Every german car i have come into contact with, mine or friends / family has always ended up costing extra when being serviced.
I can't remember 1 service that didn't required extra charges. Apart from say my dads Mercedes during the first year or 2.
After owning quite a few jap cars that have been excellent to live with i'm having second thoughts on going German again. Whatever the car is its likely to be 2/3 years old and < 30k miles.
Does anyone else find this on services?
Thanks,
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Never happens to me because I call for a quote and ensure the quoted price is confirmed at the time the car is left. With modern computerised job sheets this detail is entered before I sign for the work to be carried out.
Some extras may be found when the work is being done, but if it's not authorised I won't pay for it.
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my VW dealer always tries to leave a bottle of screenwash in the car and tries to charge it (very expensively) as an extra. I can buy decent stuff for a fifth of the price. needless to say I decline the extra.
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I have a Merc and I think Mercedes shoot themselves in the foot a bit with this.
What they're trying to do is minimise the cost by only doing things when necessary based on time and / or mileage. So you don't have to have the plugs changed at 2yrs if the cars only done 20K miles - they're good till 40K (or whatever it is).
The trouble is that this makes it very difficult for the dealers to quote so they quote the basic A or B service cost. As even basic servicing on Mercedes is quite expensive, customers are naturally miffed when they find out there are more additional charges.
On the other hand, if they quoted for everything that could possibly need doing then nobody would ever go near a Mercedes dealer.
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Here in Germany I have a different problem to deal with, which is convincing the dealers to service the car if the service indicator reckons it's not necessary. A BMW dealer told me that changing the oil in my M3 every year was a waste of money but eventually conceded it was my money.
A Merc dealer also refused to perform the B service on my W124 as the mileage was too low and told me to come back next year.
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German car servicing....use trusted indy and don't pay for layers of management, receptionists, plush carpets, company cars and glass palaces.
Funnily enough i have the opposite problem, it's getting a bill at all that's my problem, must be 6 weeks since i had some work done, and despite many calls he still hasn't made my bill up.
If i kick the bucket tomorrow i'll feel very guilty as he's too much of a gentleman to press for payment..;)
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Here in Germany I have a different problem to deal with which is convincing the dealers to service the car if the service indicator reckons it's not necessary.
I had a similar experience with Volvo in Germany. They thought I was mad changing the oil at 6k intervals even after explaining the car had been used for short stop/start journeys.
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convincing the dealers to service the car if the service indicator reckons it's not necessary.
I had the same thing on wifey's Clio a few yrs ago. Service interval as 18Kmiles/2yrs. She was doing very low mileage and I was travelling a lot then, so I took every 12mths for an oil changes and check-over. One year the dealer rang after I'd left the car and said they'd had a look at it and it didn't need servicing.
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