Getting Mercedes to honour manufacturers warranty

digzy

Bought a 162 e220 from a vw dealer in Dublin. It's an English import.
To be fair they gave a 1 year warranty. There's also a Mercedes warranty.

A few wonths ago there were a few electrical issues. The USB doesn't work (so no music) the wing mirrors don't retract when driving and the sat nav works intermittently.

I'm based near limerick and don't have the time or desire to drive the 2 hours to dublin, so the dealers made an arrangement with a local Mercedes dealer to look after it. I wasn't bothered whether it was through the Mercedes or vw dealers warranty.

The Mercedes dealer is on about waiting for this USB panel to come in from Germany ( there's none here or the uk apparently ). It's about 2 months now.
A mate of mine said that once you've a U.K. Car they don't wanna know about it here despite the manufacturers warranty.

Just looking for advise on what I can do to push things on. I feel as though I'm getting fobbed off ( don't think it takes 2 months to post a part from Germany )
Maybe this is standard?

Toyotafanboi

Once the car is under 24 months old, any Mercedes dealer will honour the manufacturers warranty as per EU regulation.

The VW dealers 12 month warranty will only come into effect if any of it remains after the car is 24 months of age.

Parts can go unavailable at times and there's not really much you can do but that being said, 2 months is a savage wait time.

The issue you have is two if not three fold.

The Mercedes dealer doesn't really care if you are pissed because you didn't buy the car from them, Mercedes Ireland won't care because it's a UK car and the VW dealer doesn't care because the car has a Mercedes manufacturer warranty, so you have nobody actively interested in fighting your corner and getting you sorted.

If you bought the Merc from that specific dealer and the part was long term unavailable the would consider removing one from a stock car to get you out of trouble or they would put Mercedes Ireland under pressure to get one from Germany but they have not much to gain really from investing time chasing this.

What can you do to resolve this? Possibly push the VW dealer, you are their customer so they have an obligation to try and satisfy you. They may do a ring around to see if any Irish dealer has the part or even try to source you a second hand one to keep you going if it's genuinely unavailable. You may have to drive to Dublin for that though.

bazz26

Local VW dealer in Limerick is also a Mercedes dealer and both brands share the same forecourt so your dealing with the same dealer principal, assuming the car was bought there.

ofcork

He bought it in Dublin.

bazz26

Sorry should have seen that in the original post.

It does sound like the dealer in Limerick isn't too fussed since you didn't buy from them.

ofcork

Surprised though that merc are still giving issues though they were better quality now.

digzy

ofcork wrote: »

Surprised though that merc are still giving issues though they were better quality now.

The sat nav and USB would work fine. Then I'd hit a pothole and theyd stop.
Now the USB never works but the sat nav works 80% of the time.

I know bugger all about cars but it sounds like a loose connection someplace.

Would Mercedes not pay the limerick dealer to sort it anyway? Making it irrelevant from whom it was purchased. Just dunno why they'd stall on dealing with it.

ofcork

ofcork wrote: »

Surprised though that merc are still giving issues though they were better quality now.

April Fools Day, right? Pubtalk. FFS.

OP, it’s not a normal service/consumable and depending on the specific build of your car, they may need a very specific loom to resolve the fault. It’s a pain in the hole but to be honest, you could have this wait/delay with MANY manufacturers.

Toyotafanboi

Mercedes will pay the Limerick dealer, or any dealer, to fix it.

The issue is troubleshooting it, they could bury hours and hours into troubleshooting it and they won't get paid for that, that and warranty repairs aren't exactly lucrative.

This comes full circle back to if the car was purchased from them they would have less of a gripe spending hours troubleshooting it and losing out on the repair too because you bought the car from them so you spend a few quid with them and they'll want to you be happy and a return customer etc.

That being said, they are obliged to honour the warranty, so you probably just need to ring them, book the car back in and when it's in, be firm with them. You don't want the car back until issues x, y and z are sorted. It may take a few days but they won't want the car hanging around the workshop either so it will push them to resolve things.

digzy

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Mercedes will pay the Limerick dealer, or any dealer, to fix it.

The issue is troubleshooting it, they could bury hours and hours into troubleshooting it and they won't get paid for that, that and warranty repairs aren't exactly lucrative.

This comes full circle back to if the car was purchased from them they would have less of a gripe spending hours troubleshooting it and losing out on the repair too because you bought the car from them so you spend a few quid with them and they'll want to you be happy and a return customer etc.

That being said, they are obliged to honour the warranty, so you probably just need to ring them, book the car back in and when it's in, be firm with them. You don't want the car back until issues x, y and z are sorted. It may take a few days but they won't want the car hanging around the workshop either so it will push them to resolve things.

The Dublin wv dealer has paid the limerick dealer to diagnose the problem already. They’re both main vw dealers. I bought a vw from the limerick dealer 5 years ago.

digzy

JayZeus wrote: »

April Fools Day, right? Pubtalk. FFS.

OP, it’s not a normal service/consumable and depending on the specific build of your car, they may need a very specific loom to resolve the fault. It’s a pain in the hole but to be honest, you could have this wait/delay with MANY manufacturers.

I’m not having a pop at Mercedes. I just find it strange that it’s taking so long for a part to arrive from ‘Germany’. Having dealt with vw and Toyota previously id day Toyota were streets ahead in terms of customer service.

Toyotafanboi

digzy wrote: »

The Dublin wv dealer has paid the limerick dealer to diagnose the problem already. They’re both main vw dealers. I bought a vw from the limerick dealer 5 years ago.

They may have phrased it like that but no money has changed hands, there's no need for it to, you can be certain of that. They've most likely just put a courtesy call through on your behalf.

You dont have to pay for a diagnosis on a car in manufacturers warranty and a dealership certainly can't ask for payment for same. Those facts aside why would one dealer pay the other dealer for a diagnosis when the issue hasn't been diagnosed.

I don't think the issue is the time taken to move the part from Germany to Ireland, but that there is a production issue in Germany and there is no part over there to ship to Ireland. 3 working days would be the norm to get something odd from Germany.

digzy

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

They may have phrased it like that but no money has changed hands, there's no need for it to, you can be certain of that. They've most likely just put a courtesy call through on your behalf.

You dont have to pay for a diagnosis on a car in manufacturers warranty and a dealership certainly can't ask for payment for same. Those facts aside why would one dealer pay the other dealer for a diagnosis when the issue hasn't been diagnosed.

I don't think the issue is the time taken to move the part from Germany to Ireland, but that there is a production issue in Germany and there is no part over there to ship to Ireland. 3 working days would be the norm to get something odd from Germany.

The service guy in limerick was moaning about all the work involved in taking stuff apart in order to diagnose the problem. Hence I got the Dublin garage to bang an email to ‘cover’ the cost of this.
The limerick garage was wary of taking it apart finding nothing wrong and then who pays for the labor....
Some dose. I’d actually rather pay for it to be sorted rather than take the time off work for the few days