Excessive cost for an electrical fault or what?

Bill-e

Hi Guys,

My brother brought his 8 year old CLK 240 into the shop last week because the electrics were acting funky. Here's what they said the problems are:

We have gone through the electric in your car & the following is our findings:
The Battery was empty of acid & we feel that this has caused the other components to fail. We have had to take each fault & diagnoise it individually.
The drivers window is not working due to the drivers door control unit having failed.
There is a current & stored fault in the aux water pump & it is not working. This unit pumps water around the engine & is currently not working.
The battery is dry & has overheated & needs replacing
The centre brake light is not working.
The heater blower motor is not working, there is power to the motor but it will not work.
There is a fault in the heater controls but this may be connected to the blower motor. We would need to fit the blower motor first but the heater control may also be needed.
Drivers door control unit 325.68 + vat
battery 201.27 + vat
blower motor 293.15 +vat
centre brake light 126.54 +vat
aux water pump 179.30 +vat
heater controls 361.59 +vat

Labour cost todate is 380 euro + vat
labour to fit all parts would be 475 + vat

That's nearly 3 grand! Not even sure if the car is worth that!

I'm pretty sure they said that it would only be €95 for diagnosing and now they make it out at 380e...

Is my brother getting F'd in the A or what?

Thanks for any advice!

mickdw

If it genuinely has those faults, they would need a bit more than the 95 euro for diagnostic although they should have made this clear at start.

I wouldnt get any work done there at the minute.
It it needs a new battery, get it somewhere else as that price is shocking.
Get the blower motor, brake light & heater controls from breakers yard for a fraction of that price.
Not so sure about water pump, that would be important though.
Drivers door control unit could be fussy & might be better ordered specifically for your car.

First thing I would do is get a battery if it needs one. See how things are then.

DublinDilbert

I guess it all depends which 'shop' he brough it too.

Had the car any prior faults? I'm guessing that some of them things were already faulty and not as the result of this flat battery.

Bring the car to a good auto electrican, who is familar with merc's. Probably are common faults he'll have fixes for. Anything else he can fit second hand or recon parts.

That's mad money to be spending on an 8 year old car...

Mr Benevolent

Bill-e wrote: »

Hi Guys,

My brother brought his 8 year old CLK 240 into the shop last week because the electrics were acting funky. Here's what they said the problems are:
That's nearly 3 grand! Not even sure if the car is worth that!

I'm pretty sure they said that it would only be €95 for diagnosing and now they make it out at 380e...

Is my brother getting F'd in the A or what?

Thanks for any advice!

That's normal if he brought it into a Mercedes garage. Rip-off otherwise - those CLKs are not the most reliable cars in the world though.

El Guapo!

200 quid for a battery?? :eek:
If I was you I'd get the car out of there ASAP and bring it somewhere reputable

nightster1

Bill-e wrote: »

Hi Guys,

My brother brought his 8 year old CLK 240 into the shop last week because the electrics were acting funky. Here's what they said the problems are:
That's nearly 3 grand! Not even sure if the car is worth that!

I'm pretty sure they said that it would only be €95 for diagnosing and now they make it out at 380e...

Is my brother getting F'd in the A or what?

Thanks for any advice!

If I were you I would go to a mercedes specialist, rather than a main dealer, many s/hand parts available for merc. Dealer will charge you lots

bryaner

€70 notes should be more than enough for the battery, and deffo the scrapers for the rest of the parts.

2yung2adm

200 euro for parts from a breakers excluding battery. 200 euro to fit the parts, maximum.

Bill-e

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I'll have to tell the bro that he's probably being fecked over alright on this one.

I don't think it help his case much when he e-mailed them from his work email. They probably assumed that because he worked for such and such that he must be on pretty good money and that they'd milk him.

DublinDilbert

Bill-e wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I'll have to tell the bro that he's probably being fecked over alright on this one.

I don't think it help his case much when he e-mailed them from his work email. They probably assumed that because he worked for such and such that he must be on pretty good money and that they'd milk him.

They are not really milking him a such, that's what main dealers charge for parts and labour. I would doubt they care who he works for or if he's on the dole. They will only fit new parts, will not attempt a repair (even for simple well known problems).

Avoid the main dealer if at all possible when it comes to stuff like this.

Eric Cartman

replace the battery and then check the fuses , would be very very odd for a blower motor to fail, and the heater controls sound like a fuse is just gone