood, Mercedes Benz of Buckhead saw fit to change how I was billed in order to save me $15 across the board! My service adviser changed the $150 diagnosis fee to a $125 installation/labor fee for the $160 battery I bought while I was there. So nice! (insert sarcasm here) Thank you!
So here I sit, writing to you out of frustration and bewilderment with $300 less than I had this morning for which I have a new battery and I still don't have the 2 working headlights that in my opinion were blown out by the very service department that wants to charged me to replace them!!
So now that you've suffered through this long and largely uninteresting story, I invite you to leave your opinion. Any will do!
Am I just mad that I paid $300 for a new battery and still don't have two working headlights? Did they royally screw me? Got any ideas or possible solutions to my problem? Learn to write in shorthand your story is too damn long? Serves you right for owning a car you can not afford?
Whatever you got....let me have it!
All humor aside, I really value your input and your opinion! I hope I haven't bored you. I hope you can relate to my story and maybe even be a little wiser having read it.
Regards,
Matt Minton
Additionally I ask that you please forget we're friends, colleagues and fellow MB lovers...just read the story for the details. Consider that this could easily be your own story. What is your opinion? How would you feel? What if you were the service manager making the decisions in this matter? What say you?
Without further adieu;
My story begins on a normal workday morning as I pull into the parking deck at work. Unbeknownst to me, as I hop out of the car, lock up and head for the office, my headlights were were still shining on the parking deck wall behind me.
I left my headlights on for only a few hours and sure enough, as I approached the lifeless vehicle with visions of a nice lunch hour, I realized my remote would not unlock the doors. She was dead! Really dead and in need of a jump start. I pulled out the phone and dialed up the trusty MB Roadside assistance and asked them to dispatch a tech to my location and deliver me from my dead battery situation.
About 4 hours later, the very polite MB roadside tech arrived, jumped the car, I tipped him, paid for his parking fee in the deck, thanked him and showed him where to exit and be on his way.
Almost immediately after the guy was out of sight and my attention was back on my car, I noticed that neither of my headlamps were working. I called MB roadside back for advice and they suggested I go to the dealer service dept.
To make a long story short(ish), I brought my car to the MB Buckhead service department where they promptly declined responsibility for shorting out two lamp ballasts / igniters and the cost to replace both would be roughly $2600.00.
I feel it is important to mention at this point that both headlights are relatively new. One is a mere 3 months old and the other only 3 years old. The original lights I had in the car lived for over 7 years before I had to replace them due to an accident. Mind you...these things are built to last years if not for the life of the car. Bulbs you replace, but not $1200 headlamp assemblies unless you've had an accident and crush one to bits!
Thankfully, one of the lamps was still under a 12 mo. parts warranty.
Given that they were stonewalling me and my efforts to have the dealership admit liability were going nowhere, I asked them to go ahead and replace the battery and the one headlamp that was under warranty and declined the replacement of the headlamp that was no longer under the parts warranty.
I made this decision for two reasons; 1) I could not afford to replace the $1300 headlamp and 2) because I felt MB Buckhead and their roadside assistance should acknowledge that the jump they provided was the root cause for both lamps to be blown / shorted simultaneously....I just needed a bit more time to convince them.
Boy that was wishful thinking!
In fact the service adviser tells me that he can "hypothesize all day long" but can not tell me what caused such a short on two virtually brand new and completely separate units.
So much for a diagnosis!
Isn't the simple definition of diagnosis the act or process of identifying or determining the nature and cause of a disease or injury through evaluation of history, examination, and review of relevant data? So if you are charging me full price I want a full diagnosis...I want to know what caused this. Of course they were not about to give me the cause because I believe that would leave them liable.
What the service adviser was able to tell me is only that they were both blown (Duh!), that they would warranty one, wouldn't pay for the other and just how much it was gonna cost me!
Soooo. I figure I'll find a way to get the other headlamp working on my own dime and not involve MB Buckhead any further than the new battery and the one lamp replaced under warranty. After 6 (S-I-X) business days, I arrived to pick up the car and planned to pay only for the new battery.....but nooooooo!
How could I be so naive!? There's that obligatory "Diagnosis" fee of course! And as described above, I got a partial diagnosis at best and to boot they determined that one of two lamps was under warranty! So b/c it was a warranty issue I shouldn't have to pay for the diagnosis of that right?
WRONG!
MB Buckhead charged me $150 diagnostic fee for determining that a warranty part was blown. I argued that I should not be charged since the "diagnosis" led to a warrantied item but b/c I declined the one lamp replacement that was not under parts warranty, they saw fit to charge me.
Assuming there was a trace of good customer service practice in their blood, Mercedes Benz of Buckhead saw fit to change how I was billed in order to save me $15 across the board! My service adviser changed the $150 diagnosis fee to a $125 installation/labor fee for the $160 battery I bought while I was there. So nice! (insert sarcasm here) Thank you!
So here I sit, writing to you out of frustration and bewilderment with $300 less than I had this morning for which I have a new battery and I still don't have the 2 working headlights that in my opinion were blown out by the very service department that wants to charged me to replace them!!
So now that you've suffered through this long and largely uninteresting story, I invite you to leave your opinion. Any will do!
Am I just mad that I paid $300 for a new battery and still don't have two working headlights? Did they royally screw me? Got any ideas or possible solutions to my problem? Learn to write in shorthand your story is too damn long? Serves you right for owning a car you can not afford?
Whatever you got....let me have it!
All humor aside, I really value your input and your opinion! I hope I haven't bored you. I hope you can relate to my story and maybe even be a little wiser having read it.
Regards,
Matt Minton
Last edited by MMM430; 11-08-2011 at 05:27 PM.
11-08-2011, 07:00 PM
#3
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'00 CLK430 & '08 Lexus RX 350
I dont have the answer as to why the jump would have done that. Ordinarily I'd say that would be up to the experts at the dealership to "diagnose". But seeing how both headlamps were shorted / blown at exactly the same time and the last time they worked was prior to the jump.....my money would be on the jump having had something to do with it.
Perhaps the ground was not sufficient and since the headlamps were in the ON position during the jump, could there possibly have been a surge that shorted them both? I dunno.
Do you have other ideas on how two would be shorted at the same time that might explain the timing of the jump a mere coincidence? The dealership did not.
They way I see it, the service dept. had two loopholes working in their favor; 1) If the service techs are "unable" to identify the cause they are likewise unable to rule themselves (the jump) at fault. 2) Having taken loopehole #1, they can simply say that they will not fix the lamp b/c it is not under a warranty of any kind despite it being a relatively new part.
They recognized the loopholes, and elected to take them rather than stand up and do what is right by their customer. Of course that's only my opinion.
Thanks for your question/point!
Perhaps the ground was not sufficient and since the headlamps were in the ON position during the jump, could there possibly have been a surge that shorted them both? I dunno.
Do you have other ideas on how two would be shorted at the same time that might explain the timing of the jump a mere coincidence? The dealership did not.
They way I see it, the service dept. had two loopholes working in their favor; 1) If the service techs are "unable" to identify the cause they are likewise unable to rule themselves (the jump) at fault. 2) Having taken loopehole #1, they can simply say that they will not fix the lamp b/c it is not under a warranty of any kind despite it being a relatively new part.
They recognized the loopholes, and elected to take them rather than stand up and do what is right by their customer. Of course that's only my opinion.
Thanks for your question/point!
Last edited by MMM430; 11-08-2011 at 07:02 PM.
11-08-2011, 08:55 PM
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2012 C63 AMG edition 1
Well i have no idea why a jump would cause the lights to short? But the service dept at MB has always been very fair...I cant say the same for Audi
11-09-2011, 01:42 AM
#5
MBWorld Fanatic!
First, you really should make jumping a car the last option. It does you no good now, but I would have had MB roadside assistance simply install a new battery rather than jump the car. They typically have several batteries with them. Jumping a car increases the amperage as the batteries are in parallel, but this isn't what typically fries things. The cooking comes shortly after the car is running . . . . . . . .
The car was jumped and started. Then the jumper cables were disconnected. When the second battery was disconnected, your voltage regulator detected the voltage drop and the alternator output went into thermonuclear mode to increase the voltage. If the lights were in the "on" position, THAT may have fried your ballasts and ignitors. Did anyone turn off the headlamps before attempting to start the car? The owner's manual warns against this. It's common to leave the two batteries connected for some period of time before attempting to start the dead car. That's to try and bring some life back to the low battery before the car is started. However, leaving the headlamps on probably killed (versus wounding) your battery. In that case, connecting it before AND leaving the car running for two minutes or so may not have made a difference. The voltage spike would have happened anyway. Disconnecting the jumper cables on a car with a dead battery is better than disconnecting a battery on a running car, but not by much.
BTW, you can fry an ECU jumping a car. Some fuses burn up too slowly to save anything. A friend of mine fried the ECU in his Mitsu doing this. The car was less than a year old, the damage was not under warranty (due to being jumped), and the bill was astronomical.
Absolute lastly - here in California, anyone who works on a vehicle and charges money, has to have a signed estimate to begin work. That estimate states how much they can charge and the owner agrees to pay that much. The battery price, the labor to install it, and the diagnostics would all have been stated in the estimate. I don't know about Georgia, but in California, the final bill would not have been a surprise. If the laws are the same in your state, and you weren't given an estimate, you can sue in small claims court.
The car was jumped and started. Then the jumper cables were disconnected. When the second battery was disconnected, your voltage regulator detected the voltage drop and the alternator output went into thermonuclear mode to increase the voltage. If the lights were in the "on" position, THAT may have fried your ballasts and ignitors. Did anyone turn off the headlamps before attempting to start the car? The owner's manual warns against this. It's common to leave the two batteries connected for some period of time before attempting to start the dead car. That's to try and bring some life back to the low battery before the car is started. However, leaving the headlamps on probably killed (versus wounding) your battery. In that case, connecting it before AND leaving the car running for two minutes or so may not have made a difference. The voltage spike would have happened anyway. Disconnecting the jumper cables on a car with a dead battery is better than disconnecting a battery on a running car, but not by much.
BTW, you can fry an ECU jumping a car. Some fuses burn up too slowly to save anything. A friend of mine fried the ECU in his Mitsu doing this. The car was less than a year old, the damage was not under warranty (due to being jumped), and the bill was astronomical.
Absolute lastly - here in California, anyone who works on a vehicle and charges money, has to have a signed estimate to begin work. That estimate states how much they can charge and the owner agrees to pay that much. The battery price, the labor to install it, and the diagnostics would all have been stated in the estimate. I don't know about Georgia, but in California, the final bill would not have been a surprise. If the laws are the same in your state, and you weren't given an estimate, you can sue in small claims court.
11-09-2011, 10:24 AM
#6
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Great info Marcus! As far as the signed estimate....yes the amount was not really a shock. It was that I was being charged for diagnostics which led to the warrantied part. I believe they knew they could not charge for the diagnostics when it turned out the part that failed was under said warranty. So disguised as a favor to me, they shifted the diagnostics over a column and called it an "install" charge for the battery. I told the guy that he can have his battery back and I would call roadside from his office to come install a new one at no cost that way I'd only be paying for the battery itself. To that he replied that he would then charge me the $150 diagnostics. He made it sound as though he was doing me a favor by charging me the $125 for install rather than the $150 for diagnostics. I had no way out...either way it was approx. $300. I chose the lesser of the two scenarios.
