Would love a std wheelbase Maybach.

I agree, the entire experience has gotten away from them and seems that they (MB) don't even care anymore. Luxury now a diluted and common term. Too many models and too many changes, I don't fault the dealers as much, it's hard to keep up with all the tech. One of the main reasons I stay loyal is my relationship with dealer personnel after 25+ years. Once that goes, I'm fair game.

 

MB needs an enema!

 

Obviously its not feasible for Mercedes to physically break up the service experience. However, I don't think its unreasonable for them to employ a few specialists that are better trained in customer service to support people who spend over $100,000 for a car. LOTS of companies do this, they rank out their customers into tiers. Customers who spend $35-40k have different expectations than a customer who spends $100k+. It would not be difficult at all for Mercedes to have an accreditation process for service, finance and sales consultants to allow them to service higher value customers. For instance, I'm in the real estate business. I get a call for someone who wants to buy a $300,000 condo and a call from someone who wants to buy a $2M house. I decide which of my agents is going to serve that customer based on their experience, skill level etc. I'm not going to give the $2M client to one of my junior guys, and I'm not going to give the $300k client to one of my real high end people because its not worth their time. The $300k client is best served by my junior people and the $2M client is best served by my luxury specialists, even though they sit right next to each other in the office. If you're in a hotel in a rsuite or concierge floor you get different service than you would in a regular room. Zero reason my Mercedes can't do the same thing, when a CLA owner calls in for service, they are served by these people, and when an S Class or G Class, AMG or Maybach or whatever owner comes in they are served by these people. Simple.

How many luxury specialists they would need would depend on how many customers over that threshhold a particular dealer has. A dealer may only need 2 or 3 or even only 1. That person is the most experienced customer service professional and is compensated accordingly and bonused based on customer satisfaction and retention.

The trouble you're seeing now is they are trying to support wildly different consumers with the same people and that just doesn't work. You cant afford to have EVERY service rep be a highly trained and compensated veteran, so you have none of those or maybe 1 who you assign low and high value customers to equally, and your high value customers expectations aren't met. I bet if you polled Mercedes custiomers under $60k and over 100K you would see the lower end customers are way happier because their expectations are met.

 

Absolutely spot on. Consideration must be given, each client/customer expects a different level of service AND knowledge. The questions a 2M buyer will ask are most of the time far different than the 300K condo while at the same time treating them with equal care. Someone buying an A class or any entry to mid level Benz will not know the difference vs someone looking for AND is accustomed to the higher line experience, hence expectations will vary. Especially some of us who have been purchasing Benz cars for many years and have witnessed the experience decline for many owners.

 

Good luck trying to accomplish anything even close to this in this modern age where everybody has to be treated exactly the same otherwise you're called a racist or white supremacist and you'll have any variety of nutty organizations and leftist media coming after you.

 

The hotel example is a good one.


Consider the Peninsula compared with Hampton Inn. Different experience, correct? Different price point, correct?

MB vehicles have a different price point than Ford or Honda vehicles have. The sales, service and reliability experience should be proportionately better at MB than with Ford or Honda, which it unfortunately is not.

Comments on this thread have focused on the dealer, and I agree with them. Daimler, now Mercedes-Benz, is equally culpable in the criticism. Vehicle reliability and new model quality is terrible, when it should be noticeably better than Ford, Honda and the like.

Schrempp and Zetsche started the downslide and the current CEO has the choice on whether to carry the old torch from his predecessors or chart a better course.

 

Literally every customer service business on earth does this and has forever, and some dealerships may do this already. Like I heard my service rep tell the next person I was interacting with I had an S Class, and they gave me a loaner ahead of the person in front of me in line. So, on some level they already do this.

Its not discrimination as long as there is a clearly defined criteria based on money that the business adheres to. My example about the hotel is a great example, if you are in a suite or a concierge room you get different and better service. Thats just a fact, and theres no discrimination because one customer is paying more than the other customer and its spelled out how those services are offered to the hotel's various customers. Disney is a great example, they have tiers of hotels and have seperate perks for people who stay in hotels and who dont, for annual passholders and who aren't, and for which hotels people choose to stay in (the more expensive the hotel the better the perks). I have a Platinum AMEX card. I have a special concierge and a special 1-800 number I call that people who have Gold and Green Cards don't have access to. When I call they know what I have and how long I have been an AMEX customer and that impacts what person answers my call, etc.

Remember I'm in the housing industry where fair housing and discrimination is a HUGE issue, we have a ton of microscopes pointed at us. Fair housing violations bring whole companies down in my industry and we do this. The key is having a policy, if I give a white family looking for a $2M house to my luxury specialist and a black family looking for a $2M house to my junior guy, THATS a problem. As long as I only discriminate based on money I'm fine. We have a saying, the only color we discriminate against is green.

There is no issue with dividing dealer service in this way.

 

Correct, and this is the fallout from having a luxury brand (and arguably a declining one) trying to be everything to everyone. They are quickly running their legacy into the ground to simply sell more A classes and GLE's.

I don't fault the dealers as much, MB sets the bar. Sure there are bad dealers but MB has the ability to mitigate this, they just don't care. Dealers know that in many cases, if you escalate nothing will happen and if it does big deal.

 

My main beef is with the increasing lack of technical competence of the alleged mechanics and SAs at the 4 dealerships and one independent shop in my area. I don’t mind paying top dollar for quality work, but the competence isn’t there anymore. As a former MB mechanic many moons ago, I’m probably more critical than most. But I see this competence problem in most other walks of life, too.

A sign of the times?

I finally got fed up with them last year and installed a car lift in my garage to do my own work. It was a pain to install but it works well. Saves me time and I know the work will be done right the first time.

 

Ya it is frustrating. I've had my S560 to the dealer 3x for a gasoline smell I get in my garage at times and they cant find anything every time. The last time the same service advisor that had taken the car in 3x said "your car has the V12 right?" I was kinda shocked. He shoulda known it was 4.0 V8. Most are that engine. Obviously they didn't check it out too carefully as sometime after I open the door the car reeks or gas fumes, not inside but outside the car and then it seems to go away only to come back at some other time. Strange problem. I'm just trying to figure out what trips it when the door is opened. I hear some kind of pump in the back turn on and it sounds like something leaks when it first turns on, kinda like a spray can type noise and then I get the gasoline smell. Very odd. I just pray everyday I drive the car that it is not my day to get blown up or have the car burn. Other than this issue which only seems to happen around once a week or so and I've never noticed it when the car is outside I really like the car and the dealer did fix a bunch of other things when I first bought the car used a few months ago.

 

Fuel pump leaking probably. When you open the door, the fuel pump gets primed, to get ready to start the engine.

 

Thanks for the info, that makes sense now that it happens when I open the door. I'll relay that info on to the dealer, they probably are not aware that the fuel pump gets primed when the door is opened or that the car even has a fuel pump I think like was said in this thread they just don't want to deal with stuff like this that is going to take up some of their time as they are so busy with all kinds of other stuff. I wonder if it's possible it could be a injector seal or something with the fuel rail though as before I got the car a fuel injector had gone bad and was replaced by the same dealer, it does kinda smell more like it might be coming from under the hood vs the back of the car.

 

I'm sorry to hear you are working with idiots. Please consider taking your MB to another dealer. This is obviously a serious safety issue. The mechanic should test the fuel pump, check the fuel rail and injectors, trace the fuel lines from the fuel tank to the injectors, and replace the fuel cap (they leak after just a few years).

 

That is possible, too. The system is being pressurized, so fuel will leak from wherever there is a weak seal. One of the challenges I have found with troubleshooting at dealerships is that they are in a noisy, smelly environment to begin with. So you might smell the fuel in your garage, but they may not in the service bay, because of the smells that are already there, or their noses have adapted.

 

Streamliner, I completely agree the proliferation of new technologies, more choice variations and continuing new model introductions with new features present an almost unmanagable challenge to service techs. They are trained how to physically repair cars, how to update software but not how to really diagnose problems. The techs just hook up the STAR system, follow the fault tree and do what the end conclusion says as the fix. Unfortunately this is not always the fix.
My experience with MBLN service is different than yours. To me they are the best in the business. Of course that could be the best of a sorry lot. The head of the MBLN service function is Matt Moskal. He was my personal service manager for many years prior to his promotion. He did a personal handoff of me to a carefully selected replacement who is excellent. Matt knows how the cars work and is always responsive. Several times Matt has done an executive override to the recommended fix and replaced a component at no cost at my request. I did have a logical basis for the replacement and amazingly all three times it fixed a difficult issue even though the MB computer did not list it as a fix. I do not usually buy my cars there because I do not care for the MBLN sales people or their sales practices. I bought my most recent at FJ. I have met all the management of MBLN up to the top, not really impressed. I would never go over Matt's head because all that does is limit his options when higher management gets involved. There was one time he had difficulty getting needed parts out of Germany. He asked me to contact MBUSA and complain. We did and that got it fixed, we never went higher in the dealership.
Dealing with "the public" is not an easy job as a service advisor. Perhaps there needs to be an automotive knowledge test prior to being allowed to purchase a car. When I sit and overhear what some of the people say on bringing in their car and their comments on the list of things done it is truly appalling. I am sorry to hear you were not treated "right" and just told there was no real problem when there was. I am sure you are way, way above the average customer on knowledge and professionalism, should not have happened.

 

I agree it isnt easy, and the dealers and by extension MBUSA set these customer service reps up for failure by not training them properly and not giving them the tools they need to make their customers happy.

 

Thank you for your well written and detailed response. My first and only interaction with Matt Moskal was a few months ago, right after I got my used, 2019 E450 Wagon. I would have ordered a new one from MBLN, but by the time I found out that they would no longer be available in 2021, it was too late, so I considered myself very lucky to find the one I have. Anyway, the car was less than one year old and the silver, exterior trim was starting to discolor. Matt refused to handle it under warranty. He “offered” to have his “detail” people strip it, polish it and then re-clear coat it for $500.00, of which MBLN would pick up half. I refused. A one year old, $84,000.00 car and they won’t stand behind the trim. There are other tales right here on MBWorld about complete replacements of trim under warranty. As a long time customer of MBLN, I expected that they would go to bat for me with MBUSA, but Matt refused. Oh well. The wagon originally came from FJMC, so as I become familiar with them, I will see if they will take care of the issue. Thanks again for your advice and suggestions.

 

That trim absolutely should have been replaced...

I would reach out to the GM of that dealership and let him know why they are losing your business after all of these years.

 

If the MB dealers you regularly go to are no longer wiping and kissing your **** to your satisfaction, then go to another who might satisfy those needs for you. Some are MUCH better than others, that is for certain. You guys whining about some of your experiences at certain dealers in your area on a forum board isn't going to change anything.

 

I don't think anybody is whining...

And I don't want anybody to kiss my ***. I want them to value me as a customer and care that I'm happy with my $120,000 car though for sure.

 

 

Not to mention the ones you, I, we bought before that one! Loyalty means absolutely sheit these days!

 

Steamliner, since you are a customer with three MB's serviced at MBLN I am really surprised they would not cover the entire $500 repair. I suspect a warranty replacement of the trim on other than a current year model could be blocked in the MB system. My little experience with the FJMC service department was that I would need to have celebrity status with media coverage to get special care. I decided to stay with MBLN. Good luck, maybe FJ will treat you better.

 

Yeah... and Lincoln.

 

Kia and Hyundai are sneaking in on the opportunity of allegiance.