and that is the spirit that i prize about this site, gilly, so many want to be helpful.

i think that i have told the story previously, but succinctly, it goes like this...

i stumbled into this very low mileage, immaculate c140. it was in san antonio. i live in metro-houston. i flew to san antonio to complete the purchase on a friday afternoon. after my personal check cleared, i was given a pre-flight, for the first time, in the vehicle. 3pm in san antonio.

vehicle was starmarked. and i purchased an additional 2 years. as the sales guy and i sat in the vehicle before i launched, i moved to adjust the mirror. peripherally, i noticed him flinch. and when i touched the mirror i figured out why, the mirror had the floppies.

i told him that this needed to have been fixed. he said, take it to the dealer in houston and get it repaired and we shall reimburse you. fine. little did i know that benz dealers do not repair these mirrors and that they cost a grand.

after getting back to houston, m-b san antonio and mbusa went to great lengths to duck their obligation to repair or replace this mirror. it was beyond believing. if i shared with you the m-b san antonio and mbusa prevarications you would think that you were listening to gwbu****.

and m-b houston dealers and personnel that i had dealt with for 30 years went deaf when i asked for their help in this matter.

however, when intercontinental motors[now m-b north] started its autonation shuffling, i began to use an indy to work on my benzes. my indy works on my 560sel, 560sec, e320cab, 6.9, and gmc yukon. and now the s500c. of course, i told him of the mirror situation.

he told me that he might be able to get me some satisfaction. seems that he buys all of his parts from m-b san antonio. he could be one of their larger accounts. i sat there when he picked up the phone and telephoned them. even i was fidgeting when i listened to how hard he was with them.

but he accomplished the objective. threatened with a curtailment of that business, the most current version of the mirror was furnished on a no charge basis.

the original 10/96 broken mirror was a fixed code, greenlight.

the no charge replacement was a rolling code, amberlight.

indies rule.

really, it was sad that it had to come to that. m-b san antonio and mbusa knew that they were forking a long-term benzer. the concept of goodwill has disappeared.

if there were just more twisty bits here, if my indy wasn't enamored of benzes, this incident would motivate me to alter my allegiance. abandon benz for aston, ferrari.

still tempted.

m-b san antonio did get it, finally. after more than a year, i have a mirror that doesn't flop. and that reads rolling codes.

the original 10/96 mirror was a green light fixed code transmitter.

i want to close on this positive note...when you think you are being screwed by mb, make waves. and exploit every option. i wrote m-busa and got no responses. i wrote m-b san antonio and got no responses. i talked to houston metro m-b dealers - no fighting for me.

and then i mentioned the situation to my indy. i had no knowledge that he bought all his m-b proprietary parts from m-b san antonio.

he fought for me. he won. because of that, i won.

i had an order in for a e320cdi. i cancelled it. i will not support those entities that would not stand up for me. i refuse to enlist in the effort of m-b to f*ck its long-term, loyal customers.

sigh.

when will d-b learn?