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  #1  
Old 11-16-2005, 05:56 PM
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Argument with a mechanic - Am I right?

I've been fighting with a minor problem with my 500E since I bought it. It has a subtle engine miss at idle and a prominent miss at high RPM at high speed. I've done everything to the car I can think of, including rebuilding the engine wire harness. It was time to let a pro take a crack at it.

I gave up, took it to my friend who is a benz mechanic.. he can't find anything. No fault codes stored in any modules. I take it to another benz mechanic I know. I tell him to take a look and give me a call. I drop it off 10/3.. he says it might be a week before he looks at it. I say OK. Call him two weeks later, he still hasn't looked at it. Call again in another week.. still hasn't looked at it. I drop by two days ago out of the blue, I just want to pick it up at this point. It's been 6 weeks now.

He tells me he just looked at it, it needs a wire harness and his computer can't communicate with the cars CAN network (which is BS). He wants $380 for 4.2 hours labor. I said "HOW MUCH??". After arguing and arguing for 20 minutes, he goes down to $250.. then $200. At this point I am 55 miles from home, and he isn't giving the car up unless I pay. I have no other way to get home, so I paid.

There is no way it took him 4, or even 2 hours to diagnose this problem. I put a order to reverse charges on my credit card today.. he does not deserve $200 for this crap. I'll mail him a check for one hour of labor for his time. 6 weeks.. and then a $380 bill for a BS diagnosis? Come on!

I took it to my friend today.. his scanner communicates fine with my car, and the harness is fine. No errors. I feel like I got raped.

What do you all think?

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  #2  
Old 11-16-2005, 06:20 PM
Pete Geither's Avatar
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As soon as he had an idea he was going to have that amount of time in the diagnostics, he should have called and given you a heads up. We always try to do that when we run into any "issues". Or we tell the customer up front,,, write me a blank check, as I have no idea what I'm getting in to. Always better to inform the customer before the fact.
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Old 11-16-2005, 07:23 PM
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The charge for the diagnosis seems excessive to me, too.

However, I don't believe faulty harnesses can be fixed or rebuilt.

The wiring insulation failure happens all over the harness. I don't see how anyone can properly remove / repair the deteriorating insulation.
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  #4  
Old 11-16-2005, 07:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by suginami
However, I don't believe faulty harnesses can be fixed or rebuilt.

The wiring insulation failure happens all over the harness. I don't see how anyone can properly remove / repair the deteriorating insulation.
Ofcourse it can. We replaced every wire from connector to connector one by one. Took us 6 hours. My mechanic scanned every module in the bus and there are zero errors after 1,000 miles. Looks like the harness is good to me, eh?
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  #5  
Old 11-17-2005, 12:16 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by turbodiesel
Ofcourse it can. We replaced every wire from connector to connector one by one. Took us 6 hours. My mechanic scanned every module in the bus and there are zero errors after 1,000 miles. Looks like the harness is good to me, eh?
O.K., I'll take your word for it.

However, I wonder if it would've been more worthwhile to just replace it. The wiring harness had already been replaced by the dealer in my 1993 300E 3.2 before I bought it, but I remember seeing a pile of bad wiring harnesses on the floor of my mechanic's shop. They just seemed like a jumbled mess of spaghetti.
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2001 E430, Bourdeaux Red, Oyster interior.
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  #6  
Old 11-17-2005, 10:13 PM
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I am sure you know but my local dealer charges a $100 diagnostic fee. One hour labor they said if its more then then they will give the cust a heads up.

Exactly how did you fix the harness? Maybe you will be better off with a new one.
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  #7  
Old 11-18-2005, 12:28 AM
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Did you sign a thingy that said "Call me if the cost exceeds $X"?
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  #8  
Old 11-18-2005, 12:31 AM
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Hattie.. re-read my post Harness is confirmed good. Not one error code in any modules. I'm about to rip out the fuel injectors right now to send them off to be rebuilt. I'm sure that is the problem now.

I did not sign anything.. it was just an agreement for him to look at it and call me.
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  #9  
Old 11-18-2005, 12:52 AM
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Location: visalia ca
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well your whole situation just sounds like a cluster from the beggining.
can communication? you don't have that. maybe i'm old but no.
but what really gets me is all the guessing.
get to what is really causing the problem and go from there. is it spark?
is it fuel? don't you have lab scopes and other tools to see whats going
on?
as to the charges thats supposed to be written out first.
you left it purty open seems to me and then you complain.
your the owner so you take the responsability and set the limits.
i have a set charge to read codes. then it goes from there.
as to rewireing yer harness in 6 hours just makes me dizzy.
how? did you use new clips and connectors and such? ok, so you say no codes. then you gotta look at things that don't set codes.
really, you need to take it to a proffesional with the proper equipement.

george
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  #10  
Old 11-18-2005, 01:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PJG56
As soon as he had an idea he was going to have that amount of time in the diagnostics, he should have called and given you a heads up. We always try to do that when we run into any "issues". Or we tell the customer up front,,, write me a blank check, as I have no idea what I'm getting in to. Always better to inform the customer before the fact.
In many States the law reqiures a repair estimate up front. If issues arise, the client must be notified for an OK. An itemized bill is also required and the replaced parts must be made available if they want to take them.

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