GregW / Oregon

So after communicating with my sales guy and sales manager on Saturday, 3/30, about my 17-day overdue build, the sales manager sent an email to West Coast Distribution explaining my situation. The response was, "Just got off the phone with MBUSA Distribution. He will make your order a top priority and we should expect it to get to B5 status this week. I will keep checking for you." Monday after that they get an email from Distribution, "Those GLE’s are holding for parts to build. And at this moment we do not have any eta." On Wed. 4/3 they asked if there were any options that could be changed to improve things and were told "no." That's when I sent a polite but strong letter to the Vice-President for Consumer Relations at MBUSA, and copied all the relevant people. Friday the communication to dealers was issued acknowledging that there were some issues, and they shouldn't give customers an ETA until the car was shown to have production complete. All this time I had also been calling my "executive referral manager" at MBUSA Customer Assistance Center, but he had no more information than anyone else.

So today I get a call from that CAC guy telling me my car finished on Saturday, 4/6 and was shipped today, 4/8. So, it turns out Distribution was initially correct on it finishing last week. What was frustrating all along is a new ETA was never ventured, even though it seems they should be able to do that. So I'm left in the dark, with my current car presold with buyer as anxious as I am. I know MBUSA wants to keep tight-lipped lest the public find out there are issues, but they should trust their dealers to use discretion on what information can be given out. For longtime customers with sold orders there should be some realization that they need to keep these people informed.

I don't know if my activism had any influence, and I don't know if things are getting ironed out or they eased mine through to quiet the squeaky wheel. All I know if this rollout has been a cluster-F. I'll believe my fortune when I see the car.

GregW / Oregon

Except from Daimler press release on worldwide sales today: "In March, 227,644 vehicles with the three-pointed star were delivered to customers all over the world (-4.1%). The first three months of the year featured important model changes in the highest-volume SUV and compact-car segments. The company expects an increasing vehicle availability in the next months and therefore global sales to increase slightly overall in 2019." Yeah, we know how that changeover is going!

GregW / Oregon

Confirmed on NetStar today, my vehicle shipped Monday and has a dealer ETA of 4/24.

JoeMa

Congrats Greg.

Baloo588

Since Greg's car was delayed 24 days and mines was supposed to be completed on April 7 and my dealer manager called the VPC person and found that my car was B4 status.... I told him to follow up if he can this Friday to see if it has changed to B5 status.. I am crossing my fingers that it wont take an extra 24 days but instead 7 to 14 days more. I will have to return our X5d April 26 but we have the Audi A7 and A8 in the garage to use in meantime so its good. I have ordered the next generation 2020 Audi RS7 as my daily driver with this GLE being our family SUV.

GregW / Oregon

In the dealer announcement posted previously (#58) MBUSA refers to "production complete" as D5 status. Wishing you the best!

Baloo588

You are correct D5 is it. My car is still b4 so the dealer manager is gonna call tomorrow to see what he can do. Thanks Greg!

tery

Any Canadians here with delay issue ? It seems like the whole Canadian market still did not get one single GLE for sale yet ?

tiri

I haven’t reached out to my dealer since putting in my deposit and placing my order. There’s no rush (yet) as my current lease ends early June. The timetable for expected delivery was going to be within a few days’ window around then.

tery

when did you placed your order ?

tiri

I placed my order on Feb. 14.

marchgroupinc

Several dealers in my area in Southern Ontario have them. They sell quick if not already sold.

bkushner

I ordered Feb 27th was told April build then May build now August...6 months. No active body control no MBUX.

GregW / Oregon

Wow, August for a simple build is crazy!

nosnoop

Did you order MBUX interior assistant or trailer hitch?
Did your dealer advise you on the availability of those options?

tiri

No, I did not get 550 Trailer Hitch, nor 77B MBUX Interior Assist.

bkushner

My dealer told me it's because they released WORLDWIDE at one time.

fabbrisd1

I guess you didn't read the MB dealer bulletin I posted - the fact is even though final-pre-production went "rough" from incoming parts flow standpoint - on top of that Vance was converted to "global packaging (global feature and option codes) and in spite of both those obstacles Vance/planning stuck to we can ramp up from walk-to-full-run and do that for 6-month early release - and that has resulted in the Perfect-Factory-Sh*t-Show where a great factory with great people runs around like a episode of Abbott&Costello - so now German engineering/production heavies have been flying in/out/back-in to get sanity back in place to get this mopped up.

One of my "Good German" friends has been in-and-out 3/4 days at a time - and over the past 3 weeks he has twice done me a solid and has gone back and literally laid hands on a rig I mentioned - to his guys it seemed he picked a GLE at random - and said "use this GLE as a example of getting it done right" - and whoosh each rig magically finished/VPC/shipped out in 3-days... one a rig for a member here who well deserved it for all he has done here .. and one a rig that finished Friday two weeks "early" for a good friend/customer of mine with Stage 5 C who wants to see his wife to get her GLE and go for a drive together before he gets knocked down for good...

The point is that this will get cleared up - the W166's ran on the line for 7yrs - a bit of patience and this will get ironed out.

Keep the beat !

tery

Thanks for the update again, I get more information about the issue from you than my dealer.

I guess you work/ very close related with Mercedes. Nothing personal, don’t be offended what I am about to say. It seems like what you mentioned above is the acceptable reason/excuses for Mercedes production error. So their top tier managers will run with this reason globally ? Don’t get me wrong I am sure they are working very hard to iron the problem out, but for the size of the company and the experience they have, this is a pretty shocking reason for it. Its like go into a meeting and for some reason it just does not make logical sense for you, but everyone else seems to agreed with it. So we are going to swallow this decision /reason/excuse.

What else can Mercedes do correct, what else can the customer do ? When it comes to promise and money it’s always a tricky situation. It is what it is. I love Mercedes cars so I will keep on waiting.

Ron.s

I agree it’s hard to believe that they had this happen with the number one most important product and this extremely important launch. Like I said earlier it’s a management issue. In most companies there would be Managers fired or reassigned! Hopefully vehicle quality hasn’t suffered too.

bkushner

I was hesitant at first as this would be my first Benz built in US and now I'm downright scared.

GregW / Oregon

I have had the first of each generation, and while there have been some issues, Mercedes service has been good and they stand behind their products.

Baloo588

Hey Ron,

Any chance you can have your friend look into our build? Its been stuck at B4 for a bit and I am concern it wont arrive on April 26th when we return our 2015 X5d at lease end. I already extended it to max of 6 months allowed by BMW. BMW really wants us to buy another X5 and we kept pushing it off but they wont allow more than 6 months lease extension which is very ridiculous.

I can give you build number?

Thanks!

Baloo588

Deleted. Will PM

Ron.s

i hope you mean another Ron. I don’t have a friend at the Factory, wish I did.