Daimler Board of Management has appointed Dietmar Exler to President and CEO of MBUSA and NAFTA effective January 1, 2016.

EPC (MBUSA online Electronic Parts Catalog) no longer free, one year new or renewal subscription $75.

Voice your opinion: http://mercedes-benz.custhelp.com/

 

Several topics about it all over the net (even Plutoe copied one)
But after they backed off free roadside assistance for life, that was kind of expected.
My local dealer cancel free cappuccino about 12 years ago.
Are they still giving free loaners and carwash?

 

If they give everything away for free then it wouldnt be a business

 

Each bussines has budget for advertisement and warranties.
Free road side assistance was part of advertisement program to lure people to buy MB at the time where not too many shops would touch the brand.
But MB parts are sold with 2-300% markups at retail, so luring customers to buy over the counter with free EPC would be good business.
Top it with fact that $75 for net site access is huge amount of money.

 

STAR 24-hour access more than tripled!

 

Every business marks up their products. I can see some people pulling up the wrong info for the car and getting wrong part numbers then trying to blame dealer when they get wrong parts. The parts department uses epc so let them do the work of looking up the parts. $75 for access to any vehicles complete parts catalog is DIRT CHEAP. If you have a repair shop this could be worth thousands of dollars. To some diy guy in his garage that gets four or five parts a year from dealer it might be a lot.

 

Startek info has a massive massive amount of information on the site, $60 is fair orice for somebody to pay. It has answers to damn near any question you have if you know where to find it

 

The same you can say about automotive forum.
You gain a lot by reading them and so far I have been repairing my MB 95% without WIS as forum is better.
So what you say next time you try to log-in, you will find $75 price tag?

 

Problem with the forum is that maybe you have one or two professionals that know what theyre talking about, then you have a hundred other people that just through out information that may or may not be accurate. There are countless threads showing this to be true and i have seen countless people come in talking about what they have read from forums, more often then not the information they thought to be true about the symptoms they have turns out to be far from what is actually wrong with the vehicle. WIS is great for getting proper instructions for removal of components, aiding in diagnostics, and function descriptions. The forums are good for people trying to fix their car without formal training or full understanding of the vehicles. There are other things to gain from the forums that cant be found in WIS. That said, I have full understanding of these vehicles and they pay my bills. I never turn to a forum to solve a problem. WIS and EPC have aided me in making a living and i dont have a problem paying for it. I guess its like any other tool, you could have a $5 harbor freight ratchet that works for you, i prefer a $120 Snap On ratchet because i know its going to do the job and i wont have to question it.

 

It is turning out into forum value dispute, but IMHO any 4th grade dropout can fix a car when he has $20,000 of tools, short training and step by step printed instruction.
Yet forum is flooded with horror stories how professional mechanics screw one thing after other.
But my point is that some of the forums offer premium membership, that cuts adds. I use Firefox or google who eliminate them.
In the past some forum tried to enforce membership fee. Since there are so many choices, I made a policy that I not going to pay for something I can get for free elsewhere.
I wonder how the fees are going to turn for MBUSA

 

Sure perhaps they could replace a part but actually diagnosing a problem is something completely different. It's the difference between the mechanic making $45k and the tech making $120k. The people that actually see the value in the information provided will gladly pay the price. Hobbyists and people who pretend to fix cars won't find the value and will continue to use forums as diagnostic AIDS.

 

To conclude the professional vs hobby repairs.
I understand that bussines is focus on making predictable repair that will not come back.
Hobbyist think outside the box trying to save money, while his time has lesser value.
Typical sample on this forum - Arnot made $2000 labor procedure how to replace airbags with their aftermarket.
One of the members think outside the box and made it 1-2 hr by leaving old reservoirs on the car.
He claims Arnot pick up his idea and changed the manuals.

 

In the professional world we always remove the old reservoirs and it still only takes 1-2hrs with a lunch break in there. Taking the reservoirs out is maybe ten minutes worth of time.