THE DIARY OF A GEEK IN OXFORDSHIRE


Solving the World's problems with common sense and a flamethrower.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Twats of the Week: Mercedes-Benz

C-Class clearly refers to quality of service.

I wasn't expecting to do a TOTW this week. After all, it's Christmas - the time of cheer, comfort and joy, peace on Earth and goodwill to all men.

That goodwill does not, as of today, extend unto Mercedes-Benz UK.

The Darling G ordered her new company car - a C-Class estate with a few tweaks - back at the beginning of November. "There are a couple of parts on back-order", said the dealer. "But you'll be on the build list, so you should have it by the end of February. We'll keep you updated".

No updates were forthcoming, of course.

A call at the end of November intimated, but didn't confirm, that the delivery date might be pushed back to March 2010 - which is bad enough for a mass-produced fleet car, but still we kept our peace. Cue today's update call.

The dealer was advised on 5 December that the earliest delivery date for our New Shiny Car would be June. June! Eight months from the point of order to the point of delivery?

What form of fucking insanity is this? You're building a car, not painting the Sistine Fucking Chapel! You claim to be waiting for engine parts - quite frankly, you could hand-tool the parts from purest Unobtanium using nothing but stone-age flint tools in eight months, yet clearly you prefer to sit idly on your Germanic backsides expecting your buyers to show the patience of fucking Ghandi while they wait for you to get around to sticking another fucking order in for widgets.

Did I miss the memo? When was Mercedes-Benz taken over by fucking British Leyland? Are you waiting to rebuild Longbridge before building another fucking car? And don't even get me started on the laissez-faire attitude of a dealer network that thinks it's OK not to bother to keep customers informed of the delay to their order.

So, Mercedes-Benz? Stick your order where the sun shineth not - it's become painfully clear that the name C-Class defines your quality of service. You should be impaled on your own three-pointed star. And then set on fire, though it would probably take you eight months to wait for the matches.

Mercedes-Benz. Teutonic Twats.




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3 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

BMW 320d touring FTW!

Plus, I seem to recall hearing good things about Oxford's BMW dealers ...

SaltedSlug said...

It's the snobbishness that gets me; when they give you the once over so as to decide whether you're worthy of their attention.
Not always the case, but I got it from the Merc dealer in Cardiff when I was looking for a Smart Roadster (my first purchase after landing my first proper engineers job). So I drove 45 miles and bought one from the Bristol dealer instead.

patently said...

It is not possible to "order" a new Mercedes.

Instead, you must meekly request the honour of an audience with one of their esteemed representatives, and ask if they might be so kind as to bestow upon you the singular honour of providing you with one of their most excellent and desirable conveyances.

Should they consider you to be a suitable person upon whom to bestow this gift, you may expect similar treatment in the future, should you ever wish to (for example) renew the gold-tinted liquid provided for the lubrication of your conveyance's engine. Or, for example, to attend to one of the many manufacturing or design defects that should (somehow) have made their way into your conveyance.

...Such as the time that I told them the lock was defective and I would like them to fix it please. After waiting two weeks for an appointment, they took it for the whole day, charged me for a loan car, then after a day's work reported that they had diagnosed the problem. Apparently, my car had a defective lock. Yes, I said, I told you that two weeks ago.

Had they fixed it? No, of course not. But I could book it in for that to be done ... in two weeks' time...

Obo is right. Oxford BMW are far, far better than their three-pointed-star-bearing competitors, and have kept me moving for the last decade. Email or DM me if you want a contact there.