MB Fanatic

lee2375

In all honestly, how could I have known the lights were broken even if I had looked at them? Like they said, the light cosmetics were not damaged, only the interior pieces which I would have had no way of knowing unless I hooked them up to a car myself, which obviously I was not able to do.

No one has ever offered to sell us a replacement light. I even asked a few months if ago if I could buy a new one, but we didn't get a response! Like I said, if he will SELL me a new light for even his cost, of even a a little bit over for his trouble, I would be fine with that - right now I am stuck with paying a 900 bill to the dealership!

Botton line is, Steve please sell me a new headlight and we can be friends again. I am not asking you to pay for it, just give me a good deal on a new one. I think this is a reasonable solution given the circumstances. In all honestly I have no correspondence from you offering to sell us a new light.

Ted Baldwin

.............since i don't have a Model T-ford, I must not be relying on the coner store. If you think that aftermarket mods do not cause you trouble for which you will be left stranded like the originator of this post, then you simply have not modified your car enough times.

Ted

benzmodz

No I really mean that if in the USA there was no external force such as mods that you wouldnt never have seen changes and improvements to cars.

You should count your blessings that people have the courage to modify extremely valuable cars in an age when Walmart get sued over someone who hits themselves with their own hammer.

It is the dedication of Steve / Dean / Sunman (Sunil) that may one day convince MBUSA to bring some exclusive Euro options to the USA. Simply asking that this not be the case is a vote for NO CHOICE and I for one think that is a pointless argument on this forum .... seeing as people love having stuff done.

On the other side of the coin is the simple fact that some USA dealers dont want to know about mods since they can hardly keep up with fixing simple problems - ones that shouldnt be tough to fix - or worse still prefer to just fleece their customers doing easy jobs.

Vader55

c55m8o

...you mean like having your MB tech look inside the MB Xenon headlight, instead of requiring someone from the Netherlands to come and look inside it?... :v

lee2375

we didnt require Steve to come - he said he would be out anyways. However I do wish the local MB tech was more competent, but nothing I can do about that one....

c55m8o

didn't mean "your" as in "yours"... Yup, I've had =pleanty= of MB techs of that caliber. Very very disappointing; you'd expect more from MB. ...at least I did.

Ted Baldwin

.........cmon!! I know some folks who are brain surgeons for gods sake. By your analysis such people deserve to be worshiped like gods. The courage lies in the patient that gives up his life and places in the hand of the brain surgeon. The courage lies in the owner of the expensive car who gives up his car for the modifications with the full knowledge that he and only he, the car owner is like to suffer the consequences. The vendor/intaller is simply performing a service for which he or she gets paid. Ammirable but hardly earth shattering.

Ted

BMWEATR

final verdict?--- steve/ NOT GUILTY


to many people involved in this transaction, tech should of caught it anyway.

CE750

clearly you haven't seen Steve and Co. tearing apart a 3 month old W211 to it's bare metal unibody.. and putting it back together (having found several faults from the factory, and corrected them) all inside of a 24 hours, and charging pennies on the dollar for what the dealer wants to charge for some of his 19 year old MB School grads to experiment on your car!

Ted Baldwin

.............actually I have seen it. I have also seen someone perform open heart surgery. Trust me it is not the same thing. Why are we even talking about this? Steve is a competent small business owner that does good work and charges for it much like millions of small business owners all over the world. More of my sympathy lies with the car owner who many times is left stranded when things go wrong as examplified by the originator of this post. Not sure what your disagreement is with this.

Ted

CE750

Not disagreeing so much as defending the work Steve did for me, and others I've spoken to as "above and beyond" the average MB trickster/stealer.

I have the highest sympathy for a stranded owner, but this is a case of poor judgement on the owners part, so why should the business owner eat it, and then have to pass on the cost to the rest of us who exercised sound judgement when we've dealt with him?

BTW, as an aside, Sunman (one of Steve's guys) is on on his way to being a brain surgeon, if not already finished with his schooling.

benzmodz

I dont know about your circle of friends but most of the people I have met who ended up having brain surgery didnt have a lot of options. I seem to recall that the profession was around in 2000 BC as demonstrated by precise cranial openings.

In the 2 or so years that Steve has been in business the market for COMAND retrofits has become available in 12 non-European countries and most of Europe. Effectively that makes the MBENZNL company the originator of a global Mercedes culture of personal choice which spans every time zone.

If your definition of Earth shattering is predicated on the ability to change global attitudes to a closed concept then I see nothing trivial about what Steve has propagated.

I suppose if Steve went to medical school he could provide an attitude adjustment with every Cd stacker. Im sure that he could use the same tool for both jobs. Just give it a good wipe before using it on the car.

Look there are several brain surgery methods listed here



Results may vary

benzmodz

That seems to be the general opinion amongst brain surgeons.

Chappy

Personally, I think that Steve provides a valuable service. My reading of Ted's comments were simply that Steve ain't the only game in town.....at least in Atlanta. Taking that a step further, it's more convenient to have a competent local Mercedes-Benz installation expert tackle these desirable, "custom" or unusal mods. (like a COMAND retrofit on an SLR )

SUNILP

Folks, lets get it straight here. Not surgery! Internal Medicine for me! Need the extra time for mods to my car and others cars as well. As for the lights, I believe it's been carried way too long and should have been checked at the first destination to rule out damage. I am 100% sure that steve would have taken care of it then. He has already offered a replacement at cost or below cost so lets leave it at that.

Ted Baldwin

.............there is a lot you don't know. I had a Euro Comand retrofit done to my CLK locally here in Atlanta 2001. Complete with TV tunner, DVD etc. This is a full 2 years before steve began his business. Look, Steve does good work, but he should....he is running a business. Waxing hyperbolic about these things is not neccessary especially to others who have seen it done even before Steve got into the picture. Like Chappy said, my concern is that complicated mods done via long distance relationship between customer and vendor/installer is risky, mostly for the customer. I have been there before. Talking about expensive cars, we have local guys in Atlant that have done Comand retrofits into an SLR. Relax.

Ted

E55_POWER

Sucks cuz both Peter and Steve give GREAT service. Peter def. has a customer for life (assuming he sells wheels for the rest of his life ) and Steve as well. Both have been GREAT to deal with. It's too bad about the situation.

My suggestion, Steve just sell the man a new headlight and call it a day. By no means am I picking sides.

We ship FedEx daily in my company, and most of them are 30 lbs boxes. Although we RARELY get broken/damaged goods, I know parcels are thrown, kicked, etc. because my FedEx driver tells me.

benzmodz

My apology. I should have said that Steve sells parts to people in Atlanta and the rest of the world.

The only risk one faces is never having the options fitted by living in perpetual fear. I never said Steve was the first since it is perfectly clear that Mercedes Benz started in 1901 by fitting a windscreen to that POS they first sold.

Besides that does anyone in Atlanta market, sell, bundle or travel to other states, sorry, I meant to say to the rest of the world ?

Is actual delivery mandatory ?

https://mbworld.org/forums/showpost....3&postcount=31

lee2375

Steve is going to sell me a new light. Unfortunately, I have to pay for it out of my own pocket even though I only did a favor for Ray and for the dealership, I didnt add any markup on the deal.

Guess there is a lesson to be learned: dont do any favors for anyone for free - always add some markup for just-in-case situations like these. If nothing bad happens, then I guess the markup is yours to keep....

I will pay Steve this week for the light and we should receive it early December. When that happens, I will make sure to post it here.

for anyone that wishes to answer - I am now just curious - if you were in my position now, what would you have done? I obviously can't turn back time and file a claim or anything like that, but what would you have done at this point given the situation if you were me? Would you accept responsibilty for what happened, and why? Would you have paid for a new light or not?

E55_POWER

I don't really know the "full details" of the deal in terms of how you are in the middle of this? Did the dealer ask you to order the light for them because they had no means of paying by Paypal? Why didn't Ray just order them himself and have the dealer knock off the price off the car. I don't fully know the details.

IMO, if you were just doing a "favor" asked to you by the dealer or Ray to order the item for them because of "hassles" then I would not make it my responsibility to pay for the light.

I own a small business, fortunately, we do well enough where buying another $900 light at a loss is not a big deal to "kill" the hassle. Being that you sell wheels, I know your margins aren't HUGE so I feel your pain. Didn't the dealer have means to get lights themselves? They are a MB dealer aren't they? But I know that's besides the point.

It's hard to give you an answer for the reasons I stated above. But like Jak said, we typically always just do what the customer asks, as long as it isn't a scam per say. We have $10K to $100K items returned to us on numerous occasions and unfortunately we just have to suck it up.

benzmodz

When my shipment arrives from Steve apart from the excitement I sit down and look at everything. I then write an email to Steve and tell him the condition of everything and what arrived and what didnt arrive.

There was one time when Steve sent me a C-pillar and it didnt arrive. I asked him to check his storage. He said there was nothing there. I said there was nothing here. About 3 weeks later when Steve was working with me in Sydney the FedEX man turned with the missing part. So we both had a laugh.

Doesnt pay to get upset over small bumps in the road. No need to start saying things. But I would say that Steve would have complained to FedEx about the poor service only because I reported the problem.

My action in your situation
---------------------------
- Inspect articles
- Report delivery to supplier
- Report condition

I am surprised that you got involved in such a small matter between a car buyer and a dealer but did not have the resources or facility to check the condition of the parts. That exposes you to a risk and some of them are sleepers like this one.

I would prefer not to deal in parts I know nothing about which is why I never sell rims. That is no reflection on your skills, mine only.

MBenzNL

That is the exact reason why I offered you a replacement light at less then my cost to begin with (we did offer that right after I looked at Ray's car).
You know what I quoted you for the new (not used) replacement light...it has been shipped from the netherlands to the US (fedex) and from california to texas (USPS) which costs me aprox half of what we quoted you.
It is because of you (peter) and the experience I had with you (peter) in the past that I made you this offer - it is not because of ray (eventhough I do feel sorry for him), his dealership, or the fact that this thread is posted online (the solution offerd is still the same one as from a half year ago).

greetingz,

CE750

I read "LESS THAN MY COST" to mean that Steve is ALSO eating a part of this deal out of his own pocket! I think you all ate it here.. Steve went over and above again (which I've seen many on this forum not do), now let's more on.