chassis

I believe car dealers are among the scummiest businesses known to humankind and they will stoop to anything, no matter how low, to achieve their own purposes. MBUSA most likely has nothing to do with it, just the scummy dealer.

So no, no conspiracy theory. Just scum.

HBerman

Have you considered the remote possibility that the car is MIA? Perhaps it has been stolen from the lot and no one wants to own up with the reality. 3 months given the inventory controls and no status certainly leads one in that direction.

ocdbroker

Two likely scenarios.

^^^First, and most likely, nobody cares. Second, something egregious has happened as you've suggested. Car was stolen, damaged, defective or missing major component(s) and Mercedes doesn't want details to be public information.

TR3B

$20 says they just sold it out from underneath you. If you have the VIN you should carfax it and see if it pops up as registered.

HBerman

I've never heard of such a total lack of communication and indifference on the part of MBUSA and the selling dealer. There are just no data points for over 3 months that make any sense. Personally, I would have walked after the first month and purchased something else, but certainly not from MB.

This is like a Shakespearean play:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!...."

wgnlust

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it….

LMinn

At this point they should be giving YOU a deposit, not the other way around.

ska597

This reminds me of the time I ordered an RS6. The car arrived at the Davisville, RI port and I received the heads up that it should be on a trailer in a matter of days. Soon after, while I was awaiting transport to NE, the dealer told me that the car had been held up at the port and he didn’t know why. Eventually about four weeks later after I had reached my limit on being told that they weren’t sure about why it’s not being released to transport, I gave the dealer an ultimatum that if I wasn’t given explicit reasoning as to why the car was was essentially marooned in RI, I was gonna back out. The dealer eventually got back to me to inform that the car had been damaged coming off the boat and needed a new bumper and exhaust system and the hold up due to an unavailable exhaust component.

This situation sounds eerily similar to that. Maybe it was involved in some catastrophic incident. Maybe consider giving them an ultimatum and threatening to walk away (while giving yourself rope to get back into the car if they respond positively). You might get more of a response that way.

ocdbroker

^^^Did you ultimately take the car? Although you should've been made aware sooner, at least you got a straight answer after a month. Not a terribly unreasonable timeframe IMO. They obv just wanted to just get it fixed without disclosure.

In my situation, dealer doesn't really care as they could easily sell it for more after I back out. Just bummed out about how it's been handled. I wouldn't have a business if I treated customers with such disregard. Time to move on.

ska597

No sir. I refused delivery immediately. I had no interest in taking ownership of a $135k car that had been in a confirmed accident. It’s not like they were going to provide me evidence of the actual damage. When I asked them for visual evidence of the damage so that I could make an informed decision, I was told that that wasn’t going to be a possibility. Maybe it was far worse than they were letting on? I had no interest in finding out. And yes, it was ‘only’ four weeks but when you’re told that the car will be released to you in days and it ends up going that long without any info, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Either way, the car took much longer than four weeks to get to the dealer; it took well above six to eight weeks if I recall correctly. It took them four weeks just to come clean to me about why it was being held.

While waiting for another allocation, I did my research on this forum and learned about how an E63s is a better car in all respects other than the subjective aesthetics. I found an allocation for the E and the rest is history.

For your car, if they’re not responding to you all the way up the chain of command, clearly something is really gone awry and I doubt it’s that they want you to back out so they can bilk someone else out an ADM. There’s probably something really wrong with it and they don’t want word getting out because they’re well aware how the buyers for this particular car are all part of a tight knit community and finding out that it been severely damaged or having a catastrophic mechanical failure would impact their ability to sell it to someone else due to word of mouth. Just my thought. Hard to imagine they’re just not responding to you because they suck at customer service. There’s a limit to that theory imo.

But really who’s to say? It’s a bad situation regardless. Even if it was damaged in some way, they don’t have to actually tell you the extent of the damage. They could just say it’s been damaged and it’s getting remedied and if you’re still interested they’ll let you know when it’s available. That’s at least something to go off of.

HBerman

I had a situation years ago with a C-class car that was sitting at the port in Germany for more than a month after production was completed. Further investigation by my dealership found that there was a defective crankshaft in the engine that needed to be replaced. I immediately canceled that car and we reordered another one. The second car was delivered (and was fine), but the first car finally showed up about a month after I took delivery of the replacement order. The dealer traded it to another dealer without taking delivery from the VPC. The point here is that neither the new dealer nor the buyer of that car knew its repair history!

At this point, you need to get on with things. You'll never know what the issue was, and since it's probably being significantly repaired, you'll always wonder if something undisclosed will go wrong. It's just not worth the potential aggravation.

Stru-Benz

​​​​​​​Are these Canadian cars? The pics of the gauge cluster are in km and the fuel consumption is L/100km.

I.T. Guy

​​​​​​​Yes I’m in Canada

chassis

What is the probability that the dealer fabricated a "damage" fiction?

ska597

Very low. It wouldn’t even be in their best interest to do so because it lost him a sale. I should add that over the course the year that I was waiting for delivery of the car, I got to know the sales manager well and he was always super responsive and transparent. He was my primary point of contact. He worked hard to get me a second allocation, but at that point I had acquired an E allocation and turned it away. I’ve since done business with him again as he moved from Audi to BMW and he’s always been upfront with me. Of all of the scummy car folks out there, he was one of the better ones. That dealer experience was far better than the E63s one I dealt with actually buying my car. It was the same story as OCD Broker. For my wagon build, they even botched the order. I wanted the carbon fibre exterior package and the guy working with me never ordered it. Just a bad, bad experience overall. The Audi experience was a revelation compared to my Mercedes experience.

chassis

He lost a sale to you but it will never be known if he sold the allegedly damaged unit to another John for more money. Reading the posts above, no photographic support was given.

ska597

Its possible. But he did offer me two units without an ADM and as far as I know that they didn’t charge ADMs to other customers who worked with them per Audizine forum. But who’s to say? All I can say is that it was an infinitely better experience than any MB dealer I’ve worked. The only blemish was at the last step at the port. When I inspected the car at the dealer once it did arrive, the work had been handled with care. He tried to see if I had interest in buying it when I looked at it in person, but knowing what I knew about it I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Whoever did buy it, I hope they’re enjoying it trouble free and in good health.

HBerman

I got my Level 2 charger installed today in preparation for the arrival of my AMG EQE SUV next month. I just scheduled my Service A (the last one on my prepaid plan) in preparation for turning in my wagon. I'll be sorry to see it go, but it should be driven by someone more than me. The mileage is currently 19,545 after 2 years, 10 months. The strange part of turning in this car is that the current trade-in value is over $35,000 than the lease residual amount. First time for everything I suppose.

Wassaby

Why just not buy it and resale it for a profit?

HBerman

The dealer is buying it. I will get a check for the $35,000 from them. Perhaps I wasn't clear.

Drone_S213

Great outcome! It's like leasing an AMG Wagon for the price of a Subaru Outback or Crosstrek for 3-years. Not sure what your monthly lease payment is? My monthly payment is $1922. $122K MSRP. Plan on keeping it since will probably won't ever own anything more Powerful and Comfortable to carry my gear in my Lifetime. Just owe $82K on my Loan which is current value of my TSLA Stock.

Playing the Powerball tonight...need another AMG on the East Coast!

HBerman

The MSRP was $144,000.

Wassaby

ocdbroker

Excellent outcome, Harris.

$144 MSRP
$77 Residual
$112 Buyout

On one hand you made out on the ridiculously low lease rate but on the other hand your payment was inflated by a ridiculously low residual. I'd say $11k/year (rough estimate) isn't too bad for the privilege to drive your perfectly spec'd wagon for 3 years.

After driving a bunch of EVs around lately, my guess is you will love yours. I just hope it has Tesla level regenerative braking as this really makes them a pleasure to drive. Good luck.

HBerman

I've driven the EQE 500 SUV and was impressed at how the car responded. The AMG version adds additional suspension control and power so I expect to be surprised. I've not driven a Tesla so I've not experienced the brakes on a model S, but there are three levels of "recuperation" on the EQE which the strongest felt like I was significantly braking.

One thing that I found curious is that KBB didn't care if the wagon had CCBs. Strange.