akingzkid

Happy to report that last month MB of Fredericksburg, VA stepped up and performed a "good will" replacement of all of my interior wood grain trim that was fading. It wasn't fading horribly but if you looked at the trim on the rear doors, they were considerably darker than the doors, dash and center console in the front. The car is a 2014 e350 and when I got it in Jan 2017 it was not tinted. About a month or two later I had it tinted (not very dark but back is about 30% darker than front). Factory warranty is expired but I have extended and CPO warranty. Neither of those covered this but they were nice enough to do it as a good will replacement. I don't have great "before" pictures (maybe 1 or 2) and they are shortly after I got the car so they don't show how they had faded over the last year and 7 months. These pictures don't do it justice and it's kinda hard to see a difference in them but it does look better now. The main purpose of my post is to let everyone know that it is possible to have this done and to give a shout out to the dealership that hooked me up.

Thank you MB of Fredericksburg, VA.

akingzkid

Having a difficult time getting the pictures to load!!!

raja777m

read this thread on how to add pics:
https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...ca-wheels.html

YW.

akingzkid

Feb 2017

Feb 2017

Jan 2018

Jan 2018

Sept 2018 (new/replaced)

Sept 2018 (new/replaced)

Sept 2018 (new/replaced)

Sept 2018 (new/replaced)

raja777m

cool, hope my guys does the same for my milky walnut wood trim.

thefisch

Good for you OP. For those of us who've been turned down for faded wood GW, have you done business before with the dealer or owned past MB's?

akingzkid

thefisch

That is even more impressive. Did you get from another MB dealer or private sale?

drdantheman1

Funny timing, the dealer is actually in the process of replacing all of my black ash wood in my 2014 w212 as well!!! They are waiting on the pieces to come in from Germany. In my case, it took two visits to convince them to replace the pieces. The first time, they agreed to replace the drivers side vent because the wood was cracking at the corner underneath the clear coat. Once they replaced that one piece however, it became very obvious how yellowed and faded the other pieces were.

I also did not buy my car from them, but have been servicing it there often, and have had a lot of small issues fixed with them under warranty. I bought it in March of this year and the previous owner did NOT have a tint on the vehicle (which I immediately corrected the first weekend I had it).

akingzkid

ghlkal

Amazing. I am happy for you akingzkid and drdantheman1

Imagine if all dealers were like that!

JALLEN4

They should replace it. It is a known problem and has been for some time. I had it replaced in my previous 2012 E350 back in 2013. You do realize the dealer does not pay the cost and in fact makes a substantial profit. The manufacturer is ultimately the source of any warranty or goodwill.

drdantheman1

For item like this, which involve environmental factors such as prolonged sun exposure ( I know, doesn't make much sense), the dealer has to get approval from MB corporate to replace the items, even if it's a known issue. If the dealer replaced the wood, but an MB rep comes by and inspects the original items and denies the warranty work, the dealer is out $$$$ for the replacement.

The issue is that most dealers don't want to go through the extra leg work of sending pics to corporate for approval, or at least elevate the work order to that level.

JALLEN4

This is why there are factory service reps and factory sales reps. This level of repair can be approved in the field usually with a phone call. No dealer with any sense or experience is going to put themselves in a position for a payment rejection after the repair is made on a car they did not sell and is in fact a goodwill repair.

akingzkid

And this is probably the exact reason he had to send pictures to some rep for approval.

akingzkid

I knew that about warranty work but did not know that about good will work. I would think they had to eat the cost for the good will work (for the labor if nothing else). Yes, I used the argument that this was a known issue. That combined with the obvious difference between the color of rear and front panels was enough for him to submit it up.

JALLEN4

I was a dealer for 40 years with multiple brands. Certainly I wanted the consumer to think that we were paying. Nothing like "free" to keep them coming back. Not to say that there were not on a regular basis items we did pay for. Generally, if you are going to pay, it is going to be in the case of the customer who purchased from you and longer experience with that customer usually brings more latitude. Trying to "buy" loyalty from the consumer who has not bought from you usually does not end well.