benzboy

I took my new '05ML350 in for it's "free" 1000 mile check last week. All OK according to the service rep. This week my wife says the ML surges forward under brake pressure and even skipped into neutral once! Back it goes this morning. Service advisor says, "oh, we did the software upgrade and now it should be fine". Jeeez, shouldn't they have done this automatically last week? Saturnstyl, any thoughts?

00ML430 Bulldog

I thought you knew. Most Stealers/Dealers are not proactive or should I say they do not do preventative work because you are not paying. They wait until the truck breaks so they can shaft you with no vasiline..... (overcharge)... the owner gets **** because he has to make a second trip to the dealer for something they should have done when the truck was there the first time... And some people wonder why others try to avoid the dealer service dept. like the Plague.... Lets hope they don't tell you... they could not duplicate the fault when you take the truck back to them.... GOOD LUCK

saturnstyl

Look at it from our side of it.... WE SIMPLY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO UPSELL WARRANTY WORK. If it is not a safety related Item, we cannot fix it unless the customer has complained about the problem. The warranty auditors debit claims for this, and they know exactly where to look and what to look for. They red flag warranty add ons for closer examination when they audit.
Keep in mind also, that most techs do not own mercedes, and if they do, they are not new mercedes. They often miss things because they are not used to that particular car. I can't tell you the whole story, it would take days... Suffice it to say a percentage don't care, and a percentage just don't know any better.
So keep in mind when you take your vehicle in for service, be it the 1st 1,000 mile checkup or whatever, you MUST complain about everything, or nothing will be done. Do not count on the technician to find these things, chances are it won't happen. Also, given the nature of the problems you describe, it is extremely doubtful any fault codes were present in any control units to indicate a problem exists.
Mercedes still makes a better car, but their policies and procedures on the service side of things are becoming more and more like what you find at other car companies. I guess they found out how much money they were losing by being 2 steps ahead of the game, and one step ahead is still ahead right?