saltydog66

Maybe not quite the mother of all f**ups, but certainly not something I would expect from MB, or any reputable manufacturer. I ordered the OEM winter wheel package with my car, and picked it up when I took delivery of the car this past May. As they are forecasting snow for tomorrow here in New Hampshire, I went to mount the wheels yesterday. I started with the right front. The wheels are staggered (265/40-19 on 9.5"rims front, and 295/35-19 on 10" rims rear), so I triple checked that I was mounting one of the 265s with the correct direction. As I was bolting down the wheel, there seemed to be excessive friction, so I reached behind the wheel and could feel that it was up against the suspension! After managing to remove the wheel, I looked at the stamping on the inner spoke which indicated it was a 10" width rim! The other 265 tire was also on a 10" rim. One of the 295 rears was correctly mounted on a 10" rim, the other was on a 9.5, so 3 of 4 tires were mounted on the wrong rim! My salesman, who is a nice guy, said he had heard that Tire Rack does the mounting and balancing for MB winter wheel packages. Anyone else heard this?

bobblehead

If you bought from MB dealer, why would Tire rack be involved ? The whole set comes from Germany as either square or staggered setup from the factory. So, now, the dealer needs to fix their mistake then.

saltydog66

Might be more economical to ship the wheels and tires in bulk, and then mount and balance in USA, but who knows? I was just reporting what my salesman told me. Clearly the dealer has to make good, but I haven't heard anything yet.

saltydog66

Finally got this mess straightened out. The company that handles the OEM winter wheel packages for MB (and apparently others) is an entity called Dealer Tire LLC, based in Cleveland. Here is the letter I wrote to their president, Dean Mueller: (not that I expect to hear back)

Hi,

I purchased a new 2021 Mercedes E63S Wagon this year from Mercedes-Benz of Natick. Along with the car, I bought the OEM winter wheel and tire package that was provided by you via your Cleveland warehouse. When I went to mount the wheels on the car, I discovered that 3 of the 4 tires were mounted on the wrong rims. You supplied three 9.5" rims, and only one 10", as the car has a staggered setup. Furthermore, both 265 width tires were on the wider 10"rims, and one 295 was on a 9.5". I just wanted you to know that it took a lot of time and aggravation to get this straightened out with my dealer, who was quite helpful. It's just unfathomable to me how this package got past your quality control to actually get shipped to a customer.


Regards,

ska597

You bought your car from Natick? As in Natick, MA? How was your experience? Before I got my 2021 about a year ago, I had called them looking for an allocation and was told by the SA that they wanted a $5k non refundable deposit and couldn’t guarantee when they would get an allocation. Needless to say that conversation ended pretty quickly after that.

saltydog66

I ordered the car in Jan '21. Did give a $5k deposit but wasn't told it was non-refundable. They also gave me $4k off sticker, which no one else at the time was doing. They were very helpful in sorting out the mess with the wheels.

ska597

Sounds like it worked out exceptionally well for you. Add to the fact that you actually got money off which is absolutely unheard of these days. Glad to hear. The initial vibe I got from the SA was not great so I didn’t proceed any further. It seemed like they wanted to hold onto my money without any sort of guarantee or assurance that they were even going to be able to get anything.