OK, so I drowe my car off the dealers lot in the beninning of July this year. I later find out that the warrenty start date was back in March and that I would be missing about 10 weeks. I bring this to the dealer and MBs attention and was told that once the dealer puts in a warranty start date it cannot be changed.

We go a couple of rounds and MB is also part of the discussion. I get a call today that MB has changed the warranty start date to reflect the actual purchase date and that NC is the only state where the statute mandates that the warranty starts on the day of purchase.

Has anyone else experienced this and waht was the outcome? BTW, the dealers initial suggestion was to cancel my extended warranty (that I paid for) When I pointed out that I would still be short they kinda went quiet.

 

What was the March date based on? The build date?

 

My first reaction was, "that can't be right", but the California law runs the warranty miles from the mileage on the date of purchase, and doesn't say anything about when the warranty years start to run. Vehicle Code § 28052.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/di...le=28050-28053

 

I just love government.

 

Did you purchase a pre-owned or demo car? If so, that would explain why the warranty start date is earlier than your purchase date. Otherwise, I think someone is feeding you a load of bull...

If you bought the car new, insist that the dealer extend your factory warranty to match up with the 4yr/50k standard warranty as of the purchase date.

When I bought my first E, back in 2003, I managed to get the dealer to extend my factory warranty by 500 miles, since I was buying the car "new" but it already had 500 miles on it.

 

I believe MBs warranty takes effect on the original "in-service" date, so whenever the first person buys it and drives it off the lot, thats when the timer starts to count down. That's what I've heard from MB.

 

It was a new car but it was on ‘loan’ to a golf tournament that took place this spring in the Charlotte area. I knew that when I purchased the car but I was told that it was not a demo nor was it a used car. It was never disclosed to me that the warranty start date was in March until I start getting papers from the dealer and MB saying that the new vehicle warranty start date was April 27. I drove the car off the lot on July 8 so I was about 10 weeks short on warranty. I am planning to keep the car past the original 40K miles so I decided to get a 1 year extended warranty which brings you up to 5 years and 100K miles. With the warranty start being in April that meant that my extended warranty would also be short. I called the dealer and was told that they would honor the purchase date and I would have no problems.

Initially I accepted that but then I got an extended warranty description in the mail from MB which also listed April as the start date. I called MB and was told that they go by the date the dealer put into the system as the start date and it could not changed. That kinda rubbed my the wrong way since I paied for the extended warranty so I called the dealer back asking what would happen if I moved across the country and had to take the car in for warranty work during that 10 week period. The answer was basically that I was on my own unless I wanted to bring the car back to NC for service.

I went a couple of rounds with the dealer and they promised to follow-up and call back. So then yesterday I get a call from MB warranty dept saying that they changed the start date to reflect the purchase date and I am set regardless of where in the US I take the car in for warranty work. The guy then goes on to telling me that this is very unusual and that NC is only state in the union where that is the case and they normally never change the start date.

I went by another dealer that is much closer to where I live and got a print out from MBs system and verified that the date was changed and it was.

So if there are anybody else in NC in a similar situation then you should bring it to the attention of the dealer and get the start date to reflect the purchase date. I am not sure how it would work in other states.

 

One additional thing; in most states if you get a new car (never registered) and there are miles on the clock (say 500) then the org. warranty is still 40K (or whatever) + the miles on the clock.

So if you get a new car with 500 and the org warranty is 40K then the org warranty runs until 40500 or the number of years whatever that might be.