ofs1

I'm trying to determine whether there is any sense in getting a service B performed on my wife's 07 E350 4matic wagon.

She has 27,000 miles on the car but is an '07 so it's out of warranty. There are no issues with the way it runs. It has brand new tires so rotation isn't needed. I can easily replace the Air Filter and Cabin Filter.

From what I can see the service is nothing more than visual inspections. We have a coupon for a free code scan, so what, if anything am I getting for $400.00?

With the car out of warranty I could also take it to an independent Mercedes specialist for an inspection. Is there any benefit to going to the MB dealer?

Thanks!
ofs1

edwinwalke

Should be doing an oil and filter with the B service. Most of the inspection items you or an indie can do.

ofs1

But isn't that all a B service is, an inspection? The dealer gave me a B service check list and it only indicated check and fill for oil.

Thanks for your response.

sosh

The B service and all other services are not put in the manual because MB likes to print stuff. If you are going to start cheaping out all bets are off on future reliability. Its called preventative maintenence. Do you comprehend what preventative means?

edwinwalke

Oil change interval is either 10K or13K. Check your maintenance booklet. it specifies what is required at the various intervals. If you don't have one you can download from the MBUSA website.

Long Islander

You should get the oil and filter changed. You can check battery level, other fluids, tire pressure, wiper blades and belts yourself without paying the dealer an extra $200 for that service. You should also change the brake fluid and pollen filter every two years. You can do the latter yourself easily with instructions that you can find on this forum by doing a search.

ofs1

Thanks Oggie, we purchased the car in October of '10 with 17000 miles and it had a brake fluid change then. I usually do my own basic mechanics, Oil, filters, etc but this is our first MB and it's a more sophisticated vehicle than our Volvo was. I want to do the right preventative work without paying for too much of the dealer's free cappuccino and wi-fi. (Eg. we have a cracked glass on an outside mirror. The dealer quotes $798 to repair it and my body shop (high end mostly MB, Porsche, Audi and exotics) quoted $198)

I'll find a reliable indy MB shop to do the inspections I can't perform.

venchka

Service intervals also have a time component. As in either X miles OR Y months. An '07 anything should be getting regular service at the time intervals since your wife hardly uses the car. We have kept a pair of Volvos virtually trouble free for a total of 21 years and 270,000 miles by having them serviced according to the Volvo "Book" and changing the oil & filter at half of the "Book" interval. YMMV.

M-B may hide stuff behind covers and plates and layer on multiple software widgets, but I doubt that the vehicle is anymore sophisticated than my Volvo Stealth SUV Turbo AWD Race Wagon.

Wayne

boschk

Yep, the dollars it costs prevents me from spend them on something else. B is an oil change with an inspection. I have the list of items to be inspected and as a proud man, I pride myself being able to do things like check brakes, CV joints, batteries, etc... In fact, I enjoy doing it.

It must say something sucky about MB realiability when I owned and Isuzu Rodeo that I beat the caca out of for 100k miles with nothing more than oil changes. NO realiability issues. Come on... You're telling me that MB build quality can't match up with an Isuzu Rodeo?

I'm tired of the dealer guilt that if you don't bring your MB in for a a windsheild wiper inspection every 30 days, you're not worthy of such a fine automobile. Hogwash! If our cars are superior in terms of engineering, they should need LESS maintenance. But, with complexity comes less reliability. So much for the value of having sensors to sense the sensors! Anything that has occured on my CLS had NOTHING to do with preventative maintenance. For example, a pinched wire for for the airbag system as a result of poor installation at the factory. How do you prevent a problem you can't even see or test for? But, I guess I'm not the norm went it comes to cars. I understand how they work and what to look for because I enjoy backyard wrenching.

DiggerJim

LMAO! That's so right. Mine goes in next week for a new SBC pump - at 100600 miles the red screen of brake death came on. It's had all MB service at the dealer and it still has a bad SBC pump. Somewhere out there I believe there's an engine rebuild in my future too which I'm supposed to wait until it breaks to have them fix - and that's on my dime because they haven't made an extended warranty yet like they did with the SBC pump...but based on my engine # I should expect it. Mine also had an intermittent Teleaid failure - traced to corrosion on the antenna wire in the trunk - not exposed to the weather, in the trunk...and that's not on any maintenance schedule. Of course it had the bad window regulator problem (fixed under warranty). It wasn't mine at the time but I wonder if there was a maintenance check for that one before it broke (for mine & thousands of others). The cost of keeping it on the road for non-gear heads post-warranty is exactly the reason they crash in value after 75K miles.

apl175

Does anyone assume / do what I do for US cars:

From what I know the Service letters "A, B, C, D, E" are only an indication of the amount of time a service visit may take. Except for some common operations like oil/filter change, the actual service content depends on the Service Numbers. The Numbers can only be gotten to through the "secret instrument cluster menu" (go to the basic display with the speed on it while the ignition is on, and engine is off, and press the reset button on the cluster three times rapidly) and navigating to "Service Items due" or some such thing - a series of service numbers appears. Each one can be acknowledged individually or can all be done at the same time.

In my case, my service "C" which was coming up consisted of Service #:5, 10, 12, and 14. Using the service sheets, this means:
Service 5: Diesel Fuel Filter change
Service 10: Tilt/Sliding Roof Clean Side Rails and shoes
Service 12: Oil/Filter change
Service 14: General leakage and condition inspection

Is this the right way to do things when it comes to determining what is needed in each service interval?

Enclosed is the sheet that has all of the service #s on it (for US market MY07 AMG and Diesel cars only) I'm sorry I didn't grab the one for the regular gasoline engines - anyone else have it ?

DanG2

It's true that Service B (unless Additional Work is required) is just an oil change and an inspection, but so is Service A. And the Service B inspection is more thorough than Service A, so if I were going to skip one, it would be Service A, not Service B.

I don't know what kind of check list the dealer gave the OP, but I would suggest going to the Service E-Class Sticky (fourth one down) at the top of this forum and clicking on 05_08maint.pdf in Konigstiger's Post #83. Someone who's mechanically inclined and knows how (and when) to search these forums can probably perform most of the work that's listed, and a good indy can probably do most if not all of the rest. I don't think the car will care who does the work, as long as the work gets done.