GL Class (X166) 2013-2015 after facelift became GLS (X166)

Buyback / Lemon Experience

Old 03-13-2016, 12:24 AM
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Buyback / Lemon Experience

Hi All,

Some of you guys knows that I had quite a few problems with my 2014 GL550 and when my 2nd row single split seat had to be repaired 5 times in a row I had to call into MBUSA to complain/give concern due to the unsafe nature of this matter.

The seat would be able to go down, but will jam on the way up. It is abnormal, and I suggest you try that on yours as well (I will explain in a bit why I'm asking you to check). After 5 repairs, including 2 frame changes, the dealership gave up and MBUSA were notify by me and they got all the service records to MBUSA and MBUSA concluded that it was eligible for buyback/lemon.

They gave me two choices: 1) continue driving the car (they said they were confident the seat was repaired) and comp me 2 months of car payment ~$3.5K in value or 2) go through the buy back process.

I thought to myself, since I had my car for over 14 months, there is no way that the lemon process would yield me less than $3.5K in value. Thus I went for buyback process.

Little did I know, MBUSA doesn't do buyback themselves. They go through a third party "specialist" called IMPARTIAL SERVICES GROUP, and they take care of all the BS process and calculation and all.

Impartial Services Group is not bad in my experience but the whole process took about 2 months from me calling the 1-800 Mercedes hotline to finally getting the check from Impartial Services Group.

A few days later I went back to the dealership and looked at an EXACT GL550 but 2015 model, and I was showing my salesman that it was this seat that it jammed. While I was showing him how my seat jams, and I assumed that the seat was perfectly fine with this one, while it was going up, it JAMMED on me. I tried it 5 times and it still jammed. I thought WOW, this is gotta be some BS situation, so I just left it as is.

I'm not gonna try to replicate it at every GL550 I see, but if its two in a row that I have touched and it jammed, I think it is time for me to ask fellow GL owners to try it out yourself and if it jams.

When it is raining, and your seat is jammed with 7 passengers waiting to get onboard, it seriously sucks when you can't leave the parking lot ( as it happened to me). A ~100K car cannot be this unreliable.

Anyhow, if anyone has any lemon process questions, just PM me, or drop a note here as I will from time to time check back to read up on the GL threads. I still miss the car, but I got myself a SL55 and a jaguar wagon for the sake being able to do what the GL550 was able to do as one car.

J
Old 03-13-2016, 03:18 AM
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Originally Posted by jtse
Hi All,

Some of you guys knows that I had quite a few problems with my 2014 GL550 and when my 2nd row single split seat had to be repaired 5 times in a row I had to call into MBUSA to complain/give concern due to the unsafe nature of this matter.

The seat would be able to go down, but will jam on the way up. It is abnormal, and I suggest you try that on yours as well (I will explain in a bit why I'm asking you to check). After 5 repairs, including 2 frame changes, the dealership gave up and MBUSA were notify by me and they got all the service records to MBUSA and MBUSA concluded that it was eligible for buyback/lemon.

They gave me two choices: 1) continue driving the car (they said they were confident the seat was repaired) and comp me 2 months of car payment ~$3.5K in value or 2) go through the buy back process.

I thought to myself, since I had my car for over 14 months, there is no way that the lemon process would yield me less than $3.5K in value. Thus I went for buyback process.

Little did I know, MBUSA doesn't do buyback themselves. They go through a third party "specialist" called IMPARTIAL SERVICES GROUP, and they take care of all the BS process and calculation and all.

Impartial Services Group is not bad in my experience but the whole process took about 2 months from me calling the 1-800 Mercedes hotline to finally getting the check from Impartial Services Group.

A few days later I went back to the dealership and looked at an EXACT GL550 but 2015 model, and I was showing my salesman that it was this seat that it jammed. While I was showing him how my seat jams, and I assumed that the seat was perfectly fine with this one, while it was going up, it JAMMED on me. I tried it 5 times and it still jammed. I thought WOW, this is gotta be some BS situation, so I just left it as is.

I'm not gonna try to replicate it at every GL550 I see, but if its two in a row that I have touched and it jammed, I think it is time for me to ask fellow GL owners to try it out yourself and if it jams.

When it is raining, and your seat is jammed with 7 passengers waiting to get onboard, it seriously sucks when you can't leave the parking lot ( as it happened to me). A ~100K car cannot be this unreliable.

Anyhow, if anyone has any lemon process questions, just PM me, or drop a note here as I will from time to time check back to read up on the GL threads. I still miss the car, but I got myself a SL55 and a jaguar wagon for the sake being able to do what the GL550 was able to do as one car.

J
Glad it all worked out for you

I had two buybacks, both custom 2014 e550's and it all went through Mbusa and they wrote the checks for every penny I spent .. Paid cash for the original car

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...-lovely-6.html
Old 03-13-2016, 08:55 AM
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18 E63s Wagon 15 GL63 (sold), 10 Turbo TT MT, A36 Bonanza, 20 JLU Rubicon
they took me out of a 14 GL63 and put me into a 15... I paid the tax on the difference in value.

my issue with the 14 was a faulty glass fiber connection that took a year to find.. the dealer was fabulous all the way through the process (Silver Star in Queens)..
btw.. my folding seats have always worked fine.
Old 03-13-2016, 12:35 PM
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Originally Posted by jtse
I still miss the car, but I got myself a SL55 and a jaguar wagon for the sake being able to do what the GL550 was able to do as one car.

J
What is Jaguar wagon ?
Old 03-13-2016, 02:37 PM
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'16 GL550, '12 C350
Geez, what a hassle. My '16 GL550 has had a few issues. One of the most annoying was my driver's seat squeaking like crazy. Every time I hit a bump or stopped or accelerated it made a very loud plastic-on-plastic squeak.

The dealership said they couldn't replicate the issue and I didn't bother fighting it. I'm extremely busy with work and just don't have time to go to the dealership over and over again let alone find another dealership to prove the seat has a major issue. I even recorded it on my iPhone.

Anyway, I finally took a Sunday afternoon to investigate the issue. As I touched the left bottom seat cushion I could hear the squeak. I pushed on it over and over again while feeling under the seat where the cracking/squeak was resonating from. Finally... I found a washer in the front left and rear left that was simply rubbing the post/metal-on-metal... It was 100% the issue.

I added some Krytox to each washer. Noise is 100% gone and it has improved my ride so much I can't even express it. It was so bad that I hated driving to work each day listening to that seat making so much noise it was impossible to ignore even with the music on loudly.

Anyway, I guess the point of my story is that the dealership was lazy about it and didn't take it seriously at all... Allowed me to suffer with it for 4000 miles, and pushing me to investigate the issue on my Sunday and add about .5 cents worth of space grade lubricant to fix the issue.

To me, Mercedes at the factory level should have added the required oil to these joints (btw, there is oil on the right side of the seat posts/bolts/washers... It was obviously missed by the fabulous auto-workers in Alabama. I think that factory is a wreck - with lazy management - and they are not accountable for turning out poorly put-together cars and SUVs as expected by Mercedes.

BTW, my rear-view-mirror had a black mark/ding/scratch on it the day I brought her home. I was able to clean it off (the scratch/ding is there but not really noticeable), and it was clearly dropped (maybe on the factory floor), installed and forgotten about. That's the kind of stuff that's happening there in Alabama. And unacceptable.

As for the GL550, I absolutely love it to death. After fixing my seat a few weeks ago, it improved my overall experience with the rig by ten fold. I know it sounds stupid that a seat noise could cause so much anger, but it did, and how a few cents of oil, missed by someone on the factory floor, caused me to have such a bad experience with such an expensive vehicle.

As for the transmission being super clunky, I'll take it in soon, but I know they'll just reprogram the trasmission, and in a few weeks it'll be back. So why bother. I think I can live with it unless it gets worse.

The strut groan is also gone and glad it somewhat wore itself in. I do understand that there are tolerances in anything that is manufactured and patient to see if things will settle in.

I think the only thing left that I really want to have them fix/or check to see if it's normal, is the right front clunking from the suspension. I have a feeling it's the right air-strut. I noticed the other day when approaching it from behind in the parking lot that the rig was leaning ever-so-slightly to the right. And the front right strut, when I park, lets out its air with a big huff. And only that strut. BTW, I'm pretty familiar with air-suspension and understand that they can be complex and noisey.

BTW, one last thing... When my wipers swipe and return, that moment they stop and go back, the wiper slap is damn loud. The blades are fine, they're clean, and very, very smooth as they move over the windscreen. But when they reach the swipe limit and return, damn loud slap. And same noise when the reach the bottom of the windscreen to return. Is this normal for the GL? I will admit, the whole entire wiper assembly is one of the most over-engineered things I've ever seen for something that does such a simple task.

Video of my seat squeak:


[yt]cV6NxTsw6M[yt/]

Last edited by Count Laszlo; 03-13-2016 at 03:33 PM.
Old 03-13-2016, 05:03 PM
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Originally Posted by aeggroup
What is Jaguar wagon ?
Haha, sorry, I should have been more elaborate as only 1602 of these ever was shipped to the states.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ng-family.html

This is what I got. It is not as roomy as a GL obviously but it does the job of hauling costco runs and random boxes.

I personally think the stationwagon version of the X type looks far better than the sedan version, and the look is quite timeless, similar to the SL55.

J
Old 03-14-2016, 04:42 PM
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similar issue with buyback on my 14' GL63 - bought back, Impartial group does a great job; MBUSA was very professional and yea- every penny refunded-- waiting for the check; and MBUSA also offered goodwill money on a 17.. let see..
Old 03-14-2016, 10:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Count Laszlo
Geez, what a hassle. My '16 GL550 has had a few issues. One of the most annoying was my driver's seat squeaking like crazy. Every time I hit a bump or stopped or accelerated it made a very loud plastic-on-plastic squeak.

The dealership said they couldn't replicate the issue and I didn't bother fighting it. I'm extremely busy with work and just don't have time to go to the dealership over and over again let alone find another dealership to prove the seat has a major issue. I even recorded it on my iPhone.

Anyway, I finally took a Sunday afternoon to investigate the issue. As I touched the left bottom seat cushion I could hear the squeak. I pushed on it over and over again while feeling under the seat where the cracking/squeak was resonating from. Finally... I found a washer in the front left and rear left that was simply rubbing the post/metal-on-metal... It was 100% the issue.

I added some Krytox to each washer. Noise is 100% gone and it has improved my ride so much I can't even express it. It was so bad that I hated driving to work each day listening to that seat making so much noise it was impossible to ignore even with the music on loudly.

Anyway, I guess the point of my story is that the dealership was lazy about it and didn't take it seriously at all... Allowed me to suffer with it for 4000 miles, and pushing me to investigate the issue on my Sunday and add about .5 cents worth of space grade lubricant to fix the issue.

To me, Mercedes at the factory level should have added the required oil to these joints (btw, there is oil on the right side of the seat posts/bolts/washers... It was obviously missed by the fabulous auto-workers in Alabama. I think that factory is a wreck - with lazy management - and they are not accountable for turning out poorly put-together cars and SUVs as expected by Mercedes.

BTW, my rear-view-mirror had a black mark/ding/scratch on it the day I brought her home. I was able to clean it off (the scratch/ding is there but not really noticeable), and it was clearly dropped (maybe on the factory floor), installed and forgotten about. That's the kind of stuff that's happening there in Alabama. And unacceptable.

As for the GL550, I absolutely love it to death. After fixing my seat a few weeks ago, it improved my overall experience with the rig by ten fold. I know it sounds stupid that a seat noise could cause so much anger, but it did, and how a few cents of oil, missed by someone on the factory floor, caused me to have such a bad experience with such an expensive vehicle.

As for the transmission being super clunky, I'll take it in soon, but I know they'll just reprogram the trasmission, and in a few weeks it'll be back. So why bother. I think I can live with it unless it gets worse.

The strut groan is also gone and glad it somewhat wore itself in. I do understand that there are tolerances in anything that is manufactured and patient to see if things will settle in.

I think the only thing left that I really want to have them fix/or check to see if it's normal, is the right front clunking from the suspension. I have a feeling it's the right air-strut. I noticed the other day when approaching it from behind in the parking lot that the rig was leaning ever-so-slightly to the right. And the front right strut, when I park, lets out its air with a big huff. And only that strut. BTW, I'm pretty familiar with air-suspension and understand that they can be complex and noisey.

BTW, one last thing... When my wipers swipe and return, that moment they stop and go back, the wiper slap is damn loud. The blades are fine, they're clean, and very, very smooth as they move over the windscreen. But when they reach the swipe limit and return, damn loud slap. And same noise when the reach the bottom of the windscreen to return. Is this normal for the GL? I will admit, the whole entire wiper assembly is one of the most over-engineered things I've ever seen for something that does such a simple task.

Video of my seat squeak:

2016 Mercedes GL550 Squeaky Seat - YouTube

[yt]cV6NxTsw6M[yt/]
Wow! Your rant on Alabama is pretty ridiculous imo. German cars made by Germans have plenty of issues as well, lol.


But, its nice that you've got a heavy dose of stereotyping going on:
German worker can do no wrong... lazy American... not so much.
Old 03-15-2016, 07:08 AM
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Originally Posted by sraza
similar issue with buyback on my 14' GL63 - bought back, Impartial group does a great job; MBUSA was very professional and yea- every penny refunded-- waiting for the check; and MBUSA also offered goodwill money on a 17.. let see..
How similar was your issue? Care to elaborate on it?
Old 03-15-2016, 07:31 AM
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similarity for the buyback process
the issue- well a dealership cpo'ed a car they shoudlnt have- had a bad engine/loss of conpression... needed a new cylinder head/engine--- i called mb corp.. got regional manager involved who mentioned buyback right away... then I had to wait longer than expected for a reply on confirming buyback.. and so I emailed the Chairman in Germany, emailed AMG, emailed Steve Cannon and the current CEO..
4week process of confirming buyback was confirmed in 2 business days.. impartial group manages the process.. one phone call and two emails and process done... they are defintely efficient in this process..
Old 03-17-2016, 10:09 AM
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Was this for the EZ entry seat? When you say jammed, does it not flip up at all. Sometimes when I press the button the back of the seat will flip down but it won't go all the way. It still releases so you can lift it up though. It's like it gets caught on the cushions.
Old 03-19-2016, 02:34 AM
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Originally Posted by silvertige
Wow! Your rant on Alabama is pretty ridiculous imo. German cars made by Germans have plenty of issues as well, lol.


But, its nice that you've got a heavy dose of stereotyping going on:
German worker can do no wrong... lazy American... not so much.
I never said "Americans" we're lazy. So let's get that out of the way, okay. Some of the best products made on the planet are made in the USA. And I go out of my way to make sure that products I'm buying are made in the USA... And in all honestly, I don't care where my car is produced as long as it's produced to the standards that are set by the company. But if a plant is mismanaged, which I believe the Alabama plant is, then that's my opinion.
Old 03-19-2016, 04:14 PM
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Originally Posted by Dalema
Was this for the EZ entry seat? When you say jammed, does it not flip up at all. Sometimes when I press the button the back of the seat will flip down but it won't go all the way. It still releases so you can lift it up though. It's like it gets caught on the cushions.
After I put it down and want to return to normal seating position, occasionally it started off as jammed and after like 5-30 tries it will unjam itself. One day, it just fully jammed and I tried 100 times and it still jammed, under the rain with 7 passengers.

Seat frame was changed. 5 months later, it happened again. This was my 5th trip back. Enough was enough, had to talk to MBUSA. To me, the Quality control is very bad. I think I had a car that was improperly assembled.

J

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