mercedes dealership in Charleston,SC asking to pay for a Maps region change on a 2020 CPO car w213 E Class bought a month earlier from a different Mercedes dealership in NC. The car was first sold in NY. Now Is this petty and cheap or am I missing something?

 

LOL! They are trying to pull one over you. Maps are managed online on a 2020 and the region can be changed through the Mercedes me connect portal by you. It's called the home region and it determines which part of the map is updated automatically via OTA updates. You can always update all regions manually by downloading the updates to an SD card or USB stick and then perform the update in the car. There's nothing a dealership has to do, except they have to transfer the Mercedes me services to you as the new owner. Just like they have to activate them on a brand new car. That should not incur an extra charge. It's part of the delivery.

https://www.me.mercedes-benz.com/pas...anagement.html

 

I have updated the region and map using the USB yet the region is displayed incorrectly on the Mercedes Me app. I am concerned that I will not receive the map or any other updates for my maps and the car. Will have to now drive to the dealer I bought the car from. So much for a 3 year (1+2) CPO. It has not even been a month. Feels like Mercedes Dealers are petty and acting cheap year by year. This is my 2nd e class. The last one, a w211 was awesome and had it for 14 years. I even talked to the Sales guy and asked him if he expected me to pay for a region change if I buy a new car in SC and move to California. His answer was please come visit me before you move and i will update to the new region without any charge. I walked out SMH. LOL!

 

Where in the app do you see the region displayed? The only place where the region is displayed is in the web portal I posted above. There's nowhere in the app I'm aware of where this information is displayed.

 

Needs to update from Eastern States to the Southern States region.

 

moved to W213 forum...

 

Little confused here. 1. Mercedes Me tells you that a undate is available. Normally that map update would be done automatically. Alternatively you can initiate the download from your MBUX screen. I think, but not sure, it's Home System Software Updates. Have you tried this? I would be curious to know if you are able to update and, if so, what region it updates.
2. Aren't NC and SC in the same region?
3. Since it is a CPO, wouldn't updating software (that is normally updated at no charge during an initial period) be part of the CPO preparation process.
4. Call or email MBUSA and ask for advice.

 

I will call Mercedes once i visit the dealership where i bought the car from in NC. Being less than a month old i would have appreciated the Charleston dealership update the region yet they decided to throw me the we will charge for region change which was utterly unprofessional and a future customer deterrent. I hope other new and CPO customers come across this thread and learn from it when buying a car from an other region or dealership that gets the “Best Dealership in USA” and recognized by SC via letters from prominent individuals.

 

You are confusing some stuff here. Those are past OTA updates that were pushed to your car. They already happened. It's historical information. When the next update comes out it will be for your new region. That last update showing as not installed is because you pre-empted it with manually updating the maps using a USB stick, so that OTA update was obsoleted. I have several of those, because I generally do a manual update as soon as I get a notification and then when the OTA update finally gets pushed to my car it is obsolete and doesn't get installed. Updates come out twice a year. The next one will be some time this summer, probably July, so assuming that you set your region now to the Southern USA you will get the OTA updates for the Southern USA moving forward. It's not going back and pushing out past updates for the Southern USA. The region change is effective for future updates only.

 

don’t worry, the ownership experience only goes downhill from here.

I’ve had countless issues with my 2022 e450 and while I understand some cars will have defects, the four different dealers I’ve been to have all been incompetent and couldn’t care less about resolving my concerns. MBUSA showed no empathy when I called them and during two attempted buyback processes, they stopped responding to my questions via email and phone.

The way your dealer treated you is par for the course with Mercedes.

 

This may very well be the case in your neck of the woods. Dealerships are independent franchises despite the building saying Mercedes-Benz on it, so the quality of service comes entirely down to who owns the dealership and how much they care. Many of them are owned by larger corporations now and they own several different brands of dealerships. Worth finding out who owns your particular dealership and see what else they own. If they own mostly non-premium brand dealerships, don't expect much. My dealership is the highest selling MB dealership in the state and the country apparently. They get preferential treatment from MBUSA that smaller dealerships don't get. I have a very good SA as well who knows me and knows that I know my car, so he is always doing his best to get issues resolved, and the Director of Service also knows me by name.

However, dealerships are constraint by what MB corporate allows. They have to work within the corporate policies, so as opposed to independent shops, they simply can't do certain things even if they want to. I had several conversations with my SA about things they couldn't resolve for me. That's where an indy comes in. For example I have a noise coming from the front left wheel at full lock, and the dealership hasn't been able to even pin down exactly where it's coming from, so I'm taking it to my indy on Monday. They can do whatever to try to get it resolved. Dealerships are good for some things, especially while the car is under warranty, but having a good indy for other things is key.

 

Two of the dealerships I have been to are under the same ownership. (Mercedes Loveland and Mercedes Westminster). My next appointment will be at a dealership I haven’t been to yet. At this point I’m willing to name and shame.

in order from best to worst dealership I’ve been to so far

1. Rallye Motors Roslyn NY - They have been the most competent to work with but I have had to bring the car back multiple times for the same issue because they couldn’t figure it out the first time. On one occasion had the car
sitting there for 2 weeks before they even looked at it. I did not have a loaner so I guess they didn’t care how long it took. They also misdiagnosed a tire with a bubble in the sidewall as a bent wheel. This one is beyond me as they road force balanced that exact wheel noted that they were able to balance the wheel just under the limit but somehow they didn’t see the massive bubble in the sidewall. Aside from that these guys treated me okay and seemed to run a decent operation.

2. Mercedes Of Loveland Colorado - it took 3-4 weeks just to get an appointment here. They did give me a GLS loaner. But they weren’t able to diagnose 2 issues and rather than working with me to resolve them they insisted that nothing was wrong. They didn’t want to take the time to have a tech ride with me. Of the two issues they couldn’t resolve, one of them has been resolved elsewhere, the other still is pending.

3. Mercedes of Westminster Colorado - every time I ask them to address something, the first time I bring the car in they can’t diagnose it. Second time they eventually figure out something is wrong. Depending on the issue it has taken 2-3 visits to this place to get each issue resolved. They also have charged me a $250 diagnostic fee and $50 shop fee for diagnosing my parking system issues that they claimed was due to physical damage and not covered under warranty. Management refused to call me back to address the issue because there was no damage to cause the problem. I brought the car to another dealer and they told me there was no physical damage, they did a software update and the issue has been resolved

4. Mercedes Benz of Rockville Center - This place is an absolute clown show. I bring the car in for multiple issues. It sits on their lot for 2 weeks before they look at it (I didn’t have a loaner so they took their time). Eventually they call to tell me the car is ready so I get there only for them to tell me they forgot to perform an alignment which is required when the front axle seal is replaced. They tell me it’ll take 30 minutes, but im waiting there for 2 hours. When it’s finally ready, I open the driver door to find a puncture in the door panel and dirty finger marks all over the seat dashboard and door panel. When they removed the driver seat they punctured the door panel. Then I look in the back seat and they left a bunch of tools on the floor. They agree to fix the damage and I start driving off to realize the lumbar and massage seat aren’t working. I turn around and bring the car back immediately. They gave me a loaner apologized and said they’d fix it. 1.5 weeks later they call tell me the seat is fixed. I sit in the car press massage and immediately it doesn’t work. I refused to take the car and they had it another week before they realized that a hose was kinked when the tech didn’t put the seat in correctly the first time

MBUSA hasn’t been any better. I’ve called them several times and each time the response is “we’re sorry there’s nothing we can do would you like us to connect you to the dealer”. Maybe they should take customer concerns about specific dealers more seriously. While each dealer is a franchise, they represent the Mercedes brand and can have a huge impact on people’s perception of the brand. If MBUSA actually cared, they’d put more effort into ensuring high standards for their dealers and taking customer concerns more seriously.

This is my first Mercedes and I was hoping to have a nice comfortable relaxing experience. I’ve had several BMWs before this, serviced by multiple dealers across 3 states and every experience I’ve had with BMW has been far superior to the experience with Mercedes. The BMW dealers were a lot more pleasant to work with, but admittedly I never had too many issues with the BMWs. I’ve had more dealer visits and more days in service with my 2022 E450 than I’ve had with my last 6 BMWs combined.

 

The irony of the whole situation is Dealerships or SAs at the Dealerships are trained to first say “It will be a charge” right away instead of “is your car under warranty”, “let me check” or “let’s look into your car service details”(Netstsar). Money should be first on the minds of the Customer and Service on the minds of the Dealership. After all the customer is going to pay eventually with a credit card. Just goes to show how Businesses are so over leveraged that they think first about money nowadays. Days of Customer Service and Sales have disappeared or disappearing. It’s become more of a Conman Ship. Only a few great SAs left.

 

Isn’t the region the whole USA? How would the NAVI work if you make a cross country trip and go to another region if the region is not the whole country?

if you need region change was the car originally made for Canada?

Sorry meant this post for the OP.

 

Region is a bit overused. The car's overall region is USA or Canada wherever it was sold, but the navigation map is broken down into smaller geographic regions. All of those are loaded, but you can update them individually. One region is designated the home region. That's where you normally drive. In my case it's the Western USA. This region gets automatically updated over the air, but the other regions are not. Those have to be manually updated. For US spec vehicles and depending on model year there are 8 or more regions. Canada and Mexico each are a region and then the USA is broken up into at least 6 regions. In the newer models with MBUX they made the regions even smaller. Also in the very latest models there's no longer the notion of a home region. The home region is basically where the car is currently located and if you drive into another region it will automatically start downloading the updated map for that region if available. So in those newer models if you do a cross country trip it would update the individual regions as you drive through them, but in the older models you'd have to do a manual update before the trip to make sure all the other regions have the latest maps.

 

I found the answer and the SA at the best of the best Charleston dealership could have just said the same instead of “There will be a charge” for a 2 month CPO. Hope it helps others from paying for a home region change within the main region(in this case USA)

 

New update v29.0 notification came in 4 weeks ago. Last 5 days started installing. Was stuck at 98% for 4 days and completed installing with the App(iPhone) updated (see screenshot)

Thanks you @superswiss

 

The update came in OTA and updated region. Thank you.