ML from hell

Are you able to help me with an ongoing problem that my daughter has with her ML 320CDI. She purchased the car new from Mercedes Salisbury in July 2006 and since then the car has been back in the Mercedes workshops so many times that it beggars belief. On one of her first outings with her children it broke down only to be rescued eventually by the nearest Mercedes dealer. From the paperwork, it would appear that the gearbox failed. Further failures have occurred to the electronics, air suspension, steering etc., resulting in the car having to be returned to Mercedes 11 times for repairs. The cost of these repairs, loan cars, time must have been quite extraordinary. The warranty expires on 26July 2009 and naturally she is most concerned as to the future reliability of the car and to the resultant costs that will be incurred after the warranty expires. A letter was recently sent to Mercedes Salisbury advising them of her concerns regarding the car, requesting that the warranty be extended for what will definitely be more problems to follow. The reply from Salisbury did not exude confidence in the car, mainly they requested my daughter to submit the car once again for an " end of warranty inspection", after which faults would be look upon with a goodwill element of consideration. As it now transpires, over the past weekend, 4 more faults have re-emerged, all of which had previously been rectified under warranty. Could you possibly give me you views and advice on her predicament with this car?

Asked on 5 September 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
Big money here, too big for the small claims track at the county court, so she needs to engage a solicitor if she wants to pursue the matter in law. I had better warn you that if this is an MB owned dealership they can be particularly intractable. Maybe her best route is to raise her complaint via www.motorcodes.co.uk All MB dealers are members (unless expelled) and the whole point of Motor Codes is to provide a fair means of recourse acceptable to consumers to prevent the Office of Fair Trading taking over, which would impose yet another cost and make buying, running, selling and fixing cars more expensive for everyone involved.
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