jangy

Refusing isn't bad. It leaves that door open. It is even better that you had a pre-drive. Now, you have a witness that works there that must say that the car wasn't that bad before. Go for the test and lets see.

Skeeter

Amdeutsch, I sincerely hope they are monitoring this thread. All I've done is post hte truth and I hope they realize how bad this bad-faith denail of coverage makes them look.

Aside from my temper showing (in posts only, I was polite but upset at the dealership), I've repeatedly stated that all I want is my car FIXED UNDER WARRANTY, nothing more than any owner should expect. I don't intend to go away. I will pursue this until it is resolved to my satisfaction and am overjoyed to know that they might be interested enough to read about my awful experience; maybe it'll cause them to rethink their position.

Maybe they'd even show enough interest to PM me. I'm not holding my breath. But it would certainly elevate their rep with me and many others who've PM'd me and posted their agreement with my view of being abused and wrongly denied service.

I won't hold my breath though. In one week I've gone from writing poetic prose about my love of the E55 and the endless pleasure that MB has brought me. I was pricing an Sl600 just a couple weeks ago! I've posted many times that I was torn between a 600 series car and a CLS55. Until I get satisfaction on this, I am never considering buying another Benz.

This dealer treatment, if backed by MBUSA, turned a lifetime convert into someone who will do his best to talk everyone I know away from the brand. I own a website that gets well into the millions of visitors a month and am thinking seriously about starting to write about this to my customers. Later maybe...

If they do the right thing, then I'll have no hard feelings and will have my faith restored. I'll buy a new MB within a month. They are driving me away by looking for ANY reason to deny owning up to their warranty. The Renntech pulley caused rear-end sub-frame/body damage?! 30 HP extra caused this type of insane damage? How to drive away a recent MB convert in one easy step.

Bad stuff...

Skeeter

jangy

Skeeter, don't confuse this with MBUSA. Unfortunately, the people with power would never contact you. Trust me, your situation will get cleared up as soon as it hits the regional service manager. It won't go past him. The dealer did their job. It is extremely hard for them to balance customer service with MB's extensive service incentive programs and rating setups. They really are caught in the middle and CAN NOT afford a reputation of going around MB's policies. Use the dealership simply as a conduit to relay information.

Just to be safe, I would mention their own conflict resolution programme and ask that it be used to settle this case. Give them outs, rather than just threatening to sue. If you are going to file papers anyway, then they have no face to save.

Skeeter

Wow, Jangy, you are teaching me some valuable stuff here; I have no idea how things really work.

The serivce manager (whe exhibited ZERO knowledge of the law, nor explanations other than repeating the same 'if it is modified the entire system won't get fixed under warranty' line) told me that there was nobody at the dealerhip to talk to, that he was the top of the pyramid and the decision was final. He told me to complain to MBUSA and gave me their phone number.

He claimed that there was no sense talking to him about it and to have all communications with MBUSA.

Are you saying that I need to deal with a third entity: the MB regional service rep? This is not someone with MBUSA? Or at least not someone I can reach through MBUSA? I need to find this person through the dealership? Man this is ugly stuff...

So a regional manager makes the decision? The dealership implied that someone from regional was 'on the way' but I was never told that he came nor that he told the dealership not to cover the repair.

The service manager seemed to be saying that the Renntech parts were dispositive, and that this was communicated to MBUSA by the dealership, who then told the dealership to refuse service. He also told me that my car now has a 'limited' warranty due to the Renntech parts.

Mind you my service rep told me the previous day that he sends people to an aftermarket shop all the time and that they look the other way if a modded car breaks something (as long as it isn't the modded part itself that breaks, of course). This is so out of left field...

So I need to find the regional rep for who? MBUSA? But not MBUSA itself?

Confused but grateful,

Skeeter

MB Fanatic

The regional rep is working for MBUSA.

jangy

The regional service manager works for MBUSA and is their eyes, ears, and voice in the field. They have full autonomy and a region to run. They are the ONLY entity that would step into a dealership that has teh authority to flag your car.

Your warranty is a binding contract between yuo and MBUSA, not any specific dealership. No way would MBUSA just flag your car without input by the regional rep.

The Service Manager always acts dumb. The number he gave you goes to a switchboard person making $15 an hour and WITHOUT the ability to do anything but enter your call into a database. Demand that you be present when the Regional rep comes to inspect your car.

Iwould also spread the word and see if anyone knows who it is for your area and perhaps a contact number. I know the one for SD (not that he likes me), but I also know his boss .

NXtremeJeep

Skeeter,

I would suggest getting the name of the regional manager and the name of the head of customer support of MB North America. Go straight to the top. Write them a nice detailed letter of your situation and the names of all the people you spoke to. I would even cite the appropriate provisions of the Magnusson-Moss Act. File a complaint with the BBB and some type of California Consumer Agency (in Florida, we have the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs). As indicated by many above, you need to be polite but stern.

The above will put enough pressure on them to resolve your complaint rather than wasting legal fees to defend their position.

hope this helps,

maaz

Skeeter

Ok, killer advice guys. I'm on it.

I'm giong to find out who the regional manager is, figure out first if he's the one who made the call. If he did (looks like he had to be the guy to make the decision), then I set up a meeting with him. That's where we discuss a few points that have come to me through the help of you guys (and thanks to all for the emails and PM's with this info). Ballzys55, thanks again also. Amazing to see how many people here stepped up to help a relative stranger.

Here's what the regional manager is going to hear:

1. this is not unheard of. Other STOCK E55's have suffered this same failure. I've found more than one on this board alone who've contact me; surely MB has more in their records (which they'll be forced to produce if we get that far).
2. Renntech has NEVER heard of a single E55 with their pulley having this problem.
3. I'll show my before and after dyno demonstrating modest power gains in the sub 10% range.
4. Cite the Magnusson-Moss act (in relevant part) which puts the burden of proof on THEM to prove that the pulley alone was the cause of the failure.

Then I will hope for the best. If that fails to turn him around, we'll go higher. If that fails, there are lawyers to contact, thanks again for the references guys.

I swear, this is so f*cked up that if it was going to cost me less than $2-3k to fix, I'd just pay and have done with it. And never buy another MB again. Great product, but if my local dealer is this petty, and the regional rep is also, and I get no satisfaction with MBUSA, the problem isn't with the product, but with the people that administer it.

You'd think a customer who was ready to buy a six-figure car from them would be enough of an asset that they'd give you the white glove treatment and every break possible on issues like this. Unreal.

Skeeter

cte430

You may have mentioned it here already but have you tried talking to the GM or sales manager of the dealer? They want to sell cars - maybe they can "talk" to this a$$ of an SA and explain that he is costing them sales.

I hope you get speedy resolution. While the MM act is there to protect us having to go that far may take a VERY long time and will have your car tied up indefinitely. Good luck.

Skeeter

Update:

Looks like the decision to not cover the repair was made at the local (dealership) level. This is good news. The car has apparently not been 'marked'. I'll take it to another dealership that has proven more reasonable and hope for the best.

Someone involved with the process @ the dealership told me, off the record, that they are screwing me, that the service manager is determined to deny coverage no matter what, and that the shop conversation has been centered around what an unfair decision this is. He even admitted that it was entirely conceiveable based on the timing that the bolt was torn out by the tech when he tried to remove the bolt to replace the bushing. But all off the record and I don't want to get the guy in trouble and out him...

Called Renntech and was treated extremely well. Their technician, a very well informed guy named Hartmut, told me essentially what all of you have been saying: that in all likelihood the problem was caused by a technician who got too enthusiastic with the impact wrench. Not realizing that bolt often seizes up, and is installed with very strong threadlock, he hit it with full speed and tore out the threads. He indicated that this is FAR more likely a cause for this failure than excess power. Renntech hasn't seen any of their cars break this way, and that bolt and thread should withstand many times over what our cars are capable of putting out.

So in short, he advised me to either take it to another dealer or take it up to the general manager. He said that regional reps are not likely to sign off on any repairs and are motivated to save MBUSA as much $ as possible. As an alternative, he suggested I call MBUSA and hope that they take care of me as a matter of good will and good CS, but cautioned against citing the legalities or requesting arbitration.

Worst case they said to bring it to Dinan, because BMW's break this part constantly and this is a repair they are expert at fixing. I'm going to call to find out what this will cost; if they'll fix it right and it'll be less than a grand or two, I might just take the coward's route and pay to have this behind me.

More to come,

Skeeter

DFW01E55

Good news skeeter.
Just try another dealer and when you get it fixed, trash the daylights out of the other dealer. It would be good for the rest of us to avoid enriching that kind of dealer behavior.

Skeeter

I spoke too soon.

The dreaded 'Service 8' was NOT in the system yesterday when they checked. But it is in today. F*CK! Never mind taking it to another dealer, I'd get the same reply. Looks like they did this to me without even having the regional rep look at the car, it seems to have been done entirely by the service manager at MB SF. Unreal.

So now my options are few. I'm going to try to talk to the general manager and the sales manager. If they give me reasonable trade-in on it, I'll swallow my pride and principles and let them get MORE of my money in exchange for screwing me. Othewise off to arbitration...

So much for good news.

Skeeter

Jakpro1

Begging you guys to please please learn from poor Skeet and make sure you check to see if your dealer is "mod friendly". If not, you are gonna run into this same thing.

Amazing what some dealers do. We have complete 100% polar opposites here. One dealer wants to shoot modders, the other can't mod cars enough. Just wild.

Hope you get things worked out Skeet. Wish you weren't flagged. You could make the trek up here and my guys would hook you up for sure.

Cylinder Head

iTrader: (1)

Skeet, you've got to take this up the ladder and definitely should get litigious on these a-holes. Your lawyer should be on call, letters need to be drafted, and regional people must be conference-called with your lawyer in hand.

ChicagoX

I have so much hate for your SA right now.

Skeeter

Thanks guys. Why is this bringing me more down than a car problem should? Sunken morale when the friendly service rep told me that the Service 8 showed up. And he told me that the last one of these that got sent out (under warranty, mysteriously) was >$4k in repair bills. Painful.

Back story is that the decision was made over the phone by a fill-in regional manager. The regular guy, supposedly much more reasonable, was on vacation. So the service rep suggested I stay calm, not kick into litigation mode, and wait till the regular regional rep returns and they will appeal the decision to him and get him in touch with me if needed.

Looks bad, but I'll play along for now. Not looking good...

Skeeter

Jrocket

First thing is to determine if the bolt was ripped out or twisted out.The sheet metal will tell what happened.If it was ripped out from the bushing going bad the sheet metal will have signs a fatigue,the metal will show that it has been pushed up and pulled down over a long period of time,showing stress marks.

If it was twisted out from the bolt being frozen,the sheet metal will have a smaller damaged area and shows signs of metal being torn in a circular motion,should be very easy to determine this.

Its hard to believe an impact gun could do it,but a large breaker bar probably could.I dont see how the bolt didnt shear off first though?

Ive heard of mounts going bad,thus resulting in the bolts breaking from the mount moving around under acceleration.

I wouldnt let this dealer off,specially if they are the ones that made it worse than it should be on this repair!!!!!

jrcart

You need to go into the dealership, demand to talk to the owner or GM and explain the situation. The dealership and service department has all the power in the world, initially anyways, in situations like this. They can turn a blind eye to your modifications, not mention them and submit the charges to MB as "Covered Warranty Work". It is then up to MB to decide if they need to send out a rep (adjuster for lack of a better term) to inspect the car. 9 times out of 10 they will not send anyone ot to inspect the car. You need to call some other dealers and maybe even post something on these forums to find out if anyone else experienced a similar problem. If so were these other "similar" problems on "modified" or "stock" cars. If there appears to be a number of cars with this problem you can take your complaint to the attorney general and file a formal complaint as well as the better business bureau. This will get peoples attention.

That being said, I would find another dealership to give your business to imediately. Take a look at my stable of vehicles, all of them heavily modified. I still get warranty coverage on these cars (except CTS-V, 7 blown rear-ends, first 3 where covered). It is little or no money out of the dealerships pocket, they just submit the labor ticket to MB for reimbersment. It should be in your dealerships best interest to keep you a happy loyal customer, what better way to do so than to keep you happy in a situation like this.

Unfortunatly you may be screwed at this point. MB dealerships have a "master computer network" by now MB North America has black listed your car and they know it has been modified. If I were you I would not buy a set of valve stem caps from your dealership and let everyone else know about their poor service....

MB_Forever

Wow, what an experience. I'm sorry to hear about all the troubles you're having with that dealership. What a bunch of retards. Please whatever you do, don't let them get away with this. They most likely caused the problem in the first place, and they should fix it. Go in to the service manager and request in writing that the regional rep personally examines the car and that you be present whenever he does. Do this in writing and whatever response they give you also request it in writing. I think once the regional rep looks at the car, they'll figure out what happened. There are cars with much more power than yours and over 80,000 miles and no such problems

Skeeter

JRcart,

I also had some serious troubles with my CTS-V coverage. That is, until the awful traction of the F1 run-flats sent me into a concrete divider in the pouring rain at 40 mph. That's one way to solve chronic axle-hop... Car was totalled and I ended up using the $ to buy the E55.

You have vast experience with these issues so I appreciate the advice and have some follow up questions:

Should I wait until the 'normal' regaional rep is back? The service rep says he is a performance oriented guy and might reverse the substitute rep's decision. If not, I'll get a chance to talk to him myself and make two appeals: first, please recognize that (based on my dyno) the extra 18 HP of the pulley didn't cause this and to do the right thing; second, I'll pay the shop to go back to the stock pulley and request that they do the fix and remove the service 8. In exchange, I'll trade the E in for a newer model and earn MB some big $, as I'm looking at some costly iron from them.

If he denies these reasonable appeals and they screw me on a $4k repair and keep the 'service 8' on me, I pay for the repair, sell the car at a big loss and NEVER BUY A MB AGAIN, in addition to litigating the cost of the repair, diminshed value, lost usage, attorney's fees (as provided my Magnussen-Ross), complain to the BBB, Attorney General, consumer fraud department of the DA's office (where I used to work), etc etc. I hope they do the math and the right thing.

When you suggest I find another dealership to give my business, are you suggesting I pick up my car unrepaired and take it to another dealer before waiting a week or so till the regular regional rep is back and exhaust that route first, through this dealer? Maybe use a more reasonable mod-friendly dealer make the argument for me instead and buy a car from them in trade-in rather than giving these weasels my $? Or should I stay calm and hope for the best and resort to this next?

I found a local MB body shop that did this exact same repair for a STOCK E55, covered under warranty! I need to try to get some details, but I have it on good knowledge that this is the case. Jrocket had a similar but not identical failure, also stock, also covered under warranty. Do I politely use this as ammo with the regional rep through the current dealer when they contact him on his return from vacation, or do I go scorched earth right now.

The trial lawyer in me want to set this for small claims court, line up three witnesses and have my trial. But that's my passion getting the best of me. I'd rather resolve this amicably.

In any event, the car has ~3k of warrany left, so you might not thing a service 8 would be a big deal. To the contrary, there is no way I'll be able to get a thrid-party warranty with this tied to the VIN, killing resale and making it a car less appealing to keep.

Should I get the car out of MB SF right away, or trust the service rep who told me they'd do their best to get the 'regular' rep to do the right thing. Do I trust them or get it out and let someone else pick up the mess.

Skeeter

CynCarvin32

Status 8 does not show up on car fax as tied to the vin. That is something shown on the VMI and only mb knows what the VMI states.

With only 3k miles left under the factory warranty its not the end of the world.

rich644

This really agitates me,

Let me understand this, not only did they deny a warranty claim under a bogus pretext,(unrelated mod) they likely caused the damage in the first place??!! Not only are they incompetent they are also dishonest.

Mercedes dealers used to be known for exceptional service and personalized attention, earning customer loyalty that spanned generations. Its bad enough the quality has slipped, but now you are likely to get better treatment from the local Chevy dealer.

This dealer is a stain on the MB organization, I hope you make their life difficult.

Riffyb

Skeeter. Sorry to hear about your troubles. I thought some MB dealers actually install RennTech parts. Maybe I am wrong.

I recently had my transmission replaced on my Jeep. I have a custom exhaust and intake. They did it with no problem. No questions asked. Its surprising how some dealers want to throw away work because it would cost them money. I hate stealerships

jrcart

Skeeter; I can answer a few of your questions, but not all of them. I don't really have a VAST knowledge of this, fortunatly all of my other modded cars have given me little or no trouble, so the warranty stuff has been kept to a minimum. I did get an attorney for the CTS-V issues. I did this for a couple reasons. First is the fact that I blew a rear-end with about 1500 miles on the car while it was in a bone stock state of tune. I blew the second rear-end about 1000 miles later. With about 4000 miles on the car, I blew it yet again, however this time I had an exhaust system, intake and rear sub-frame connectors on the car. When I brought it in again, they said they could not cover it because the modifications voided my warranty. Even though we all know that this car was spitting our rear-ends every 1500 miles when it was stock, now all of a sudden they had a scape goat and they were going to take full advantage of it. After some griping and a few calls from my attorney GM agreed to pay for the parts and split the labor cost with me, however they would not honor any future drivetrain warranty issues. At that point I figured what the hell, I have no more warranty so I went all out on the mods. 600 HP and another 3 rear-ends and 3 radiators later I still have the car, but with no warranty.

You have to have very deep pockets to fight these auto makers, they are banking on you doing the math and figuring that it is cheaper to pay for the repairs than to litigate.

The fact that they acknowledged doing another similar repair on a stock E55 is probably the best ammo you will have. I would post on every Mercedes forum you can find and see if you can find others who encountered similar problems. If this is indeed an "epidemic" they are legally bound to put out a service bulletin to the service departments. Find out if there was any kind if service bulletin issued for this problem. Again, I have to believe there are some M-B techs on these forums that can help. If it is a big enough problem, with enough effected vehichles, they may also be bound to a service recall. The attorney general and US DOT and NTSB have really tightened the ropes on auto manufactures ever since the Ford Explorer roll overs in the 90's. Remember how the Jap car makers never had any recalls and everyone thought they where so great. Well it was because they did not do recalls, not because they made such great cars.

I would pull your car out of that dealers service department, if it is drivable. If it has to be towed I would wait before you incur any additional costs. I would also wait to talk to the regional guy or try to go over his head in the mean time.

PM me some additional details about your problem and I will call my dealership and ask the service manager if they have seen similar problems, If this is an epidemic my dealership will know, they are one of the largest volume dealers in the midwest.

Dragoncoach

I've heard a lot about SF MBZ and Oakland MBZ and most of it isn't favorable. I LIVE in SF and bring my SL to RAB in San Rafael. I'll go out of my way to bring it there because I don't get any hassle and get treated fairly. Good luck with your problem. I worked with dealers for years and most service managers are reasonable but some can be real jerks. Maybe the sm at the dealership is the latter.......