When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
When the prepaid agreement says ""once per year or every 10,000 miles" why do you say that "MB wins, obviously". ?
I was told there is a, "whichever occurs first" attachment to the "or". I never went to the contract to try to piece it apart....I'm not a lawyer and in the end it was easier just to get a sympathetic ear at the CAC.
That said, if someone really wanted to get feisty about this, it's also true that at least in my case there was no review of formal contract on the prepaid maintenance prior to them taking the money. It was like "Prepaid saves $X on your first two services, do you want that?". So if someone had way too much time on their hands, they could probably organize a viable small class-action suit. It does seem just flat out wrong that they would keep all the money without providing the associated service.
2019 E 450, 2016 E350 4matic (retired), 2018 Ford Edge Sport, 2008 Porsche Boxster
Originally Posted by Optics76
I was told there is a, "whichever occurs first" attachment to the "or". I never went to the contract to try to piece it apart....I'm not a lawyer and in the end it was easier just to get a sympathetic ear at the CAC.
.
That was exactly what my service advisor tried to sell me: that it was one year or 10,000 which ever comes first. I said I had no intention of paying twice for the B service. He then backed down.
It was only later that I investigated and found that not only was there no "which ever comes first" language but rather a provision for servicing "every 10,000" miles indicating service can be done at either 10,000 mile intervals or yearly, your choice. Cleary the SA had never read the agreement and was told by his "higher ups" to call me to see if he could get me to pay a second time for the "B" service.
Having gone through this once, you can be sure if in the future if I get the prepaid service, I will do it yearly, regardless of the mileage.
That is the purpose of this thread: "Cautionary tale"
And for reference, the app is very clear about when your next service is due. It either shows an actual date, or the mileage of when your next service is due. Mine currently is time based, because I haven't driven enough since the last service. I think it comes down to using the provided tools properly.
That's cool! Pardon my naiveite -- what app is that? Thanks.
That was exactly what my service advisor tried to sell me: that it was one year or 10,000 which ever comes first. I said I had no intention of paying twice for the B service. He then backed down.
It was only later that I investigated and found that not only was there no "which ever comes first" language but rather a provision for servicing "every 10,000" miles indicating service can be done at either 10,000 mile intervals or yearly, your choice. Cleary the SA had never read the agreement and was told by his "higher ups" to call me to see if he could get me to pay a second time for the "B" service.
Having gone through this once, you can be sure if in the future if I get the prepaid service, I will do it yearly, regardless of the mileage.
That is the purpose of this thread: "Cautionary tale"
I’m no lawyer but, there is no way that service is “your choice”. You may interpret it however you like. Like many other things these days. By your logic, I could say that I’m driving 3,000 miles a year. Therefore I’ll do my first oil change in 3 years. That wouldn’t fly. You are parsing words to fit your narrative. That being said, they should have paid, whenever you did it. You did pay for it.
2019 E 450, 2016 E350 4matic (retired), 2018 Ford Edge Sport, 2008 Porsche Boxster
Originally Posted by Elvisfan0108
I’m no lawyer but, there is no way that service is “your choice”. You may interpret it however you like. Like many other things these days. By your logic, I could say that I’m driving 3,000 miles a year. Therefore I’ll do my first oil change in 3 years. That wouldn’t fly. You are parsing words to fit your narrative. That being said, they should have paid, whenever you did it. You did pay for it.
Perhaps to help you I will print the entire description from the MB site:
Mercedes-Benz Premier Prepaid Maintenance
Save up to 30% on routine maintenance costs while giving your vehicle the care and attention it deserves. For new vehicles (less than 1 year old with fewer than 10,000 miles), Prepaid Maintenance comes in 2, 3 and 4-year packages. Service occurs once per year or every 10,000 miles, and includes an oil change, filter replacements, fluid check, multi-point inspection and more.
see:https://www.mbusa.com/en/owners/serv...d#new-vehicles
As you are not a lawyer, check with yours and ask what: "Service occurs once per year or every 10,000 miles..." means.
When you do, I think he will agree with me that you have two options:
Do the service every 10,000 miles; or
Once a year
Actually if you drive only 3,000 miles per year, you would be able to wait 3 years to do your first oil change.
However, Mercedes requires an oil change once a year for warranty purposes. So to keep the warranty up, Mercedes may require a once a year oil change, regardless of the mileage.
Do not conflate what Mercedes requires for warranty with the terms of the prepaid maintenance. As posted above, they are two different and distinct items.
No way I’m contacting a lawyer on this. As you have said while prepaid service and service for warranty purposes are 2 different things. The intervals on prepaid service are clearly (to almost everyone) tied to warranty service. The service intervals don’t change because the maintenance is prepaid.
Your point about MBUSA not wanting to pay is valid. Everything else is legalese. For lawyers to argue about.
Keep in mind the language does not say "once a year or 10,000 miles" but "once a year or every 10,000 miles". Every means repetition. So every 10,000 miles you can do the service or once a year - but I am repeating myself.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree about what "every 10,000 miles" means.
But again, purpose of post is to alert others how a dealer and MB might interpret the PPM: Hence "Cautionary Tale"
So what are you going to do if Mercedes says the language in the warranty means you have to have the car serviced every year or every 10,000 miles, whichever comes first, and because you waited more than a year your warranty is void and you're consequently responsible for the cost of repairing some damage to the engine that they contend was due to your purported negligence? Hire a lawyer and sue them? Not a very wise choice IMHO considering the cost of one versus the other, especially because as the plaintiff in any legal action the burden of proof would be yours.
2019 E 450, 2016 E350 4matic (retired), 2018 Ford Edge Sport, 2008 Porsche Boxster
Originally Posted by The_Judge
So what are you going to do if Mercedes says the language in the warranty means you have to have the car serviced every year or every 10,000 miles, whichever comes first, and because you waited more than a year your warranty is void and you're consequently responsible for the cost of repairing some damage to the engine that they contend was due to your purported negligence? Hire a lawyer and sue them? Not a very wise choice IMHO considering the cost of one versus the other, especially because as the plaintiff in any legal action the burden of proof would be yours.
Based on your assumptions you are correct.
However, it is quite important to read what the agreement says: the agreement does not say "every year or every 10,000 miles, whichever comes first," as you posted: I think adding language that does not exist to bolster an argument is not productive.
The agreement says "Service occurs once per year or every 10,000 miles": Not every year, not whichever comes first.
In my situation the dealer relented and I paid nothing.
If the dealer had not honored the agreement, have you ever heard of small claims court? No need to hire a lawyer. Simple $25 fee, a 10 minute hearing and you win plus costs and Mercedes has to go to the expense of hiring a lawyer: most courts require a corporation to be represented by a lawyer.
As to burden of proof you are also wrong: you are using the standard in a criminal case. In a civil case the plaintiff would show that he has paid for the PPM and the defendant has refused to do the contracted work. This is what is called a Prima Facia case. The burden then shifts to the defendant, MB to show why he refused to do the work. Based on the actual language of the PPM, there is no valid defense and keep in mind that any ambiguity in the language, as a matter of law, must go against the person who wrote the agreement, in this case MB.
Again be careful about conflating two distinct items: Warranty and required service under the warranty and the PPM agreement. They are different. In your mind they may be the same, but of course they are not. Everyone purchasing a Mercedes gets the warranty. PPM is something extra you must pay for. In fact look at the beginning language: "Save up to 30% on routine maintenance costs while giving your vehicle the care and attention it deserves." No where in the PPM is warranty or even the word warranty mentioned.
BTW, using your logic, as per my prior post, we plan to be away between now and December when our car will be three years old and anticipate at most 1,500 miles since the "B" service done last week. As it will three years old in December do you believe I will then have to perform the "A" service to be covered under the warranty? Seems like a waste of money and environmentally wrong to discard oil and a filter that has only 1,500 miles and is 4 months old.
Again, if MB disagrees with you, your only real recourse is court, or perhaps arbitration. In either venue you would necessarily have the burden of proof. The disputed language is susceptible to either interpretation. Accordingly, unless you can prove that you were assured in writing (oral promises would undoubtedly be disputed) that the phrase means 10,000 miles no matter how long it takes you to drive that far, the court or arbitrator would be very likely to rule that you have failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that MB violated the contract. Personally I don't think it would be worth the risk of saving a few hundred bucks over the life of the warranty.
That's cool! Pardon my naiveite -- what app is that? Thanks.
Sorry, I had unsubscribed from this thread as OP is hellbent on telling everybody how wrong they are when it's them who doesn't get it in their head. I just scrolled through quickly seeing that this thing is still not dead, but I think somebody mentioned the warranty consequences for not servicing the car on time. This whole thing is a non-issue if you follow the scheduled service intervals as the car and the app reminds you. BTW, with a lease you are contractually obligated to service the car on time, so OP is also in breach of the lease agreement for failing to have the service done in time.
Anyway, the app is the Mercedes me connect app. I think I mentioned it in another thread. It's only for 2019+ models, but I think the older Mercedes me app has it as well. It's really the main tool to get status information about the car. The 2019+ even notify the service department when you are due for a service and they send an email. COVID and all aside, the service intervals are well defined.
I was going to say to stop adding to this post. Then I realized that by saying that, I added to the post. The OP made his point. MB should pay because it is paid for. Everything else is just legalize. MBUSA made the mistake of thinking everyone would know that this was just prepaying for required maintenance.
"Today the dealer called me and said there was a problem: According to the dealer, I waited too long to have the service done: I had to have the service done my March, three months leeway, otherwise the service lapsed and he wanted me to pay for the “B” service."
May be it is just me but the dealer wanted him to pay for the B service one more time. Nothing was mentioned about losing warranty. Clearly a money grab from the dealer. My 2 cents.
"Today the dealer called me and said there was a problem: According to the dealer, I waited too long to have the service done: I had to have the service done my March, three months leeway, otherwise the service lapsed and he wanted me to pay for the “B” service."
May be it is just me but the dealer wanted him to pay for the B service one more time. Nothing was mentioned about losing warranty. Clearly a money grab from the dealer. My 2 cents.
Two entirely different issues. The dealer gets paid from MBUSA. It’s been paid for. He shouldn’t have to pay again. As far as the warranty issue, they could use it against you if there was an engine failure or something. Better to play it safe and follow the service schedule. Regardless of prepaid or not.
Two entirely different issues. The dealer gets paid from MBUSA. It’s been paid for. He shouldn’t have to pay again. As far as the warranty issue, they could use it against you if there was an engine failure or something. Better to play it safe and follow the service schedule. Regardless of prepaid or not.
Wonder what the service actually is.......I'd go somewhere else to not have to pay them twice.....you know: spread the wealth
If the OP is correct that the phrase "once per year or every 10,000 miles" means that he need not have the car serviced until he has drive it 10,000 miles no matter how long it takes him to do so, then the opposite is necessarily true, too: as long as you get the car serviced once a year, it doesn't matter how many miles you've driven during that year. But I sincerely doubt that MB or any court would agree that the warranty would cover necessary repairs if you drove the car 30,000 miles in 12 months without having it serviced during that time. (Yeah, I know people who drive that much.)
And of course this is all legalese — it's a friggin' contract..
2019 E 450, 2016 E350 4matic (retired), 2018 Ford Edge Sport, 2008 Porsche Boxster
Originally Posted by The_Judge
If the OP is correct that the phrase "once per year or every 10,000 miles" means that he need not have the car serviced until he has drive it 10,000 miles no matter how long it takes him to do so, then the opposite is necessarily true, too: as long as you get the car serviced once a year, it doesn't matter how many miles you've driven during that year. But I sincerely doubt that MB or any court would agree that the warranty would cover necessary repairs if you drove the car 30,000 miles in 12 months without having it serviced during that time. (Yeah, I know people who drive that much.)
And of course this is all legalese — it's a friggin' contract..
Actually your are 100% correct: having prepaid the maintenance, if you bring in the car in a year after the prior service, regardless of mileage driven since the last service, whether it is 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 or 30,000 miles Mercedes is obligated to do the service which you have paid for.
For example, assume you had not pre-paid and you bring your car in for service after one year but 20,000 miles. Do you really think Mercedes would not do the service? Of course they will. So no difference if you prepay.
IMO, I think your error in thinking is conflating a claim under warranty, which this is not, and doing a service under a pre-paid maintenance agreement. These are two distinct items. Do not conflate the two.
I think the issue here is everybody is interpreting the main keywords in their own manner or skipping it entirely.
If the below statement is absolutely verbatim from MB: the keywords are ONCE and EVERY. You either have to do it once per year or every 10k. Those are the absolute PARAMETERS.
Your one year begins when you purchase the contract (which in general is when you drive the vehicle of the lot).
"Service occurs once per year or every 10,000 miles"
The biggest fault behind all this is that either the dealership is not providing/explaining that the above statement must be fulfilled within X time frame or either the customer did not read nor ask for the prepaid contract and walks out assuming the dealership and them are on the same page.
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 S Is Extremely Rare Example Modified by McLaren
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
