So I'm getting the hard sell at closing on my vehicle and the guy comes to prepaid maintenance. He pulls out the price sheet along with prices for service at this dealership and says do the math. He explains the internet has driven up competition and driven down service prices among the three MB dealerships in the area. He finishes by saying the prepaid plan isn't worth it around my area and moves on to the next item.

I just love honestly from car salesmen. It was appreciated, but then I had done the math before I got there. I was even armed with extended warranty prices from you guys and he was willing to match all of them.

Ask nicely and you will aways get great info in this forum.

 

I suppose with certain coupons that dealerships send out periodically that may be true. There are also some dealerships that give discounts for parts and service to MBCA members. But by and large I can't believe that the prepaid maintenance agreement is more expensive than the regular, stand alone servicing, at least for three years which is what I did. I bought my ML350 in May 2012 and paid something like $699 for the three year agreement several months later. From prices I have seen listed for the A,B,C servicing, I made out much better by purchasing the prepaid service. Perhaps one reason for this is because there is only one dealer within 140 miles of me so they can charge what they want for an oil change.

Another factor to consider is that a prepaid agreement is written in stone, ie, it is inflation proof. There is no additional charge to you even if prices go up during the period of the agreement - and they always do go up sooner or later and trying to time that is worse than timing the stock market! The fees charged by MB are high compared to many other cars for sure and this is true with or without a prepaid agreement. Because I thought they were charging too much and because I always did the work myself in the past, I did not want to buy the agreement and waited several months to do so. But for a variety of reasons, I chose to go with the prepaid maintenance. They come out to my home (40 miles away), pick up the car and leave a loaner. When the work is completed they return it to my driveway - end of story. That is worth a lot to me.

I could be wrong of course but even if your representative is correct in what he is telling you, I believe what he says is only temporarily correct.

 

If leasing the pre-paid maintenance is a 'no brainer" yes - since it is treated as a capitalized cost - you pay the lease/depreciation only which means you are paying 40%-50% of that..