Just picked up a 2017 S550e a few days ago from a Subaru dealer in the nice part of town. 48k miles and very clean, no accidents, clean history, off lease, serviced by Mercedes before auction etc...

Knowing the reputation of Mercedes and feeling pressured at dealer, I decided to buy a comprehensive 3rd party warranty from a company called Veritas for $5700 to play it safe. Supposedly with a 60 day money back garuntee...

I also bought a maintenance plan including 4 oil changes for $340, which I thought was great. I asked about the oil they used, they said they special order anything that isn’t Subaru.

I looked at the paperwork later that night and noticed on the prepurchase service invoice that Subaru 5W-30 full synthetic was installed in the car late October.

This is obviously concerning since Subaru 5w-30 is not on the approved list of MB 229.5 oils...

I tried emailing and calling the lady who sold me the warranty and maintenance package but it was the weekend. I’m trying to see what they will do to make it right and I’m not sure what I should be demanding at this point, or what my demeanor should be.

Meanwhile, I made an appointment this morning to a real Mercedes dealer for factory warranty work while I still have 1.5k miles left. One of the power seat adjustments on driver side isn’t working, as well as a nasty rattle in rear passenger vanity mirror.

Let me know what you guys think about all of this. Should I get my money back on the warranty and oil change plan? Where should I service the car? Im a pretty handy guy and work on EVs for a living, but don’t have a lot of time, and am still figuring out the common problem areas of S class w222...

I also have a local Mercedes/BMW specialist right down the street that I was considering bringing the car to. Perhaps he can find some hidden alerts that I can bring to the dealer for warranty?

Thanks..

 

Third party warranties are a suckers bet IMHO. I would not waste the money on one. These are pretty reliable cars at this point and MY2017 is several years into the W222 platform so most of the bugs have been worked out. I purchased a MY2015 in 2017 and going on almost 4 years and at 44K miles the car has had zero issues. I have replaced the tires and done a brake job and trans service along with a few oil changes but other than that the car has been great. I did replace one strut because it was making a slight noise over bumps but that was just because it was bugging me, probably could have kept driving it with the noise as it wasnt really noticeable to anyone but me. These cars are also pretty easy to work on if you have a basic set of tools. I do all of my own services and an oil change costs me around 50 bucks for the oil and filter. Brakes can be done for around $800.00 in parts for front and back. The only concern I would have is around the battery in that car as it is a hybrid of sorts. I would take it to an indy you trust and have them go over the entire car and get anything fixed under warranty before it expires. I would also have them change the oil to merc approved oil.

 

Does the warranty cover replacement of the Li battery?

 

So, just don't drive like you are on a race track until you get the oil changed.
And change the oil at somewhere close to 1/2 the normal OCI.

 

I wouldn't be that concerned about the Synthetic oil but I would be about the warranty, that warrantee will give you issues more than likely. I'm pretty familiar with warrantees as I just had a 2017. I believe via the extended CPO warrantee through benz the only thing available to you would be a 2 year extension unlimited miles for when your current warranty expires. Then again where as the car was not CPO I could be wrong. Check with your benz dealer. Thats the best thing to have is the real deal with the benz warrantee. The 2 year CPO should be around 4 grand. If thats not available you may be out of luck as far as getting a benz warrantee, it could be that the car was sold by another dealer other than benz this is not available, this is one reason I stick to CPO cars.

 

As long as the car is still under original warranty you should be able to get get a Mercedes Benz extended warranty good at any MB dealer. You can buy these from any MB dealer, and some have better prices than others (Jeff and Casandra were much less expensive than my home dealer - search the warranty forum of this site for details). https://mbworld.org/forums/extended-...scussions-191/

I would get a MB warranty and have the other one refunded.

 

If you can't get a MB extended warranty from them, ask about a Fidelity Platinum. When I got my 15 S550, while it had only 6,200 miles it was past the original warranty term. They both recommended the Fidelity, although I was able to negotiate a cheaper price at a local MB dealer. I have already used it for about 2k worth of repairs in the 15 months that I have had the car. Since I estimate my mileage to be 6-8k per year, I bought an 8 yr/80k mile warranty. You can also buy this warranty from any dealer that has a relationship with Fidelity.

 

Yes, get your money back ASAP from the warranty and call around to MB dealers. I got a Continental top of the line 100,000 mi, 10 year warranty from my MB dealer since they said it would be greatly discounted vs anything from MB. My last 2 S63's cars had this and it paid out so much money in repairs. It was a great deal.