Hello All,
When I leave the GLS at the dealership for services (software update recalls and some other minor stuff) it sits with them for almost a month (same experience with 2 different dealerships).

OK, I am being given a loaner (smaller size as it seems they do not have GLSes to give you) but is it just me or thats the usual experience?
So lets say I go to the dealership twice / year, I get stuck with GLC/GLB for 2 out of 12 months.

 

That doesn't sound so hot. MB of Richmond usually have the car ready by 1pm the same day and give me a loaner for a few hours (although I have refused anything smaller than a GLC)...

 

Sorry to hear that, I usually get same day service for similar service in Pennsylvania.

 

We often get it back the next day. But that is not bad considering they drop off a loaner and pickup the car for service. Then they drop the car back and pick up the loaner.
I would never deal with a dealer who takes a month to do service unless there is a part shortage.

 

Not about part shortage, last time Service Department started working on the vehicle 2 weeks after I dropped it.

 

A month is way too long - seriously consider another dealership.

 

I haven't had it take that long, but yes I have found MB dealers take their sweet time. 2-3 days for scheduled maintenance and I have had it sit there 5+ days before they even look at it when I have brought it in with an appointment for an issue. I even took it back one time without them looking at it because I wanted it back and they couldn't tell me when they would be able to look at it. That to me is ridiculous, if I booked an appointment 2 weeks out they should be able to look at it within a day. Thats actually one reason why I have stopped using the dealer for service, found a great MB independent who has loaners and the car is done within a few hours like it should be...and at half the cost.

I'm not paying S Class money every month to drive a GLA or GLB...

Contrasted with Lexus, they never had the car for an overnight for any scheduled maintenance, and for issues they never had it more than a few days.

 

Exactly, i remember going in there for the first time with the expectation to wait onsite for 1-2 hours which turned out to be 3-4weeks.
Or may be they are super busy in the DC area?

 

What year is your GLS? Could they be applying recalls as well?

Regardless of the reason, a month per service is inexcusable!

 

A month is crazy, but as others have said mine takes 2-3 days for a typical appointment, unless it's very basic. Sometimes it's because they have to order a part, other times is because they first have to diagnose the issue, or most recently I demanded a goodwill on some rattles, so they first had to clear it with AMG. My dealership is slammed. Their service bay is packed every time I go there. Lead time to get a loaner has been getting longer. Used to be enough to make the appointment one week in advance, now it's up to two weeks. I don't really mind it. Don't really need a car, so even the loaners just mostly sit in my garage.

 

2020, well recalls are part of the service I requested.

 

Just noticed you are in the DC area too! Which dealers have you tried? I've used Euro Motorcars in Germantown (where I bought it) and Euro Motorcars in Bethesda. Germantown seems quicker, but not by a huge margin.

The independent I found is MB Automotive Services in Rockville. I have a client that has a 2000 S500 that he has serviced there and they are great.

 

Oh dear god, please don’t get me started on this. I have 6 years noted about how pathetic the Penske deslerships are here in DC. When I read OP’s post, I literally thought to myself that he must be talking about the Tysons Corner MB dealership location. I’m going for the bourbon if that’s actually correct? Chantilly is a little better, but not by much.

BOTH of my MB’s have been damaged by these two deslerships, and I simply gave up on trying to get the seat split fixed again. Screw it. My 212 has scratches all over the trunk from tysons, and nice 3 inch crease dent on the door from Chantilly on the GLS. I actually caught Tysons defrauding the wheel insurance company (CNA) years ago after charging them $600 to fix a bent rim, when they never touched the rim after having the car for 10 days. Never even tried to fix it.

i had the SA completely ignore me so he could hit on some lady who was bringing in her car.

I had a window regulator fixed under warranty at Chantilly on the GLS (that’s when I got the dent). And when they called to come pick it up (and return their mobile ashtray GLB loaner), most of the parts to put the door handle back together were literally scattered across the back seat of the car.

i’ve had tools left in the back seat of my 212 from the Bethesda dealership. Had brand new brake rotors destroyed because of improperly reinstalled dust plates scraping across the rotor within 1,500 feet from leaving the dealership.

I had a tire with a bubble on the sidewall replaced with a tire that had a bad interior threads(or whatever those things are called on a tire). That one was from the Indianapolis dealership and I drove back to DC with my 10 year old on it, not knowing it could have easily blown out.

These are just some of my horror stories. If you told me that I had to deal with a MB dealership from this point forward exclusively, you would see a midnight blue GLS450 and a black E350 sitting at Carmax before Mc’Donalds changed over to lunch-only tomorrow. No doubt about it. I will NOT own a Mercedes Benz if it means I have to engage with their service departments on anything beyond a warranty (and even at that, I would rather pay $500 to an indi to do it instead if possible, of which I have done with the GLS).

Screw. A. Mercedes Benz. Dealership! You want to enjoy their cars? Then buy it, and get the heck out of there as fast as humanly possibly, and never take back there.

 

Oh, and PS - my “CPO” E350? Had missing bolts on the transmission pan (actually were sheered off), two bent rims, warped rotors, a broken driver’s seat cushion, and 6 inches of the trunk lip spoiler loose from the trunk. Oh, and a bad speaker… I bought it at the Bethesda dealership in 2017 with 21k miles in it (75k now).

To a Mercedes dealership, “CPO” means “Crap Parked Outside”. Thats it.

Damnit. I knew I should’ve skipped this thread. Where’s the bourbon and need to kick the damn dog! (Kidding about the dog)…

 

MB customer care is bad, sadly. Normal experience. The brand is not the best. Therefore, using their own words, it is nothing.

 

Oh I wouldn’t go quite that far. You just have to understand how to own them. Willing to bet you’ll find that out yourself with the Porsche you replaced the GLE with. They’re good, but a water pump or two, and carbon fun at 70k, might tarnish that bloom on your rose..

 

Unfortunately the CPO programs for all manufacturers are basically BS.

My independent MB mechanic says the best dealer in the area (at least in MD) is Euro in Germantown, he says they are the most accommodating and the easiest to deal with, I had switched from them to Bethesda and he told me to switch back.

 

Ok, I'm a bourbon down, rough day, sorry for the rants. This is the one topic about MB that really does get under my skin though, especially in my area. It's just so incredibly arrogant and shockingly bad. I don't understand why Mercedes Benz puts up with such a horrible reputation for service in a market as important as Washington, DC, where a black Mercedes Benz is like the Honda Civic in Tokyo. It's no secret around here either on just how bad it really is. From the far west suburbs where I live, to the far northern suburbs where SW20S lives. Taking your MB to a dealership around here is a total crap shoot on the outcome. Zero confidence. You'll either be on the lucky side of good results, or the unlucky side of bad results and another return trip for another try. But one thing is absolute and undeniable - in the Washington DC market anyway - that luck, will run out. Guaranteed (and it'll cost you 3x's what it probably should).

 

This sounds terrible. I think you may have touched upon it there - maybe it's too much saturation in DC, too many cars for too few dealers. Or, perhaps, the dealers know that they can get away with poor treatment...

I'm 100 miles away and, as said, service has been pretty good on the whole. They did break the center console on my wife's GL a few years ago but when I raised it they didn't hesitate to replace the whole thing and gave me a loaner.
Apart from the outrageous hourly rate, as long as one books ahead, I have genuinely not had any issues getting a loaner, but aside from an issue I had with a GLC a couple of years ago, where they kept the car for a few days to get a part from Germany, I always had my own car back at the end of the day (and usually before 3pm).

 

MB is consistently bad in both product and customer care. This thread speaks to it well, unfortunately for those affected.

Read the April 2023 Consumer Reports ranking where BMW is #1, yes above Toyota and Honda.

MB is somewhere down in Irrelevant Land, with 0 "recommended models". Zero recommended models. Hilarious.

MB is hilariously bad with product quality and reliability, and with customer care.

 

In May 2022, my mom wanted a specific colored GLA, and didn’t like the new ones. My dad found it, the only one on the east coast (they’re in SW Florida). It was at the Tysons dealership, a 2019 with less than 20k miles. I went to investigate and check it out, a “CPO”. When I got there, it had a flat tire and covered in bird crap. Long story short, we bought it, and at the very end, they tried to charge him $700 for the navigation ssd card and $1,500 for what was nothing more than a spray wax. The car was advertised as having the Navigation. It technically did, but wiuldnt work without the ssd card they had removed and wouldn’t put back in for less than $700.

i bought one off Amazon for $40. And told them to replace the tire and don’t touch anything else. Immediately took it to my indi and had it all reset back to new. The CPO program didn’t even change the air filter…

 

Another example of how hilariously bad MB and their dealers are.

 

Which two dealers?

 

Mercedes Tysons really seems to be unable to hold onto anyone in Service. I have two vehicles that I have regularly serviced there, and every time I go in, there is a new crew of SAs in the booths. I used to have a regular guy I would see every time. I also have become frustrated with their reservation process. I used to make an early appointment for regular service and be able to pick up the car the same day. Every once in a while, they would find something there they had to order a part or something that would delay a day, but same day in and out was the norm. Now, I make an early appointment, drop the car, and I'm lucky if I even hear back from the SA by the end of the day. In the last 3-4 years, I've never had routine service done in 1 day. And then the SA always pesters me to leave a good review.

However, our experience with Audi down the street isn't much better. We just had my wife's A4 in to have the new battery recoded, which is a 10-minute job with the right tool. I swapped the battery out myself after the original one failed and we couldn't get an appointment for 2 weeks from Audi Tysons. It took them 2 days to do a simple recode. And they sent me a video of the mechanic pulling apart the trunk to access the new battery, which is unnecessary to recode it. You do that from the diagnostic port inside the car. So, he either had no idea of what he was doing or there was a complete breakdown in communication between the SA and the mechanic.

 

Or he was really making use of the labor rate on the repair if the A4 is no longer within warranty.