Y.Haider

How hard can it be to schedule a service appointment?

i called the local indianapolis mercedes dealership and was made to leave a voice mail (no service advisors available to take my call)

2 days later no call back or nothing so i called again and again voice mail.

I goto their website and try to schedule the appointment with a loaner vehicle. Couple of hours later i get an email from them giving me a random date (which is ok) but says no loaner for this appointment. I send them an email back requesting a loaner vehicle since the dealership is 20 miles from where i live

I have a 19’ GTR. Service code showing on dash says Service BG due which I believe is transmission flush, differential fluid change along with oil and filter

Pretty frustrating

thebishman

I think it’s an endemic issue across multiple brands tbh. I needed the routine annual service on my etron last November. One Audi dealer gave me the earliest appointment 3 months out, the other was 2 months; neither with a loaner! Crazy times.

superswiss

Yep, it's a widespread issue. Not just dealerships, but indy shops around here are booked out as well. Appointments are usually a few weeks out. Have to wait three weeks to get my brakes done at my indy and my MB dealership is busy as hell and I usually have to leave it overnight at least. They do offer Uber vouchers now, too, and I took advantage of that recently when they didn't have an available loaner for my appointment and I didn't want to reschedule just for a loaner. My dealership is 20 miles away, too, but I could also take the train, so getting back isn't really an issue, even if they don't have loaners. I always make the appointment online, but I have to call to reserve a loaner. There are several MB dealerships around here and the one I'm going to is the largest, but I have like 7 others within about the same distance I could take the car to. I'm wondering if there are a ton of people that deferred maintenance during the pandemic and they are all showing up now.

no401k

pretty standard experience, and not just MB I bet. I tried to get some warranty work done on my porsche, they dont have any loaner so instead they send a flatbed to my house 30 miles away both ways. Crazy

thebishman

I do wonder guys about whether given the job market even the high-line dealerships may have lost mechanics to various other trades. Tons of jobs out there still.

JSwan724

Agreed.
In addition the rollout of electric platforms will change the kinds and types of technicians needed.

Also, I think the days of big new car sales departments are on their way out as well. COVID helped to roll out the “Buy From Home” business model.

pjw1967

Awhile back my service advisor said loaners were in short supply since Sales was selling them. That seems to be easing up a bit.

AndrewFerg

I had a horrible experience with my closest Mercedes-Benz dealership. I'm pretty sure there's a thread on here that outlines exactly how bad they were. I then called up another one just a bit further away and had an amazingly wonderful experience. If you live in an area with more than one do try another one before you give up on Mercedes-Benz. And when it's time to buy a new car, remember who treated you well. Mercedes-Benz of Wilsonville is on the bottom of my list. I had the same disparate experience with Jeep dealers. One was horrible, one was great.

W205C43PFL

There are some yup: https://mbworld.org/forums/gle-class...epartment.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/general-m...ealership.html
Like you said though basically not all dealerships are created equally, they all are privately owned and therefore some are better than others, like everything in life, shop around is the way to go.

W205C43PFL

Sorry to hear about the bad experience OP, like others said all the dealerships are busy.

FWIW, my local dealerships and a few others were booked for 3+ months (Canada though), in the USA I believe most loaners are from the used car fleet or they have vehicles specifically used for loaners but were sold during those days/months last year when supply was short and they need to sell some cars to cover the overhead.

In Canada, our dealerships use Enterprise as our dealerships don't have our own loaner fleet, the dealerships here too are owned by private companies/dealership groups. There are (but I think rare) some dealerships in the States that also have Enterprise provide loaners. Forum member superswiss' dealership providing Uber/Lyft etc. as an alternative might not be a bad idea and maybe other dealerships should also consider.

When booking an appointment, in my experience calling is still the way to go despite your experience of it going to voicemail or not answering, try calling different times of the day I guess, good luck! As others mentioned you might not be able to choose loaner without calling in. Emailing is just a waste of time from my experience.

Skilly

Might want to pick a good Indie Shop. They are SOOOO much better right now as compared to the OEM Dealership experience (with some exceptions of course).

luvair

I’m friendly with my dealers service manager for about 15 years. They are booking out 2 months for an oil change. Said is virtually impossible getting quality techs that want to make it career. Sometimes bit of revolving door keeping the talented ones.

AMG 17GT

Grease monkeys are not for long in this electric future….

thebishman

A sea change is coming for dealerships for sure. No more reliance on Service and Parts to make huge profits when most of your vehicles are BEVs.

Y.Haider

if it was a simple oil and filter change then i would have used an indy shop but dealing with transmission fluid i just didnt want to take a chance with it

So following up with my experience, i called up another dealer in downtown indianapolis that is only a service center for mercedes (Used to be sales and service) but the family who owned both dealerships in indiana sold this particular location and is now just a mercedes service center. I now have an appointment for april 5th with a loaner vehicle. This is about a 25-30 mile drive from my place

Service BG is oil/filter change and transmission fluid flush $1300

Skilly

They just shifted the problem. Id argue that we are even MORE dependent on dealers with the new electric platforms. I had a Taycan Turbo that just went to the dealership for the last time (repurchase).

It died in the driveway...the industry uses the term "brick" just like when your phone dies.. This is the same..no response and nothing that you can tinker with. It just, died. They have their version of a Control/Alt/Delete which is locking the car and walking out of key detection distance for about a min but that didn;'t work. These cars typically have a single tech certified to work on them. I use the term 'work' in a very overreaching manner. Essentially, they are qualified to plug the car into a terminal that then reads the faults and sends it back to Germany for diag. From there, Germany techs review the code and then send a response. This process takes a minimum of 2 days and it's just the first step. They implement the suggested fix and if it doesn't work, then they repeat all over again with step 2...and 3 and so on. In the year and a half I owned the car I had several issues that required it to be brought to the dealer. Every visit was a minimum of a week downtime. No exceptions

All of this is 'black box'. None of this is going to be self serve or indie shop available. Less moving parts for sure, but if something major happens your ONLY recourse will be the dealer. This is a new level of dependency, not move away from reliance at all.

AndrewFerg

Sorry to hear about your Taycan but thanks for sharing the story. Sounds about right and what a nightmare. I had a first gen Maserati GT that had a "ghost in the machine" in its electronics. It just randomly wouldn't start as is "bricked." They couldn't fix it. Even had a tech fly out from Italy. They bought it back. And that was just 10% electronics. I'm keeping with spark plugs until I have no choice.

thebishman

I believe that the '20 Taycans were known for having maintenances issues that were difficult to resolve, especially given it was the first year for the car. On Rennlist owners of the latter versions don't seem to have as many issues, and those that do arise seem to be able to be diagnosed/handled more quickly. I have been fortunate in that my '19 etron has only been to the local Service dept 3X and that was for its annual servicing; other wise it has been essentially bulletproof.

Volkswagen products have been particularly hit hard by software issues plaguing multiple brands, and in fact cost the VW CEO his job a while back since it was such a disaster and vehicle plans had to be delayed for years.

However: I agree that we are still in the early years of the BEV transition, and there is not just a lot to learn, but a lot to go wrong with brand new vehicles. But, EV's are so much simpler than ICE vehicles to manufacturer, (or will be), and the components used like most electrical components, should either fail early because of a manufacturing issue, or run for a very long time. To use the example of my etron again; service is just inspections; tyre rotations; a brake flush every two years; etc. When mainstream BEVs have been designed/built for years, there really will be very little maintenance required annually, and dealerships had best work out how to maintain income when Service receipts aren't helping defray the total costs.

Skilly

great minds think alike - I just picked this up over the weekend!

thebishman

That ‘S’ looks fantastic; you’ll love it. My ‘19 Prestige has been the best DD that I’ve ever owned. Not the best car, but the best DD. I bought it out of the lease early, and am trying to decide between trading it for a Rivian R1S that I have reserved and should be delivered later this year, versus ordering a new ‘24 SQ etron. Decisions, decisions.

thebishman

Here’s my plain Jane ‘19 Prestige:

hyperion667

Dealers are complete kooks!

UCIMBZ

Mine is great!! Just dropped off my GT this morning for schedule maintenance. No appointments needed. Got a ride back to the office and a pick up ride when it's ready.

MalibuScott

My service experiences have been uneven. The stellar MBZ operation in L.A. was, for many years, W.I. Simonson in Santa Monica. And then I got a service advisor who screwed up the service on my CL55 AMG. I was really angry. And the service advisor was so bad he got fired.

When I moved I went to Calabasas MBZ, and have been there for 35 years through its name change and numerous ownership changes. (When Jim Bess -- the former Simonson service manager -- was selling the Calabasas dealership it was rumored he had bought with a legacy from old man Simonson in his will, I put together a buyer's group but after going through the books we decided not to proceed.)

At Calabasas, the oil change service on my 2018 AMG GT was always done incorrectly. I suspect it was a failure to change the oil at the proper temperature since within an hour after leaving the store I would get a warning I had too much oil. I went through 3 frustrating services. Then I brought my 2020 cabriolet and armed with a print out from this site about how properly to change the oil, the service was done such that too much oil wasn't added. (Whether it was done "correctly" -- how can we ever know for sure?) You'd think after 4-5 years of servicing AMG 4 liter engines, Mercedes-Benz service departments would eventually figure out how to change the oil per factory specs without the need for a customer to bring a cheat sheet and insist it be followed.

Now that I've trained the Calabasas service people my service experiences have been fine. And they've automated the appointment and loaner car aspects so that aggravation has been minimized.