Must Read! New Car Dealer Tactic

I have always been a firm believer of taking care of my customers as if they were family members. If my customer comes to me with a problem on their car and the car is still under factory warranty or needs reprogramming, we will take the car to the local dealer and handle the transaction. I don’t want my customer to make a separate appointment with the dealer; I want to remove that burden, if at all possible. What happened this week opened my eyes to a tactic I was not completely aware of. Please read on, I must share this with you.

A longtime customer brought his Mercedes to us for a noise in the dash when operating the heater. We found a faulty blend door motor, a very extensive job. The customer authorized the job and everything was fine, except that the car needed to be reprogramed after the repair. We set up an appointment and shuttled the car to the local Mercedes dealer for the reprograming. Two days later after numerous calls and no return phone call, we finally reached someone in service and the advisor told us they had to remove part of the dash to repair a broken wire. No call to let us know, no authorization, no consult…..nothing!

My shop foremen and lead tech worked on this car and took digital photos thru every step. They are both master techs. Both of them are outraged and said the dealership is lying.

But wait, it gets better. After we picked up the car, an email and phone call went out to my customer! The email was a satisfaction survey and the phone call was to inform the car owner the reason why the car was at the dealer: The Reason: TO REPAIR A BROKEN WIRE IN THE DASH! The customer immediately called us to let us know.

At this point I was furious and called the dealer. You have to leave a message whenever you call this dealer and I left four messages. It took another day for someone to get back to me. The service advisor told me that they are obligated under the terms of their Mercedes franchise agreement to call all of their Mercedes customers. THEIR CUSTOMER! I had to remind him of two very important facts: First, this is MY customer, not yours, and any obligation you may think you have does not include fabricating the truth.

I don’t want to condemn or prejudge all new car dealers. We have great relationships with the local Chevrolet dealer, Nissan Dealer, Ford Dealer, Hyundai dealer, etc. I just thought it was important to share this story with other shop owners. I am not one to draw a line in the sand; I feel we should all get along. I will never know the truth about the broken wire, but this Mercedes dealership tactic has left me with suspicion.

Sounds like the dealer didn't like you taking business from them. I would be furious.

When you send a car to the dealer expect the customer to be contacted in some form or fashion.

I guess it would be no surprise that I ... like you Joe ... have seen these tatics before. The photos was a good idea. I occasionaly will do the same thing when it comes to one of those tough jobs. But, they way the dealer handle the problem is without a doubt... pure crooks with wrenchs. There's a stigma to being a Mercedes Benz "authorized" technician and that also means an EGO so large that they need a crane to hold their head up.

If a car rolls into "most" dealerships and they KNOW it came from another repair shop... you can bet they'll find or create or flat out lie about the repairs. Not all of them are like that, I've got a great relationship with the local Dodge, Ford, Chevy, and several import dealers. It took years to get that way, and it was only accomplish by shear hard work.

When it comes to the MBenz dealer... I don't have a lot of nice things to say to them or about them. Sorry... but attitude, ego, and professionalism should always be taken in consideration when buying or dealing with any dealer, repair shop...or independent shop.

I probably would have been spitin' nuts and bolts after dealing with these clods.

Well... ya riled me up Joe... guess it was your turn. LOL time for the meds.

We have good working relationships with several dealers especially with Ford. However, our experience with VOLVO has not been good.

Come to think of it....it's the EURO dealerships that give us the most trouble....

Quite right... same here

Come to think of it....it's the EURO dealerships that give us the most trouble....

Come to think of it....it's the EURO dealerships that give us the most trouble....

Yes, that is the case. The other dealers are pretty fair to deal with. Our local BMW-Mercedes-VW-Audi (euro dealer) gives us a whopping 5% discount on parts and does not deliver. I can get 20% discount out of Nashville with delivery.