Car dealership complaints - advice please!

MattBanshee

Was wondering if anyone has any advice on making a complaint to car dealership/manufacturers.

Last Tuesday I received a brand new Mercedes A180 as a company car - it's leased to my employer and they've issued it to me. On the Saturday morning (4 days, 300 miles old) it came up with a brake fluid levels warning whilst driving, I continued to my girlfriend's house and parked up. Went to drive it again in the evening to find that the foot-brake had completely failed; the pedal just pushed straight to the floor without anything happening. Luckily the parking brake was on and holding, and I was able to determine this before actually getting out onto the road. I left it parked up and on Sunday morning I had Merc Assist call out RAC to recover it to the Merc repair centre. They've called me today to explain that the brake fluid hose was not properly connected to the brakes, and so whenever I had pressed the brake pedal, it leaked a load of the fluid until there was none left.

Understandably, I am utterly furious that a four-day old vehicle would have such a serious, dangerous fault. I drive long motorway distances every Mon-Fri for work, and if the brakes had given out whilst I was doing 70 on the M25 then I dread to think what could have happened. How can I go about expressing this to their management in a reasonable way, whilst making it clear that I expect some sort of recompense from them for the extreme personal danger that their manufacturing fault has put me in? What should I be asking for/expecting from them?

Thanks!

speshul91

I would go straight to the manager of the garage that delivered it, that should have been noticed on the pre delivery inspection. 

sinbaadi

Go to Mercedes UK.

There might be other cases of this q.c failure.

Fretwired

sinbaadi said:

Go to Mercedes UK.

There might be other cases of this q.c failure.

This for a number of reasons.

https://www.complaintsdepartment.co.uk/mercedes-benz-uk/

stickyfiddle

sinbaadi said:

Go to Mercedes UK.

There might be other cases of this q.c failure.

Yup, this. Never mind the dealership, it shouldn't have left the factory like that.

ThePrettyDamned

Thirded for straight to merc. 

To be honest, I'm not seeing what your employer could do other than complain as well. But that needs to go to merc for sure, it should never have left the factory like that and they need to know it has happened.

tone1

V.O.S.A 

boogieman

Bit of a legal minefield here. I doubt you'd be entitled to compensation as you're not strictly the owner? Can you base a compensation case on what might have happened anyway?

I would think about rejecting the vehicle though as not fit for purpose. I would also want answers about how it got through both the factory QC and the branch PDI? Who knows what else has been missed. 

DanR

Branch pdi will be check levels, road test and put plates on.

Its a 30 minute job maximum.

While not ideal I doubt the manufacturer will be very forthcoming with any sort of compensation.

Im not sure why you would carry on when you had just received a warning on your dash about an issue with your brakes, you would be expected to stop and phone for assistance at that point.

Dominic

whilst you may have a very minor claim for inconvenience as the driver and not the owner you do not have any claim beyond that.
 To seek damages you have to derive and prove Quantum and demonstrate where applicable that you sought to mitigate loss.
You have not suffered Damages as a result of a negligence beyond some inconvenience and hubris.

mike_l

To Merc UK.


Mum had an issue with the brakes (hydraulic pump) on her Merc (with  over 100K on it). She got all the repairs done under warranty.


Let the supplying dealer know as well. They need to know of any issues.

57Deluxe

one of the two no three groups of ppl you least ever want to deal with associate with, befriend...

boogieman

DanR said:

Branch pdi will be check levels, road test and put plates on.

Its a 30 minute job maximum.

While not ideal I doubt the manufacturer will be very forthcoming with any sort of compensation.

Im not sure why you would carry on when you had just received a warning on your dash about an issue with your brakes, you would be expected to stop and phone for assistance at that point.

If it'd been road tested wouldn't the dealer have noticed the brake fluid dripping out from under the car afterwards? Makes me think it either wasn't PDI'd in the first place or they did a rush job. 

DanR

@boogieman you're assuming it's leaking, it could of been a component failure while driving.

boogieman

DanR said:

@boogieman you're assuming it's leaking, it could of been a component failure while driving.

Yeah I guess it could be, I was going by the first post where it says a brake hose wasn't attached properly. 

Wazmeister

It happens; it's a man made item... speak to the Dealer, and give them chance to rectify it.