Sysopz

I need a little advice; I know this is “TLDR” but will try and make it as short as possible.

I bought a CPO’d ’03 S600 from Tom Massano Merc 10/3/08 42k Miles @ $38k + $3900 for 2 extra years of warranty.

On 10/19/08 I purchased 6 gallons of 93 Octane Sunoco fuel, and drove 90miles on that fuel.

I parked the car for 2 hrs, started it up, pulled out of the driveway accelerated, I then heard a strange noise from the engine and a CEL came on, the engine had a very noticeable misfire.

I turned around, parked the car, and got a ride home. The following morning started the car and the CEL was still there so I called the dealer.

The dealer told me that I should get it towed to another dealer because they are not the closest dealer; I informed them that I just bought the car from them 2 weeks prior and would like them to look @ it. After another protest by the SA he finally agreed to get the car.

Within 1.5 hrs of the car being towed, I got a call from the Massano SA, they are 45min away, so they only looked @ the vehicle for a few minutes to determine the problem, the SA said the car had bad fuel in it, and would not be fixed under warranty and that it would be around $1000 to fix it because the tank had to be removed and cleaned.

I asked them to keep a sample of the fuel so that I could deal with Sunoco.
I called Sunoco corporate, told them what happened they had me pick up the sample @ the dealer and drop it off @ the station I got the fuel. Sunoco sent a currier to pick up the fuel and take it to the LAB for testing.

I received a call from Sunoco today informing me that the test results were in and that the sample given did not come from the location and was not sold @ Sunoco. Sunoco did a side by side comparison of the fuel @ the location with what I provided and they were not the same.

MB USA was no help @ all, they have nothing to do with dealer practices and only manufacture defect issues.

Bottom line is I think the dealer scammed me, and I will have to pay the $1000 to pick up the car. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do?

What I think happened is that due to the cold weather..it was the first cold night here in Philly 35F a hose popped off in the intake somewhere to cause the CEL and the dealer saw this fixed it in 10 min, then came up with the bad fuel story.

I just hate handing $1000 to the stealer when my gut feeling tells me I am getting scammed.

illmeth0d

Something could be up , its hard to trust Sunoco or the dealer , since you can't perform the test yourself.

It might have been worth it to have the dealer look at it then someone else so you have a second opinion. too late now. not much you can do but pick up the car and make sure they did what they said somehow.

Bring the results to the dealer and speak with the manager.

Sysopz

Thanks for the reply. Do you think if I take it to another dealer they can tell if the tank was indeed removed and cleaned as I was told by the dealer.

my06clk

I think you are wasting your time.. you bought 6 gallons of gas on a 600 and drove 90 miles @ 18MPG

That means you used 5 of those gallons.. So its not surprise that the Sunoco tests came back the way they did.. How much gas was in the tank before? How much was there when you left the car?

What type of gas did you use prior to the 6 gallons and how much?

HAte to burst your bubble on this but you should have listened to your dealer and had the car towed to the closes place. Either way you may have gotten the same result.

BTW. I have Neeeever heard of bad gas shutting a car down that quiclky and or causing a CEL unless it was mixed with something like sugar or Diesel....

IS the car working now? If it is.. it doesn't matter if they actually removed the tank or not does it? The parts and labor alone For just about anything that would have been required to get your car going given the circumstances would be close to that anyway don't you think.

Take the car and watch your fuel door.

Sysopz

Range went from 35 to 145 miles when I put the 6 gal of fuel in and was 50 @ CEL, these figures were not recored or anything but it's a real close to accurate.

I have put 1200 miles on car since purchase no problems.

No bubble bursted bro, I figured I was going to get the shi#t end.

Yes car is working now, but fuel being a warranty out issue it does indeed matter what was done to get the car running.

I would hope that no matter what dealer I took it to, the results would be the same.

As for the fuel door...got me there, but it does lock when car is ...or so I thought.

my06clk

Well for what its worth, This is just a weird gray area type situation and I am not an advocate of EW's at all. and this is one of the many reason's why.

It seems that the only motive that dealer or any dealer would have for trumping up a fuel related issue would but to get out of paying for the work themselves. This I wouldn't doubt..

The problem for you is trying to prove they were just getting out of the warranty... That I think would be a waste of energy and time on your part and that's too bad.

Sysopz

Agreed.

Question..could a recent ecu/tcu learn value reset cause such a problem? I did that in the middle of the day and drove 30 or so miles after.

Dino I

May be off topic, but doesn't the dealer get paid by the company giving the warranty (which is not MB themselves, but normally an insurance company).

If it is that way, it wouldn't be in the interest of the dealer to have it out of warranty in order "to make some money". Indeed, it would be easier for the dealer to have it covered and paid by the warranty/insurance company. That way the "customer" would not complain and everybody is happy. Customer gets car working and dealer makes a lot of money (may be a lot more than originally needed).

my06clk

In a perfectly honest world yes. But we both know that world doesn't exist..

Dealers get commission from the warranties they sell on the front end. Then the bet is that they have very few warranty claims which mean higher commission returns on the back end.
Also certain warranty items have to be paid at a discount labor rate ( remember this is insurance ) so in some cases the dealers are out of pocket because they still have to pay their mechanics rate regardless of the billable amount. They never worry about that because they make it up in commissions and situations where the warranty is denied and the customer foots the bill.

So yes it would in the interest of the dealer if the customer paid the warranty.
Especially if the customer didn't complain then everybody is truly happy except the customer if he ever finds out he got screwed over. ( twice).


This unregulated scam has been going on for years and years so what's new. I just refuse to contribute to the pot by purchasing an EW.

can you imagine this: Good dealers move 20 to 30 cars a month on average minimum. if they sell 90% in EW's averaging 3500 each that's just short of 95K in warranties a Month!!! Do you honestly think they aren't making money off that? Then factor in the incentives when they turn 95K and only average lets say 20k or so in claims the pot gets even sweeter for them....

And that's not including all of the financing incentives and interest rate kickbacks they get per month....

Sad but true....

Why do you think everybody wants to sell you a warranty these days.. you can;t even buy a toaster oven.

Sysopz

My06clk..how does interest rate kickbacks work? I think I was also scammed with this, the day i picked up the car the interest rate was changed from 5% MB financing with tier 1 credit to 9.5%, they said it was because of the wall street credit crunch.

This was my 3rd loan with MB financing and by far the smallest amount. The day I signed the final papers the loan was chaned from 4yr @ 5% to 3 yr @ 9.5%.

Now that I look over my dealings with this stealer, I am under the impression that they are scammers.

BTW my prior two loans with MB were @ 2.9%

my06clk

You could have always just walked away..

I'm not sure I would have went for that.. Thats too bug if a % jump.. And your payment is waaay higher plus you had already been quoted a rate? Why did you agree with that? YOu must loved that car. Well atleast you will be done in 36 mos instead of 48.

Saying you were scammed on that deal would mean that you were basically scammed on any loan transaction you have ever done because they are all structured the same..
Explaining financing incentives would take too much paper because its quited complicated and really I think a waste of time explaining.. No disrespect.. BUt
the short of it is that it work just like the EW's except dealer can basically adjust their kickbacks with financing. Like what just happened to you.

IF a bank said they would allow you based on your credit to carry a note for X amount for 4 years max and it would cost X% rate, the dealer will always try to boost another 1/4% or more because that sets his commission higher.
Those in house underwritten loans aren't free...

But unless you walk in with outside financing already set up this is what you have to deal with.. They all do it. YOu have to just say F-that and walk away but none of us ever do because by that time you have already got the car basically in your driveway...

Sysopz

I did almost walk out, but I really loved the car and figured I would just refinance it with another lender.

I only added this to vent...I am just very disapointed on how I was treated by this dealer.

But it was my own fault, live and learn I guess.

my06clk

I wuldn;t think about it too much.. you are happy with yor purchase and thats all that matters... Plus there are some very cool ways to offset that loan and save money without a refi.. al you need to to is overypay your principal payment by twice the amount to or three times while the loan is young and you will win in the end.

Interest calculators assume that you will stick to the schedule so is you pay less it works against you and if yo pay more if swings greatly to your benefit..
Heres an example..

If you had a total of 44K loan and put 5K down @ 9.5% for three years, you are only paying about 2500 interest..

If you paid over the course of the first year 400.00 every other month extra, your loan would be interest free and reduced to about 18months if not more. I as just doing this using a general calculation..

So. if the 1200 payment for 3 years is comfortable for you and you can add a bit more every now and then, the Jokes on them

Thats why I said you shouldn't worry too much. Jut don't try to sell that car for the next year or you'll be crying for sure.

For right now, enjoy your car.. and get it paid off.

Sysopz

Thanks for the advice man, my loan is for 29k @ $914 (close don't have exact info infront of me) mo for 36 mo. I am used to a $1500 a month payment on my last MB loan, maybe I should just keep paying the $1500 since I am used to it.

Thanks again for your help.

Sysopz

I got my car back today...it runs fine but there is one big issue, after comming back from the dealer like 30 mile drive, I let it sit for about 2 hrs and when I got back in the car the cabin smells of fuel vapor.

I also took a look under the car and I am no mechanic but I could see that the plastic skid shield under the rear of the car was never removed, would this need to be removed to drop the fuel tank as the dealer said was done?

my06clk

The fuel tank in your car is behind the rear seat not at the bottom. Fuel vapors shouldn't be an issue and are common after a fuel tank job. I would have let it sit for a while with the windows down It's not likely that any fuel was spilled in your cabin, but you may want to pull the cover at the rear of your trunk and have a look around if you're worried.. Thats where your tank is.. Maybe they spilled some fuel there and it needs to dry up or something...

Skylaw

I agree with my06clk, but you could also remove your rear seat bench and see if any fuel leaked under the seat. if it did, the odor would be VERY strong.

Sysopz

Thanks guys I let it sit with the windows open for a few hrs and it's much better today.

Sysopz

Same exact thing happened again tonight, CEL came on, car had a miss so I pulled over restarted the car I would say 6 - 7 times CELL was still on but no missfire or rough idle.

Drove the car about 10 miles pulled over restarted 5 time CEL went out and car seems to run normal.

Also the oil low 1 liter message just came on, if the car had gone through a CPO inspection and prep would the oil have not been changed? I only have 1500 miles on car since I bought it how can it be low on oil?

Like my gut told me when this first happened the stealer ripped me off.

I will be taking it to another dealer in the morn. I also have the test results from the Sunoco fuel I bought last time this happened and the dealer said it was bad fuel, the results are that the fuel provided did not come from thier station and was aged.

merctech08

I have seen two cases this month, both on 203's, where there was a misfire code that turned the MIL light on and had rough idle and poor drivability due to bad gas. Both cars got gas within 20 to 30 miles of the light coming on and the misfire starting. One car had had a cylinder 4 misfire code only. After the sample of gas we took sat in a clear one gallon jug for an hour it had seperated to a 50-50 jug with the top 50% being gasoline and the bottom a thick brown substance.




Did the dealer change your fuel filter when they cleaned the tank?

PM sent.

Sysopz

Thanks alot for the reply and PM Merctech08, it did have a new fuel filter on the work order, I will grab it and post exactly what was on it.

I do understand that a tech would not want to do this job but my dealings with this dealer leads me to believe that they did not do any work @ all, they just charged me.

I am also a litttle worried about taking it back to them so I made an appointment with another dealer that I bought my other 2 S classes from.

Blk04cobra1

If it were, I would take it back to the dealer who supposedly did the work on it and tell them they did not fix it right the first time. I don't usually keep my fuel receipts, but if you paid by a credit card/debit card, the location would should be able to pull a copy of your receipt from the date and time of your transaction (this would be your argument with Sunoco). Im not sure if you have already gone through this trouble, but if you bought the gas from a Sunoco station and Sunoco is saying it's not their fuel, then something is definitely fishy with that gas station. On the flip side, it sounds like you got a nice deal on the purchase of the S600.

Sysopz

I did have the original fuel receipt, but that did not seem to matter, dealer says thats the fuel that came from the car and Sunoco says thats not fuel sold @ that station. They also said 8k gal of same fuel was sold @ the location without another incident.

I guess what really matters is that it's a really nice car and blast to drive, I just hope that nothing below board went on with either Sunoco or the dealer.

I will just keep enjoying the car and hope I have better luck with it in the future.

Skylaw

Yup. Sunoco sold the top 8,000 gallons that didn't have the sludge residing at the bottom of the tank - which is what you got from a nearly empty underground tank.

Sysopz

Maybe..but I would think I would have had some trouble in the 90 miles I drove the car after I fueld it up.

Does not explain why the car did the exact same thing a few weeks latter.

Does not explain the test report I have from Sunoco saying that it's not even Sunoco fuel.

I will post a pic of the lab report, it goes into detail why they say it's not a Sunoco product.