beau24

Ok, so here's the honest truth, I bought my car, the central air vents stopped working. I took it to a local, small town shop, and they 'tried' fixing the issues. So then I decided to take my car to the MB Dealership here in VA. After some 2-3 days of 'looking' for the problem they came down to the followng.

1. A broken pin connector is the problem. Since it is broken, no communication is being transfered from the central air vents to the stepper motors below that control the airflow.

2. They want 15 hrs of labor + parts, = $2,200 plus tax since they can tell the small shop tried working on the "connector pin."

3. I know I messed up, should have taken it straight to the dealership, ALL I WANT TO KNOW is, should I call other dealerships to get a quote or is this reasonable?

djquix

unless you have tons of money around, I would def. take it to another dealer. Is the car out of warranty already, if not take it to another dealer and see if they will resolve it w/o telling them you took it elsewhere. Also another option is to buy an extended warranty and try to get it covered that way...sorry to hear about that, one thing I learned from my range rover is that these high end cars are very expensive to fix and maintain and a warranty is a must. Buying a car out of warranty means you need to allocate 3000 a year for maint/repairs. Extended warranty is a must, my P.O.S. Rover has already had 18,000 in repairs done, luckily all under warranty

whoover

djquix,

Read the original post again. It's a 2006 but the dealer is denying the warranty claim because a third-party screwed up the connector.

beau24,

The dealer has almost certainly put a note in the system about the "abusive damage," and any dealer will refuse the claim. They have to now, because MB won't reimburse them once the damage is flagged in the system. You can't escape from a database.

I would say your best recourse is a lawyer. Your dealer will document for you that the indy shop did the damage. Why would you take a car under warranty to an indy and pay them?

beau24

I know, the mistake is all my fault. The indy shop is closer, much faster, and I rarely ever have to wait all day, we've gone to them for some 18 years now. I just got this car and I wasnt thinking they'd ruin the connector pin. I dont know if $2,200 is worth getting a lawyer? A lawyer may cost more in the long run, no?

djquix

if it is under warranty still you can try to say the problem happened in another city and you took it to the onlp place in the area that could handle MB. I would ask around some of the kind people on these forums who may work at a mb dealer and see if the car is in fact in some sort of database. I remember problems with my e500 and I used to take the car to a dealer in s. texas(really small dealer in a small town), they never really documented much and when I moved back to houston much of the work that was done was never documented to the dealer in houston.

Chauss

I would call BS on Mercedes...How can they indiscriminately tell it did not happen in the manufacture of the car???

Big Carrot

The stealerships are definitely a pain in the ***, but I would nevereverever take a Mercedes that's in in warranty to an independent repair shop! BUT you did, so I'd tell them to fix what they broke!