Sigp232

I drove both and went with the 450 with airmatic suspension. Seats little more comfortable than the 53.
Will be keeping this long term 8-10 years so for me it was the better tire selection when time comes for the 20 inch and insurance and maintenance little cheaper.

klinms

Sigp232 I went back and forth about adding the airmatic suspension on my 450 build. Never had the opportunity to test drive and so many post I reviewed indicated not much difference with it. Have you had it before? Would you highly recommend adding it? I can still make changes to my order at this point. Thanks for any advice and/or opinion.

Sigp232

First time ordering a car with airmatic.
Test drives I did I liked the lowering part especially when putting things in cargo area and choice of having a little bit of a firmer ride. Wanted to go for the 53 but seats(I’m chubby a tad) and tire selection I wasn’t happy. Adding airmatic to 450 brings it closer for me to a 53. So I’m happy.

BACnMercedes

Plus I always wanted to use that emoji.

sushanth

my GLE 450 started Building on 11/03 and production ends on 11/13 and ETA of delivery is 11/27 as per dealer.I tried changing it to Airmatic which i couldn't, I am more interested in GLE53 Coupe but unable to get in the price range.I like the more aggressive design.

jtjbt20x

For a few weeks, Vance was sending to Maine via trucks instead of train/trucks. It took three weeks by truck or 4-6 weeks by train/truck. Now Vance switched back to train/trucks for Maine shipments. Dealer doesn't know why but isn't pleased.

Sigp232

My orders 450 ordered in July came in on Saturday morning dealership sold it to a different customer Saturday night. Sales guy I deal with was off the weekend and other person sold car without asking it it’s a special order,
I’m very upset does this normally happen?
offering me a bigger discount to re-order but I don’t know if I want to wait 4 months again.
Had to type this to relieve some boiling steam.
Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving 🙏

Eaton

Definitely not normal. They should be bending over backwards to make this up to you!

ENCT

I would tell them to go get the car back and offer you a large discount on that.

nsoltz

Absolutely not normal. It shows in Netstar as special order. In my case with 2 builds, Netstar showed my name and the sales rep's initials. Have you dealt with senior management at the dealership yet? Certainly should be escalated, particularly if dealership is owned by a large group (e.g. Penske, AutoNation, etc). I see this simply as a case of a rep who saw a car and and opportunity for a sale at a time when inventories were scarce, particularly of 450's. That rep knew exactly what he was doing.

petee1997

Do you have signed agreement on t he vehicle in question. Does not require a price but something to show it’s your car.

another_geek

I had this happen to me once at MB of Anaheim about 7-8 years ago. I ordered a GLK for my mother and I got the call that it had arrived one morning. I dropped by that same day in the afternoon to pick it up and they couldn't find the car. After a few hours of sitting around, they finally figured out that they had sold it to someone else. After a few days of haggling, they eventually sold me a slightly higher-spec'd car they found at another dealer for the price of the car that I had ordered.
The whole ordeal left a bad taste in my mouth though and I've never done business with them again. Even though they are only 5 mins from my house, I drive out of my way to Fletcher Jones because of this. I mentioned this a few years back to a MB rep I met and he told me that my experience wasn't the first bad customer experience he'd heard of from that dealer.

Streamliner

I’m curious: which dealer did this to you?

Sigp232

HOI in SoCal.
I’ve ordered other cars no problem with them first time this has happened to me. Never have done a deposit or written down anything on paper always been a email what I need and mutual trust between us. It came in Saturday morning and it was gone Saturday night. My SA was off that weekend. He just told me another manger took it and sold it under his nose basically. Nothing they can do now. Thought of going down there and relieving some hot steam on them but figured won’t do any good damage has been done. Only thing that sucks got newborn coming and we were looking forward last 4 months for this rig to come in. The lady of the house is pissed 😤.
She wants to write to someone to complain (except the dealership) but doesn’t know where to write. Told her forget about it there is always Karma.
GM offered new car to order with invoice pricing and they’ll throw in weather mats👌when it comes in 3-4 months. Was bummed last night looked online for something else Cayenne, X5 and Q8 nothing really attracts me.
Sucky year this has been Covid and now this. At least we are all healthy.

nsoltz

Invoice pricing is no big deal. At the very least, you want an MB employee control number with 12.5% discount. You want to deal with management above GM.

I believe HOI is owned by AutoNation and I would escalate to corporate. HOI has a very low BBB rating and I would file complaint with BBB.

Since it is a 450, there are very slim odds that they could locate a comparable vehicle in another dealer's inventory. But there is always a remote possibility they could trade an allocation with a dealer that might have a stock unit arriving. And they will pick up any transportation charges, even if coming cross country.

If you do have to re-order, under no circumstances would I order from them again. When we lived in Orange County, we had our car serviced there and they missed a leaking head gasket which ultimately doomed the car. They should be "cancelled".

I agree with your wife that she should blow some steam at them, preferably where other potential customers can hear it.

I would not let them off the hook.

Maybe it is the New Yorker in me but it is also a case of ordering a premium product and the expectation of premium service.

Of course MBUSA needs to hear about it.

And if you get a car from them, whatever you do make certain you rate them poorly on the MB survey. This hurts them. Oh, and you want a loaner MB until your vehicle arrives.

Give them negative reviews on every social media site. If you take a look at dealerratings.com, their rating is 1.8 out of 5. That's about as low as I've seen of any MB dealer and lots of reports of unethical sales practices.

Streamliner

I would write a letter to MBUSA. There is a good chance that they may pop for $2500 to $5K discount on another MB, over and above the best deal you can negotiate with the dealer. In addition, they might hook you up with a dealer who has an unsold order in the oven already, which is still changeable to your specifications. What have you got to lose?

Sigp232

Left a review on BBB website and some other dealer car sites about there horrible service. And just got off the phone with MBZ corporate and they just documented what happened they said Mercedes looks over these complaints pretty serious and they will be contacting the dealership to see what happened and told me GM from dealership would be contacting me shortly. There’s not much corporate can do in these situations but they don’t like to hear these kind of stories especially when it’s a vehicle as scarce as this and have to wait 4 months again. Lady from corporate was nice and said she will be following up with me in a couple of weeks to see how dealership is handling this situation. Not much anyone can do now but I do appreciate you guys on the comments on helping me out.

nsoltz

Good follow up on your part.

Might I also suggest reaching out to Auto Nation Corporate. Communication directly to CEO and then his office will pass it down the chain.

Suggesting to MBZ that they locate a dealer with an unsold allocation closer to "going red" would be great, but I have the feeling that 450 allocations are pretty scarce.

I would get back with MBZ and put the ball back in their court-- "Find me a dealer with inventory or allocation with less than 4 months delivery. And give me an employee and family control number for 12.5%". "Couple of weeks" is unacceptable. Give the GM a couple of days to get back with you and then get back to MBZ yourself. I would pursue this very aggressively. I do not believe this is an honest mistake. They clearly knew what they were doing and had the opportunity to sell a 450 at list or maybe even above with marked up acquisition or MF if a lease or some other charges if an outright sale. This is a business practice of a "how much do you want to pay a month" dealer; not the way a Mercedes dealership should operate.

Ron.s

It were me I would spend a few bucks to have an Attorney write a demand letter to Mercedes and the Dealer. Letters from an Attorney are taken more seriously than a simple customer complaint. I agree that it wasn’t an honest mistake by some of those involved.
Mercedes Corporate could pull some strings to get you a replacement sooner. Might want to change to a more reputable Dealer.

Sigp232

Yesterday I was in shock and stunned today I’m mad.
Already sent a email to autonation thru there customer care and thru Facebook. Will wait for there response probably next week. Left a voicemail to HOI GM for a explanation thru him. Also emailed my lawyer to type up a nice letter to both Mercedes USA and HOI. I know car is gone but I won’t let them off this easy. I will be a pain in there A$$ if I decide to stick around till March. Pretty sure, actually positive they sold or leased for more than what they had promised me. Delivered Saturday morning gone Saturday night 😡.
oh well
Going to look at a Cayenne S tomorrow dark blue with blue/chalk interior. It’s not what we really want but we don’t know if we can wait another 4 months.

Streamliner

AutoNation SUCKS! I refuse to patronize them. MB should have never allowed AN ownership of their dealerships.

Ron.s

One last thought...You might look into filing a complaint with the Consumer Affairs Division for unethical business practices: www.dca.ca.gov. It won’t help in the short term but might get you some satisfaction and help others in the future.

Sigp232

Nice advice will fill out a complaint with them too later on today thank you 🙏
Just want to become a big thorne in there A$$ now.

Sigp232

Question.... what are the chances my SA knew about this? He claims he was surprised when he went back to work Monday to check on car. I have a feeling he gave the ok to sell. Just my weird feeling.

nsoltz

SA probably did not know. It is a cut throat environment in many dealerships. Think of human or animal behavior in food shortages. They have no food— i.e walk in inventory. Car was there and hungry customer came in.

Had you been tracking car all along requesting Netstar print outs? Does your name and sa name show? If you have not seen, demand to see netstar paper trail.

CA consumer affairs good place to go.

Basically, bury HOI, AutoNation and MB in paper.

While I may sound like the East Coast elite that I am, this is Chevy or Ford customer service. Not MB.

Bottom line. You want a car before March. You want MB to source it from another dealer. You want a 12.5% employee and friends control code.

You also want written statement from hoi of what happened including statement from the selling sa and sales mgr.