The 5,000,000th story I've read of the crappy service of the US Mercedes dealers... it's very interesting to hear them all though
Maybe MBUSA should do what Mercedes UK did (I think it was Mercedes), and sack every single dealer. Then they selectively re-hired a selection of them, probably only if they were any good.
It's very common here for people to go to good independants for work even on brand new cars.
In fact, the man who I bought my 190E from (he owned it from new) has his brand new W203 C-class serviced at my Dad's independant garage, which is a 2.5 hour drive out of London to the West side of England! He drives out, waits while its done, admires his very shiny old 190E if it's there
and drives back to the city..