Patches

Let me bounce this off some of you folks for a reality check. We had our E320 serviced today at our local Mercedes dealer, second service, B Service if I remember right. The car has 17,000 miles roughly on it now. Anyway, the maintenance and tire rotation performed at the dealer came to around $520.

Now here's what is aggravating me about the service and I'd like to hear some opinions if I'm be unrealistic and nitpicking.

After the first service, I looked over the bill and noticed they charged me $8 to refill the windshield washer fluid. I said to myself, you know what, that isn't happening again, a gallon of good Prestone washer crap is only $2 at Walmart.

So today, before leaving for the 2 hour trip to the dealer, I topped off the washer fluid, and just for giggles, filmed myself doing so with my mini handheld camcorder.

During the service we get a call that the tires need to be rotated and balanced to solve our excessive road noise/thumping problem that I've been complaining about since we bought the car new, and that it will be $55 (if I remember the figure right). Said yes, go ahead and do it.

Fast forward hours later: Get up to the payment counter to pick the car up and observe "washer solvent" on the bill under parts with no price listed. In fact, none of the parts had any price listed, they were all just rolled up under one big amount labeled "parts." So I ask the counter girl if the "washer solvent" entry was in fact windshield washing fluid, and she says yes. And I proceed to ask her why I am being charged for it when it was full when I got there? She proceeds to call my assigned service guy over (With the camcorder out, I'm sure he's realized what I've done with it.) and he explains that it's not really windshield washing fluid, but treatment for windshield washing fluid that Mercedes requires them to add to the car. He then runs off to get the parts guy, and the two of them come back with this tiny little bottle labeled "concentrated washer solvent."

The parts guy then explains that Mercedes has identified certain parts and fluids that I get as part of this service whether I need them or not and that the mechanic dumped the "concentrated" fluid into my chock full reservoir like he was supposed to.

Now, you could argue that I own an expensive car and this certainly isn't much money that I'm being ripped off for on unneeded fluids/parts, but when you think about this happening to everyone coming through the door it starts to add up quite quickly and overall it's a very shady practice in my book. Lord knows how much I paid for the oil and filter.

Moving on. We're driving home and I say to the wife: what do you want to bet that when they rotated the tires, they never checked or corrected the pressure? By that, I mean, the door jamb states 33 PSI for the rear and 28 PSI for the front. So we get home and I get the tire gauge out. (Yes, I know the tires are hot and the readings won't be right until at least 3 hours of sitting.) The front tires have 36 PSI in them. The back tires have 31 PSI. By those numbers it's pretty clear they rotated the tires and left the pressures as is. The road heat accounted for the 3 PSI difference in my opinion.

My rants over and that leaves my original question: Am I being over-critical of these fools blatantly ripping people off and being to lazy to even check tire pressure for all this money they're charging?

There was a couple of other issues as well, but this is enough to get the conversation started.

lkchris

I'd forget the fluids and concentrate on the tires/wheels.

1. Tire rotation is NEVER a solution for ANY existing problem. It's a good thing to have done, but it's a flat out lie it will fix anything.

2. The tire pressure error is/could be a safety concern. At minimum, it creates a driveablity condition not suitable for a Mercedes.

I'd contact MB zone representatives and/or MBCA liaison folks, as this dealer's service department is not up to Mercedes standards. Surely you'll get a "service satisfaction" survey in the next couple days.

mleskovar

No, you're being an informed consumer and customer. Unfortunately it's too profitable for them not to skip corners that they think won't be noticed by the customer. And they make a lot of money by cutting corners. Another money maker for them is to blatantly overcharge labor hours for a job. "Them" is usually dealerships but some indies are just as bad.

Gullwing

Check the wheels for old weight marks. See if old weights were removed and new shinny ones installed, if not EFF them.
If they were in fact checking the tires for issues then they would in fact print out road force measurements, if not... EFF them.

Patches

I do need to check that, it was 7 PM by the time we got home last night.

There was a $20 charge on the bill for wheel weights. I was low on my figures above for the bill. I looked it over again last night after posting this. Total for the B service and the wheel balancing was $563. Of that the wheel balancing was $86.

It should be easy to check for the weights because they didn't do the customary wash job because quote "they had 20 cars backed up waiting to be washed and if I wanted it done, I would have to wait several more hours."

I went out at 11 PM and corrected the tire pressure after the car had sat for four hours because the wife drives it work early in the A.M. Front was 33 PSI versus correct pressure of 28 PSI and back was 30 PSI versus correct pressure of 33 PSI. Which proved my assumption above that the tech flipped the tires and never corrected the pressure like he should have.

Basically I spent $563 for a glorified oil change, getting my windshield washer fluid supercharged, and wheel balancing. Welcome to Mercedes... And I thought BMW was bad!

vettdvr

Correct $563.

I do most of my own service. Oil change, brakes, plugs,filters,tires etc.

I paid about $1000 for brake pads on all 4 wheels. I learned my lesson.

amdeutsch

That is a concentrated detergent solution that is supposed to be mixed with 4 liters of water. Most stealers have it premixed in a drum or something similar. Its not a requirement. I tell my stealer not to bother with it and he doesn't list or charge for it. Adding it to your existing fluid is ...... (your own thoughts here).....

Patches

Yep, I'm with you on the B.S call. I knew exactly what it was. I'm sure it's ridiculously cheaper for the dealers to ship those tiny little vials (it was about the size of a hotel shampoo bottle) rather than gallon jugs of the windshield solvent. But just to scale how bad the rip-off is, if Walmart can ship and sell a gallon of Prestone Bug Wash for $2, the $8 fee the dealer is charging is nothing short of highway robbery.

What got me worse than anything (other than the lies by the service rep) is the fact that the reservoir was completely, unable to add more, chock full when I handed them the keys. That being the case, I wouldn't be half as pissed if the clerk had of handed me the bottle of fluid I apparently had no choice in paying for and said: "this comes with the service, you paid for it, but it was already full, here it is for future use." But the problem with that argument leads back to "why am I paying for something I don't need to begin with?"

~CL500~

+1 vettdvr.

DIY and know the job is done right.