[Closed] Merc servicing - Indy specialist or local garage ?

On a car that new I'd be stumping up for a main dealer stamp to preserve the full MB service history.

Have you actually priced any of the indys?

Is it schedule A or B? 4Matic? Brake fluid change?

My local Merc specialist starts at £164 depending on model and service requirements.

When I had an A-class many moons ago it was about £350 for a minor service and about £450 for a full. I took it to them to keep the warranty. I found that as soon as the warranty ran out the prices dropped dramatically.

It’s an A service. Apparently that includes an air and fuel filter nothing more. It’s not 4matic

Merc will be £585 including MOT. plus no courtesy car so means my wife driving 25 miles each way too to pick me up!

Local respected garage has just quoted £209 including MOT but that’s not Merc parts

The car will be out of warranty at the end of April

I would just go local. No warranty etc so why pay more. If you need some Merc parts I am sure the local will get them in.

I bought a 1yr old Merc C class in 2012. Kept it for 10 years and always had it serviced by an independent. No issues at all and it was close to mint when I traded it in for another C class (also 1 year old) at Merc. It had done 165k and they gave me a pittance for it...
Always used independents.

It depends on how long you are planning on keeping it IMO - if you are selling in the next couple of years you'll get more/sell more easily with a full main dealer service history. If you are running it into the ground then a local indie.

If your worried about the quality of partsbeing fitted by an indy, just request mann or mahle branded filters. They are what 90% of car manufacturers rebrand as their own anyhoo. Any locally respected garage will be more than capable of carrying out that service just as a main stealer itself would.

I cant comment on Merc but my "local" Audi dedicated independent have a cracking reputation and their hourly rate is half the official dealer. They have access to the Audi online service system so the warranty is maintained.
If I think of all the different dealer chains I've used over the years there isn't one that I would go back to.
My independent is 20 miles away and the dealer about 5 but the independent has courtesy cars so it's not an issue.

Be careful. Mrs Efg had a CLK320 & we found that a local indy was a Merc trained specialist, so we went there for a service & MOT. All good. Then the gearbox failed, (68K miles) It often wouldn't change up from 1st, you had to stop, turn the engine off & restart it, not great when Mrs Efg was on her way to a nightshift at Leeds General Infirmary!
Anyway, we took it to the local guy who diagnosed a problem with the electrics pack that sits on top of the valve body in the 7 speed box.
Long story short, he'd mis-diagnosed the problem & the car had to be taken to the Merc dealer in Harrogate, costing a fortune to re-repair.
Cue, the small claims court.

Nobrainer - stump up the Merc tax and have the Merc stamp.

The cars too young to go indie and buyers like a full set of mb stamps.

Also if it's full merc history you stand a chance of in the event of a failure out of warranty you might see a good will gesture from merc uk

Haha

I just did all filters, oil, 7g+ gearbox filter and oil myself for about 3 hours and £130 in parts on my 2011 merc

What a ridiculous sum of money to spend on a depreciating asset

I think you are all absolutely nuts

How many years sooner could you retire if you kept all that depreciation and servicing cash.

I just did all filters, oil, 7g+ gearbox filter and oil myself for about 3 hours and £130 in parts on my 2011 merc

What tools did you need to do that?

I'll start with an industrial car lift (it has to be level so cant be a jack) plus a lot of spare space (which rules out a lot of people) a number of tools plus Torgue wrench etc. Plus if you paid £130 for gearbox oil and good quality synthetic engine oil plus oil/cabin filters then let me know from where?. Here is a simple video for the gearbox oil change alone to help..

I know it's painful but if you pay for a multi year service plan then there's a decent cost saving. Still has the MB tax but just not quite as much of it.

I use an independent specialist, in my personal opinion when re-selling showing you've used the same garage for most services shows you weren't being mucked about or always looking for the cheapest. I don't think anyone cares you didn't use the main dealer, but Kwik fit would raise a concern!

My garage charged £950 for the major service on mine including all fluids, filters, gold plated gearbox oil, brake fluid, mot and aircon re-gas (similar value car to yours, 2014 E63). I think that's quite reasonable, the parts costs would have been about a third of that. The next service should be much cheaper.

How many years sooner could you retire if you kept all that depreciation and servicing cash.

Probably about a year. Most of which you'd have already spent grubbing around on the floor under a series of rusty knackered cars... 😉

If, of course, you ever get to retire, which is looking increasingly unlikely for anyone under 50!

Local indie Merc specialist cost me £300 for the B service (big one) and £300 for the transmission service. I went with them because I asked for a torque converter flush and not only did they know what I meant they told me it didn't need doing on my particular transmission.

Out of curiousity noting some of the comments above, what do people view as the age whereby main dealer service history isnt worth the cost premium?

From 2 years post reg I took my MBs after the first one to a local independent.

Friendlier. A bit cheaper. And easier to trust. Had no effect on ease of subsequent trade in.

MB goodwill on discounts is fairly limited IME.

Just paid £160 for an A service in the big smoke on a 2013 E-Class estate in the local non-specialist. Seems to be still alive. Better be OK as driving down to Ainsa in it in a couple of weeks. I’ve always bought 3 year old ex-lease Mercs with 20-40k on the lock and taken them for servicing to the local but I keep them beyond being bothered about their resale value. The last E-Class estate did 220K without missing a beat. Going electric for the next car, minimal servicing.

For some brands brands watch out for offers. I paid £614 for 2 MOTs, 2 services, two years UK/EU breakdown cover, and 2 years warranty on my 3.5 year old Skoda.

https://www.henrys-cars.com/skoda/servicing/all-in-from-skoda

My local indy VW/Audi/skoda specialist quotes £385 for 2 services. Not sure if that includes the spark plugchange the Skoda package dors. By the time I added MOTs and breakdown cover I wouldn't save much. And I have 2 years warranty.

Out of curiousity noting some of the comments above, what do people view as the age whereby main dealer service history isnt worth the cost premium?

I was thinking about this and I think it’s relational to the value of the car and the ‘perceived’ value of the dealer stamp.

So if the cars worth 30k probably quibbling over paying an extra premium of £200 to have the Merc stamp seems mad as most buyers would prefer a full msb history if stomping up a large sum.

If you were making a buying decision for a 30k car and one choice had a full mb sh and the other didn’t which would you choose.

The breaking point is when the servicing isn’t really just the simple stuff it’s the brakes and other broken things that make the bill big.

TBH I’ve tended to do the brakes and let the dealers do the simple stuff just to get the stamp.(main dealer killed one of my cars doing an oil change which resulted in mb fitting a new engine,paying the mb premium worked well that day)

So breakdown of costs

Mercedes - £600 (when they factored in getting me to work/home) - 25 miles from home
Merc Specialist - £475 - 35 miles from home
Local (Good Rep) - £275 - 3 miles from home and will drive me home/pick me up

Its car is out of warranty now and we intend to keep for at least another 3 yrs so even if we had gone to Merc this time it wouldnt be going again.

Just sold my 6 year old E Class saloon that was serviced by MB Tech in Warrington from new and my Mr's E class Cabriolet has jus had it's first MOT and has been serviced by them from new too.

The savings are immense, all services are recorded on Mercedes digital record system and the attention to detail is way, way higher than MB dealer.

We had a warranty issue with the Cabriolet and it was into the main dealer five times, it was only resolved by an incident when the mirrors wouldn't fold out so we rang merc assistance and they sent someone out and sorted the issue the dealers had tried five times, in 20 minutes.

The Mrs is looking to sell her cabriolet and as it's in mint condition, low miles it's getting some really generous offers and having it done by an independent has had zero impact on it's value.

when I was selling mine I wanted another E class and rang three merc dealers in the North West and not one of them could be arsed to ring me back. I ended up buying a new Volvo V60 R Design that was in a showroom. It lasted 3 weeks and 800 miles before breaking down pmsl.