97 E320 MAF Sensor

[Ali Al-Chalabi]

Good morning,

It has been a while since I have gone to the dealer since I mostly have done everything on my vehicle myself. My parents, on the other hand rely on the dealer to perform all the work on their vehicles.

So this question pertains to a my mom's 97 E320 which I am not near and do not have access to. Recently the check engine light came on and my mom took the car in to the dealer to have it checked out. She gave them a max amount of money to charge and told them not to fix it; just to give an estimate. They determined that the car needs a new MAF sensor. Reasonable enough. However, my problem here invilves the billing practice of the dealer. From having my mom explain to me what is on the reciept and personally calling the service advisor myself and talking to him, I gather that the diagnosis consisted of nothing really more than just pulling the codes.

She was quoted $750 total for the replacement and diagnosis. But this is where it gets hairy. They charged her $350 labor on the first visit for the diagnosis without fixing a thing. If she chooses to have them fix it, it would take an additional $400 (they would deduct the $350 from the total cost of the replacement). Does it seem reasonable to charge $350 to determine through on board diagnostics that the MAF sensor needs to be replaced? That amounts to just under 4 hours of labor at their shop rate of $95 an hour or so. And nothing was fixed at all. I am missing something here, or does this sound unreasonable? I just wanted to get some outside input before I come to a final conclusion on whether they are ripping her off or not.

Thanks for any input.
-Ali

[henryk1]

It would seem that she is being asked to pay the price for NOT letting the dealer do the work. Dealers really hate it when owners use them JUST to find out what is wrong, and then fix it themselves.

Try taking your own oil, where you bought it on sale, to the dealer and ask him to change the oil.........I'll bet the price would be very close to that of them charging for their own oil.........maybe even more, just for spite.

[Ali Al-Chalabi]

This is not necessarily the case. Both her and the dealer know for a fact they this dealer will be doing the work to fix the vehicle. They have been doing 100% of everything on their vehicles for the past 10 years or so. She just wanted to get an idea what is wrong for now and how much it is going to cost to fix or so. This dealer will be fixing the problem within the month or so and the dealer knows that.

[blackmercedes]

Four hours to determine AMM fault? Sheesh. When it went on our E300, and Dad's C230, it took about 20 minutes in both cases. And then another 10 minutes to swap a new unit in. When we took the E300 in I was rolling out of the dealership in LESS than a half hour of rolling in. Of course, with the E300, I was destined to be back later in the week for something else, but let's not started on that...

[Ali Al-Chalabi]

Thanks John. That's what I was concerned about. The $350 labor charge not including any removal or replacement seemed a little bit steep to me. I believe there is also going to be an additional labor charge when it is replaced in addition to the cost of the part. I had trouble determining how it could take much more than 10-15 minutes to diagnose it.

[Gilly]

She's getting hosed BIG time, I agree. One hour of labor for a diagnosis of this type (pattern failure-type diagnosis) seems fair, or for a good customer the diagnosis could be even less than that, but to be fair, 1 hour of labor to diagnose, then for a Mass Airflow sensor replacement, man that's easy, maybe .3 or so to replace, and to be thorough you could also throw in another .3 to .5 or so to roadtest and recheck the adaptation numbers to make sure they are coming back into the normal range.
I'd look elsewhere, they are doing her no favors at all.

Gilly

[f4iman78]

I agree with Gilly. Upfront testing should only be like 1.0 to 1.3 hrs. Replacement is .3 and then some time on the back to clear and retest. 4 hours seems a little extreme especially if they had codes.*hint* check engine air filter too-dirty air filters/misshaped air filters can allow dirt to go into MAF and damage it.

[zam2000]

My dealer did this for free. I brought in the car, they plug in the ODB-2 scanner, told me to go to counter to get a new MAF, the guy took out the old one and put the new one in in less than 5 minutes.

I paid around $250 in total (part + (free) labor).

Of course, I expect dealer to charge most people for this, but probably an hour of labor at most !.

Originally posted by Ali Al-Chalabi
Good morning,

It has been a while since I have gone to the dealer since I mostly have done everything on my vehicle myself. My parents, on the other hand rely on the dealer to perform all the work on their vehicles.

So this question pertains to a my mom's 97 E320 which I am not near and do not have access to. Recently the check engine light came on and my mom took the car in to the dealer to have it checked out. She gave them a max amount of money to charge and told them not to fix it; just to give an estimate. They determined that the car needs a new MAF sensor. Reasonable enough. However, my problem here invilves the billing practice of the dealer. From having my mom explain to me what is on the reciept and personally calling the service advisor myself and talking to him, I gather that the diagnosis consisted of nothing really more than just pulling the codes.

She was quoted $750 total for the replacement and diagnosis. But this is where it gets hairy. They charged her $350 labor on the first visit for the diagnosis without fixing a thing. If she chooses to have them fix it, it would take an additional $400 (they would deduct the $350 from the total cost of the replacement). Does it seem reasonable to charge $350 to determine through on board diagnostics that the MAF sensor needs to be replaced? That amounts to just under 4 hours of labor at their shop rate of $95 an hour or so. And nothing was fixed at all. I am missing something here, or does this sound unreasonable? I just wanted to get some outside input before I come to a final conclusion on whether they are ripping her off or not.

Thanks for any input.
-Ali

[Ali Al-Chalabi]

Thanks for the input. That is what bothers me a little. For the dealer to charge this much labor to a customer that has been fiercely loyal to them for the past 10 years does not seem in my opinion to be very good customer service. But then again, this is the same dealer that has outright refused to change their transmission fluid in my parents 722.6 tranny and refused to do a brake fluid change until after new pads and rotors are installed.

[henryk1]

It seems that they don't need your money..........and are blantantly telling you this. It is time to find a NEW dealer!!!!!!!!

[Ali Al-Chalabi]

I agree. Unfortunately the car in question is my mother's vehicle and I am currently 1,000 miles away. Otherwise I would have gotten an OBDII scanner and replaced it myself.

[Car Nut]

If it takes a factory trained technician at any MB dealership 4 hours to diagnoise ANY problem, this technician should be fired (like Apprentice) on the spot. Or maybe the service manager needs to meet the quota for the month. You should go to another MB dealership.

I don't mean to bash all the competent technicans out there. But there are just too many rotten apples out there.

Car Nut

[f4iman78]

I don't really think it is fair to say that ANY problem should be able to be diagnoised in under 4 hours. This newer cars have very complicated systems and take time to fix . But i agree a MAF should take like 15 minutes to diagnoise (and probably fix).