I ordered the Aluminum Lines Brown walnut with my macchiato beige Nappa interior. The car was built with anthracite wood trim.

I don’t particularly like this look and my wife who is a design fanatic is going to hate it.

I don’t know whether the dealer placed the order incorrectly or if the factory changed it due to parts availability.

I have asked the dealer to discuss with the Sales Manager. I want them to swap it out At no cost (except the option cost of the trim I ordered).

let me know if anyone has any suggestions.

 

So it turns out the dealer did place the order correctly and Mercedes did not have availability of the walnut trim with aluminum flowing lines so they replaced it with the Anthracite Black Wood trim. The dumb thing is the factory could have replaced it with the Aluminum star magnolia trim which is a much closer match to what I ordered but they chose a trim which is a totally different color. The factory changed the trim after it was locked.

Also the cost of buying the Magnolia trim is $3000 without installation, so I am not going to eat that cost when I am paying $144k for this car. They should get it right.

Further the production is delayed. The build date is now November 13th instead of mid-October which is what they told me when I placed the deposit.

I am not pleased about any of this. I think my best course of action here is to write to Mercedes and get them to comp the trim change.

 

About half of the trim options are unavailable for most models. I dealt with this the other day when placing an order for a GLS 63.

Unfortunately the factory is almost certainly going to ignore the request and unless you have an amazing relationship with your dealership I doubt they are going to eat essentially the entire profit margin on the car.

I wish you the best of luck, but if time is not of the essence the easiest route is going to be to have your deposit returned and place a second order with that dealership or another.

 

But with what you are saying I would likely have the same issue again later. I do find what you're saying a little surprising though because when I was at MB of Atlanta NE yesterday they had several EQS SUVs in stock and all of them had one of the brown wood trims.

 

That’s so strange. They must have raised the price of the aluminum star trim bc when I ordered mine, the aluminum line wood was the most expensive one. I also chose that one bc I opted for a 450 and without the hyperscreen, the aluminum lines was the most beautiful. Since your car has the hyperscreen, maybe go back and look at how much exposed wood you would actually see bc it didn’t look like much from the pictures and maybe the black anthracite won’t be as noticeable as you think.

 

Shortages are horrible right now and the perceived relief is a farce.

If it isn't one thing then it's another. The trim is a relatively new one along with DISTRONIC being kicked off and the Pano roof.

 

Sorry to hear about your wood trim issue. I have a similar situation. I ordered a 580 (on October 1, with a January 24 build date) with the Anthracite Linden Wood. A few weeks later I decided that, like your wife, I'm not going to like it. I asked the salesman to change the wood trim, my wheel choice, and to upgrade the HUD to the Augmented Reality version. He was able to make the wheel and HUD changes, but said the system wouldn't accept the wood trim change. He suspected that it was an availability issue. Your post has now confirmed that.

 

If there is a substitution or an omission of a feature that you did not agree to, you can simply refuse to accept the vehicle and get ALL of you money refunded. Over the years that has happened to me 3 times. Usually because of a downgraded entertainment system.

 

As per my above post, I asked my salesman to change the Anthracite Linden Wood I had ordered it with to the Aluminum Star Magnolia. So it seems that the Aluminum Star trim is also unavailable.

 

the price I estimated is for buying the trim aftermarket. The dealer said it is $3000 just for the parts for the aluminum star trim. They said the aluminum line trim is sold out. This doesn’t include labor. It’s an expensive fix.

 

Mercedes really needs to also get its dealers in order. This dealer is quoting over MSRP for the trim parts to replace the black trim which is incorrectly specced for my build.

Here is what they quoted me:



And this is what another dealer is charging:
296-680-06-06 $442.67
296-720-51-00 $275.69
296-720-52-00 $275.69
296-730-69-00 $245.81
296-730-70-00 $245.81
Total: $1485.67

Now this dealer is 30% below MSRP on parts so the actual MSRP for this trim is $2122.

So basically Long of Chattanooga which is also charging $5k over MSRP for the car, is trying to charge me $1000 over MSRP for the replacement trim parts.

 

If you're willing to buy out of your area, I would look for another EQS SUV that has what you want. There are many within a 100 miles of my area, and some loaded 580's.

 

better to stick with this one. I will get the trim sorted out. Mercedes will likely comp the trim given the history and my historical spend with the brand.

I did look online and I didn’t find anything close to my specs. At least trim can be changed. Leather color is fixed.

 

no offense meant but you’ve been given the best advice here and you are ignoring it. If you were really thinking that they will take care of you because of your history, you would already have the answers to the questions you asked. Mercedes is not going to comp you for the trim. You need to cancel and re order. You ordered something out of stock and that’s that. The reality is it may never be in stock again for this year. Good luck. Thinking you will get something for free just isn’t how it’s been working for the past few years….hope we don’t have to explain Econ 101z

 

You sound like a guy who is used to giving up easily and letting vendors walk over you.

I have extracted compensation from Mercedes on both my EQS580 ($7000 credit for price change during order process which many others paid) and on my E63S (12 month delay, received $4000 rebate on top of invoice pricing for the new car).

I know more about Econ than you do. There is a thing called customer lifescycle value and Mercedes understands it well. You do not. Go back to your cubicle.

 

Good luck with your problem since you are so smart. I don’t give up even easily, but I also don’t beg like a little baby and I understand when there are market conditions that are outside of vendor control. And you may know more about economics (nope) but you clearly don’t know anything about how to treat people well, so therefore, I don’t expect you to be treated well. I said no offense because I knew you were the type of person that would absolutely take offense, no less about car trim, LOL. And I don’t give up. I just don’t work with people that don’t know how to work with me.

You are so smart that you should understand that market conditions change. Understanding of lifecycle value has nothing to do with supply constraints, you or Mercedes. If you kept up with current events, you know that Mercedes is unable to keep up.…

I only personally produced 35 mil in finished goods this year. I’m probably really unaware of supply and demand. Funny thing is I never ran out of anything I’ve needed for the past three years because I actually do understand production. It may also be because I was one of the first people educated in our country about resource economics when it was new theory, but hey, I probably don’t know anything.

And if you think you are speaking down to me, by saying, I have a cubicle, I don’t have a cubicle. My working space is about 40k feet, and more of a rectangle.

I hope your journey is exhaustive, expensive and we get to watch you complain in perpetuity. I’m glad your dealer gave you credits for other vehicles, but that has nothing to do with the current sale repeat customer or not. You just don’t deserve it but they probably don’t want to deal with your type, greedy, ignorant, and offensive.

want to presuppose anything else about me personally. Just use pm so you don’t underscore to the forum your complete lack of tact.

I’d also like you to verbally assault everyone else who gave you advice that you don’t wait to follow. Because that’s gonna get you really far in life

 

Wow. This thread digressed.

 

Dang, which models are getting distronic and pano roof kicked?

 

Distronic is being kicked off across the line. I've seen the pano roof recently kicked off of GLS and GLEs which I know is a deal breaker for a lot of those buyers.

 

I assume distronic is not getting pushed off cars that have it standard?

 

This is one of the things which gives Tesla an edge. Their solution was to deliver the functionality via cameras. Losing distronic in this segment is really a deal breaker for a lot of people.

 

I haven't seen it kicked as a standard feature but that doesn't mean it can't happen. For a year GLBs were coming without power seats, S-Classes without multicontour, and nothing has been equipped with Hands-Free access.

 

it’s interesting to see where MB prioritizes stuff ex. The GLE and GLS and EQB never lost hands free access. Now the GLA/GLB/CLA, GLC, and E have it back but the C and S don’t. I’d think they would prioritize it on the S over the CLA.

 

First world problems.

 

MB has cut back on many offerings such as color choice - interior and exterior, interior materials such as Nappa leather, leather and vinyl and trim choices.
If they continue reducing color and material choices, my W213 will be my last Mercedes.