48 miles at delivery??
 

hi gang,

in a snowy and sleety northeast i took delivery today of my E500.

But at delivery it at 48 miles on the clock. Now I'm not a credulous person by nature, but when my sales guy said "sometimes they pull a car from inventory and test it" - ie do something more than a simple predelivery inspection, I was eager to get home before the weather got worse and said "ok, whatever"

So I ask you - what was the mileage on your E's at delivery?

I'm going to mention it in my survey, that's for sure.

12 miles.

..12 is much more like what I'd expect.

Going to call the general manager tomorrow to look into this.

I visited the factory in Sindelfingen last summer. During the tour, they pointed out a small test facility and said that random cars are tested prior to shipping. They are run on a small oval track, over a cobble-stone surface, etc. Overall, I would guess the whole thing is less than a mile. So while they might have tested your car in Germany, and may do some minor testing at the dealership, I cannot imagine them needing to drive almost 50 miles unless it was a trade from another dealership and was driven from one to another. In your situation, it sounds very fishy to me. Someone went on a joy-ride to the McDonald's in the next county for lunch.....

It definitely was *not* a trade, was a build to order....

i know when they are shipped to the U.S. they run them and check them, they might of thought yours didnt qualify, but saw it did after a while? i dont know

possible...
 

I have heard from other sources that this mileage is not uncommon if the car is 'chosen' for testing at the factory or the port.

I have also heard that a note indicating that this has, in fact, occured is put in the car. Perhaps in the glove box?

Just for the record I have 3 different MB's and none came with more than 11 miles, the lowest was at 8 miles.

JR

If they pull your car for a facotry test, they leave a official document stating so in the glove compartment.

Nope....I'll have to ask. What with the bad weather I was more focused on getting *out*.

James -- that just sounds like too much. I worried about this since my car was held almost a month at the VPC. I was prepared to refuse delivery if the mileage exceeded 50. At delivery it had ~12 miles to the best of my memory.

I'm really happy for you that you've got your car after the long wait. And, if everything looks fine, I'd keep it. I'm not always as agressive as I should be, but if you aren't shy I'd complain that it was excessive mileage and look for some type of compensation or freebies. You've still got to complete the dealer/salesperson satisifaction questionnaire...

Mine had 17 miles on it at delivery.

Can't blame you for just wanting to get out of the dealership. Ask for a written explanation of why it was driven and by whom.

If the dealership denies it then find out how you can question the VPC. Someone drove it.

Good news....you are that much closer to the 1000 mile breakin:p

Ed

17 miles ... my car sat in the dealer lot for about 3 days before I staked my claim on it. It had 12 miles when I test drove it; it had 17 when I picked it up. I figured they must have driven it during dealer prep. No big deal ...

I picked up a brand new $72,000 Audi A8 ordered thru a local dealer...and it had 200 miles on it. Man was I PO'ed.
The general manager made no excuses.
He told me the dealership owner sometimes just takes the cars out for the weekend.
I was livid, chewed out the GM, never went back to speak with any of them, would never get another car there and have badmouthed them at every turn.
This was almost 5 years ago. I'm still burned about it.

I guess I just don't get it. So the car has 48 miles. What's the rip?

The vehicle was sold as 'new', which has a specific meaning in law.

The dealers sell 'new' cars with the assurance that hey have only been test-driven and driven as much as is needed to facilitate the delivery (drive out of the factory, onto the truck/train/car/dealer parking lot, etc).

What else was done prior to delivery? What if one of the technicians took the car for a 'date' and curbed the wheels?

There are liability issues for the dealer as well - suppose someone taking a purchased/committed car out at night (clearly *not* in the line of duty) gets into an accident and injures or kills someone else? What does that do to the dealer's liability insurance?

It's in everyone's interest for new cars to be handled as they're supposed to be handled.


TMBPilot asks 48 miles, so what?
Tell me, if you brought your car in for an oil change, or an alignment, and it came back with 30 miles more on it than when you dropped it off, would you be ok with that?
I'm confused - in another thread you wrote that you dont eat/drink in your car, saying "I for one don't. Too big a risk for a car that I want to keep in pristine condition..."
But triple the delivery-average miles, that's not a problem?

To me, 48 miles doesn't seem excessive for this.

Obviously, if this is the case, this is not acceptable and they should've fixed it before you ever saw the car...

I think this is different as I now own the vehicle. In the other case, the dealership owns it.


Still, triple the average of 12 is only 48...

just my opinion...

i do not want to take any sides at all, but i your right, i would also be pissed at 48 miles, and if the dealer did drive it for fun, then i would also be mad, but if ht egovt thought it failed the emissions, so they needed to do further tests than i would have to live with it, i remember my dealer told me some cars do come with 50 miles, but still, it is only 36 miles extra, it wont hurt at all in the long run, but i would ask the dealer why and how

I would be pissed as s***. You paid for a new car and should get one. If it was driven for ANYTHING else besides proper delivery prep, they should knock off a few grand on the price because of depreciation. If you drove a new car (ie. 12 miles) off of their showroom and then came back with 50 on it and wanted to sell it back, what would they pay you? It is one thing if you bought a car off the lot, because it could have been test driven...but a specially ordered car with 50 miles on it??? Total BS.

BTW, My CLK500 that I picked up on August 19 had 6 miles on it. BY far the lowest on any car I've purchased. The owner wouldn't let ANYONE drive the car (except me when I drove it off the lot :D ).

At the least, you should get a lot of freebies...like the wood steering wheel.

My car had 1km (.6 miles) on the odometer when it arrived at the dealership - The prep guy overthere infront of me test drove it before I took delivery to make sure everything worked OK and the VPC did everything right (That was 5km) so when I took delivery it had 6km on the odometer (< 4 miles) .. Personally, I would want an explanation as to why my car was driven 48 miles (thats like my commute from home to work and work to home) which is ALOT imho and I would be even more pissed than jposhea3 to the point I wouldn't pick the car up till they had an explanation. In germany, they can reset the odometer after a test (like up to 250km or something) so the factory test is out of question for these miles on your car. demand an explanation and lots of gifts :)

They probably test drove the car with some customers that were interested if you did not pick it up immediately. There probably is a record of how many miles were on it at the time it was delivered to the PVC.

I would not be a happy camper if I came to pick up my brand new car and saw that it had 48 miles on it. I would question it like hell. The sales guy at the MB dealership told me that they would not deliver the car to the customer if it has less than 4 miles. So I guess that the minimum is 4 miles. I bought many new cars in the pass and all of them at delivery ranged about 6 to 12 miles.

Sure, 48 miles do not sound much, but if you pay ~65+ grands for it you would like to be the person who put the mileage on it. NOT someone else!!!

Hi

I would expect also a car with very low miles. The only excuse for more than the very few miles on PDI would be the testing at the factory. This should have a certificate or something to prove that.
You have paid for a car that you should be the first to drive other than testing, otherwise you would be better buying one with a few thousand on it at a big reduced price.
My biggist concern would be how it was driven in those first miles as for me these are the most important from a run in point of view. How do you know that someone did no give it a real thrashing to see what it was capable of.

I bought several new cars and noticed that domestic car dealers were more concerned how many miles a car has. I had feeling that if a car has over 60 miles it can't be considered as new. However for imports the picture was different. All Lexus had from 37 to 52 miles. Benzes also had over 20.

What's the "RIP"??? The RIP is most of the folks on this forum are serious car enthusiasts and the delivery of a "new" car with 48 miles on it would simply be unacceptable (without an official "test" certification). God only knows what went on during those 48 miles. Personally, I'd be more than "P'ed", I'd refuse delivery, go elsewhere, and bad-mouth the dealership as often as possible.

My point exactly. If you don't want the car with 48 miles, go somewhere else. If you do want it, take the car and enjoy... Forget about the 48 miles.