Perhaps being a premium marque they are used to dealing with wealthy people who accept the expert advice they provide?

That's one possiblity, my last and hopefully The last visit to the MB glass palace was to get a part for the seat belt presenter (there's posh for you :-) on my old MB coupe, the 'expert' wanted over £200 for the whole mechanism, but this old fool had his glasses on and was watching the screen and noticed the part i needed, the triangle the belt slips through that retracts into the B pillar, had its own part number, don't think he was that pleased i pointed this out, my revised bill £16.

If it hadn't been for my venerable MB indy we would never have kept any of them, he's saved me £thousands over the years because apart from the NA Diesel none of them have been particularly reliable or durable, and my honest opinion after having 4 x W124 MB's, supposedly the last of the real Mercs, is if i had my time again each one of those would have been a big Toyota or medium Lexus of the period, thankfully with the new Camry on the horizon i'm hoping these recent years of Toyota beating hell out of their (and Lexus) UK cars with the ugly stick might be coming to an end.

My only out of the ordinary dealings with Toyota was getting the injectors replaced on my Hilux in year 4, out of warranty, a mere formality and no question of any payment from me required, would have been covered up to 100k and 7 years anyway as known problem, even Mr T doesn't always get it right, but they always put it right, that's all i ask.

Edited by gordonbennet on 05/07/2018 at 14:32

Perhaps being a premium marque they are used to dealing with wealthy people who accept the expert advice they provide?

Reckon expert should be in inverted commas. I think Merecedes have policies which they won't budge from and won't let their dealers either, all designed to maximise profit. I am now trying bodywork shops and indies to see if I can get a repair but all respect for Mercedes has gone out of the window.

I recall reading some time ago about the little tricks garages have for making money. I think it was written by HJ. One trick is replacing a functioning bulb at a service, a nice little earner. I had a Nissan with bulbs that were supposedly blowing all the time. Since then bulbs have lasted 5+ years! I'm pretty sure a garage did not replace the oil during a recent service, since one month later the AA/RAC found that the oil was at the lowest mark on the dipstick, and it needed a can throwing in. Shameful.