So something has changed.

Having just driven down to a meeting near Stevenage (a 2 hour drive) the rattles are now pretty much constant even on roads such as the A1.

So today is Wednesday and I have to say I am disappointed yet not surprised.

Following on from my meeting with Mercedes-Benz UK and the Dealer Principal last Thursday I was expecting a few things to happen.

Firstly that Mercedes-Benz would put into writing there “decision” based on their “inspection” last week.

No such letter has been received even though Dean Woods of Mercedes-Benz UK did clearly state he would do this.

Next, that Listers (the dealer) would come back to me with suggestions on where we go next.

They haven’t

Now my letter summarising our meeting was received on Monday of this week. I have the proof of delivery from the Royal Mail so plenty of time has elapsed.

In the meantime, the rattle on my car is now pretty much constant regardless of the conditions.

In addition to this, I have been in communication with somebody who took deliver of a brand new AMG C63 Estate last weekend. And guess what?

This is the picture he posted online.

Same rattle, same place!

But then again, Mercedes-Benz UK did state last week that “this is to be expected of all current Mercedes-Benz cars” didn’t they?.

Not sure this new AMG C63 owner will appreciate that will he?

I can’t believe the number of hits this site is getting each day.

Anyhow back off holiday and on Monday, Dean from MBUK did indeed call me as promised. He is however unavailable this week to do an inspection of the car which is a real shame considering it is nice and dry and warm and the exact conditions under which my car is at it’s worse.

Indeed the creaks and rattles seem to be getting worse and worse by the day.

So Dean is going to call me on Friday to arrange something for next week. The good news is that the weather forecast for next week is even hotter which can only mean even more cabin noise.

So it’s now almost a week since I spoke with Dean Woods at Mercedes Benz UK and it was agreed that one of their engineers should inspect my vehicle.

Have they come back to me to arrange a date? No

Have they written or emailed me to set something up or even just confirm our conversation? No

Indeed the only communication I have seen from Mercedes Benz UK in the last few days is a “deleted and not read receipt” for the email I sent them last week (nice to know where they stand).

So I am unsure what to take away from this state of affairs.

Is everything they said the other day just bullshit?

Were they simply feeding me a pack of lies hoping I would “go away”?

So come on Mercedes-Benz UK!

You have asked to inspect the vehicle and right now just look like a bunch of incompetent liars rather than an organisation that gives two hoots about it’s customers.

If I do get to the end of the month and nothing has been arranged then I will be forced to assume that they have declined the opportunity to inspect the vehicle (even though it was their request).

Today my car is in for a service. This means that I am driving a loan car.

For some reason, there was a note on the paperwork when I dropped my car off that I was to be given the Dealer Principles car for the day. A nice looking white C250 CDI Sport

And you will never believe this but it squeaks and it rattles.

So I took the opportunity to make a very short video as I drove home from the dealer.

Can you hear this?

Everybody I have shown this to so far can hear this and are amazed

But this is the car that the Dealer Principle drives on a day to day basis, how can he look me in the eye and claim he has never come across a problem with rattles and the like in C Class cars?

So we play the game.

It can’t after all be an ambush if you can see it coming can it?

Mercedes Benz are going to send one of their engineers out to inspect the car. They have then said they are prepared to state what happens next however creaks and rattles are not grounds for which they would accept the rejection of a car,

So my concern is that they state that the rattles are “acceptable in their opinion” because then we will be forced to test that claim in court however without that inspection the dealer has nowhere to go.

Of course if I do get a written statement saying that in the opinion of Mercedes Benz, squeaks, creak and rattles are acceptable, I will post it up here for you all to read. It is after all important for the car buying public to be aware of important details like this when buying a so called premium product.

I have also been warned today that Mercedes Benz play dirty in situations like this and have been given the head up on the games they like to play.

Because of that, it is even more important that everything is documented here so that it is on public record for everybody to see.

In the meantime I am also going to try and get some videos (with sound of course) of the offending problems so I can stick them up here to give you guys an understanding of just how bad these problems are.

So watch this space. There is likely to be a calm before the storm and you never know, at the end of all this Mercedes Benz might actually grow a pair and do the right thing however history suggests otherwise.

Do you ever get the feeling you are between a rock and a hard place?

Andy Ferrier (DP at Boston) denies that he ever uttered the words “I accept your rejection” when I met with him on the 6th of August. Considering that I actually documented that he said this in my follow up email and follow up letter and he never came back to correct me seems odd.

It certainly makes me question his integrity moving forwards.

Mercedes Benz UK are proposing to send out their engineer to inspect the car and give a definitive report on which further actions can be taken.

I feel an ambush coming on here.

Because they have already stated that under no circumstances will they change the car or accept it’s return and the dealer seems to be standing behind this.

If the engineer comes out and states that the level of rattles etc. is “acceptable” then I can see the dealer standing behind that statement and refusing to make any more attempts to fix them under warranty.

But nobody is prepared to move until that inspection has happened.

So if I accept that and continue to use the car in the meantime I then have a bigger problem.

Next week I am due to go on holiday with my family. The plan is to take the Eurotunnel across to France and then drive up to The Netherlands where our accommodation is booked.

No car = No Holiday

So I could use the car to go on holiday but then I will be spending 2000 miles listening to squeaks and rattles as I go.

But it gets worse.

The car needs a service before we go. I can’t leave it until we get back because the miles we are going to cover would place me outside of the set service schedule and therefore invalidate the warranty on the car! At that point it really would be game over.

But if I put the car in for service then I am spending money on the car and am therefore seen to be not rejecting the vehicle

I really am between a rock and a hard place here so read this people. I may have already passed the point of being totally screwed over by these people but at least I can warn others off.

I have had a couple of updates from Andy Ferrier in the last few days as he follows his process with Mercedes Benz UK but today was the deadline for him coming back to me.

It would appear that Mercedes Benz UK do not view squeaks and rattles and creaks and cracks as a reason to reject a £40,000 motor vehicle. In their view (and I quote):

All motor vehicles have such noises in the cabin

I might be mistaken but my last car had 80,000 miles on the clock and was 4 years old. That didn’t have these issues

My previous Ford Mondeo didn’t have these issues.

My previous Volvo S60 didn’t squeak

My previous Volvo S70 with 116,000 miles on the clock didn’t rattle.

So Mercedes Benz UK are telling me that in their view, it is acceptable to have squeaks and rattles in a modern luxury car from a premium brand!

I have asked them to put this in writing but so far they have not obliged.

So the Sale Of Goods Act has the definition “Satisfactory Quality” which is defined as something a reasonable person would expect considering the money paid.

I am pretty sure any reasonable person would not accept that a Mercedes Benz with zero miles on the clock should rattle like a bucket when first delivered.

Today I have spoken with Dean Woods at Mercedes Benz UK who wants to send one of their engineers out to assess the car. Apparently if in that engineers view the rattles are “acceptable” he will put that in writing.

Andy Ferrier promised me a call back by the end of the day.

That call hasn’t materialised.

Mercedes Benz Finance refuse to accept that under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, they are jointly liable and keep pointing me back at the dealer (the one who has not called me back)

Meanwhile there is a £40,000 car sitting on my drive that rattles like a bucket.

So we are beyond the stage of Mercedes Benz exchanging the vehicle. I can be pretty sure I will never buy another Mercedes Benz car ever again.

The ONLY solution now is a full and prompt refund less a reasonable usage fee for the time I have had the vehicle.

I want this car gone and I am not prepared to suffer financially because Mercedes Benz chose to compromise on the quality of materials used in their cars.

Going legal is the last resort (but one I am prepared to take) but first of all, I am ensuring that Mercedes Benz take me seriously.

I have already ordered the sign writing for the side of the car so that the whole world can be warned and will take great pleasure in parking it outside various Mercedes Dealers as I attend meetings around the UK (and next week Europe).

This blog is up and running and of course we will back that up with a full social media campaign. We will also promote this into the various active motoring forums around the internet.

So either Mercedes Benz are stupid or they are arrogant. In any case they don’t seem prepared to stand behind their product which considering the problems they have had with their image and quality in the past is a dangerous approach.

Perhaps Mercedes Benz will see sense?

So having waited all day for a call that never came I drove down to Mercedes Benz of Boston to speak with the Dealer Principle (Andy Ferrier)myself.

Oddly he was not aware of the issues I have been experiencing.

Once the service manager had explained to him the whole chain of events, I think he got it.

So Andy explained that there was a process he had to follow with Mercedes Benz UK. At this stage we are potentially looking at getting the vehicle exchanged although not with a C Class.

Clearly this is going to take a few days so Andy stated that he accepted my rejection of the vehicle and the grounds for doing it but that I should retain use of the vehicle in the meantime whilst he follows due process to sort this.

Right now I am happy to let him do that. I would rather we found a solution amicably.

So on Andys request I have confirmed our meeting in writing and sent a letter to both Andy and Mercedes Benz UK. Here is a copy of that letter:

6th August 2012

Mercedes Benz UK Ltd
Customer Services
Delaware Drive
Milton Keynes
MK15 8BA

Formal Rejection of Mercedes Benz Car C350 CDI Estate – XXXXXXX

Dear Sir or Madam

This letter serves formal notice of my rejection of the above plated Mercedes Benz C350 CDI Estate car as defined under the Sale of Goods Act on the grounds of not providing Satisfactory Quality.

Since taking delivery of this vehicle from new, it has been plagued by a number of squeaks and rattles from various parts of the vehicle although the majority have been concentrated around the centre console, dashboard area and seatbelt mechanisms.

The car has been returned to the dealer which in this case is Mercedes Benz of Boston on a number of occasions where each time they have either failed to fix the problem of simply created a new set of squeaks and rattles somewhere else.

On a number of occasions I have expressed my disappointment to both the Boston service team and Listers head office in Lincoln and in each case, I have been told to return the vehicle to the dealer for them to look at it again.

The time scales have been exaggerated at the same time by the difficult nature of identifying the location of said rattles. As many of them have proven to be dependent on the ambient temperature a number of test drives with the dealer staff have resulted in the rattles not being observers and thus no clue as to where to start. Likewise test runs have needed to be aborted due to inclement weather as the noise of raindrops on the windscreen has drowned out the rattles.

All this has compounded to a position where on the 9th of July, the vehicle was given to the dealership for a period of Two weeks. This gave the dealer time to do extended test drives thus being able to observe all the rattles and then having time to fix them.

Upon collecting the vehicle after it had been with the dealer for 2 weeks, I was somewhat disappointed (to put it mildly) that rattles were still present from behind the dashboard and from the driver’s seatbelt directly next to my right ear.

On the 24th of July I telephoned Mercedes Benz UK customer service with the hope that perhaps the manufacturer of the vehicle could do something. My concerns were “noted” and then I received a follow up call an hour or so later from Darren on the customer services team of Listers based in Lincoln.

Again I was asked to return the vehicle to the dealer so that they could have another go at fixing it.

At this stage I made it very clear that if the problems were not resolved, I would be looking to reject the car as I have given the supplying dealer ample opportunity to rectify the problems.

The car was delivered back to the dealers on the 1st of August and I collected it on the afternoon of Friday the 3rd of August.

It still rattles and squeaks!

So as of today I have visited the supplying dealer in Boston and formally rejected the vehicle as is my right under the sale of goods act as the vehicle is clearly not of satisfactory quality and even though the supplying dealer has attempted to rectify this on several occasions, they have failed.

At a meeting today at the Mercedes Benz of Boston showroom where I met with the Dealer Principle (Andy Ferrier) and the Service Manager (Dave Allerton) Andy has explained that there is now a process he needs to follow which he will do.

So right now I am prepared to let Andy and his team attempt to “put things right” here.

I believe that no matter what work is carried out on my vehicle, it will always suffer from quality issues which have so far manifested themselves as squeaks and rattles but have also included rust around the front brake callipers and steaming up instrument binnacles.

Indeed I believe that this quality problem extends to the current C Class range in general.

Whilst my vehicle was in for 2 weeks in July, the loan car was a C220 CDI Coupe (FY61 ANR) which whilst the same age as my car, had actually done 15,000 miles. This vehicle had many more squeaks and rattles than my car ever had and from speaking with other owners of 2012 model year C Class cars, it seems I am not alone and that to my untrained eye is down to compromises being made on the quality of plastics and materials being used in the manufacturing process.

As such I am not prepared to accept another C Class Mercedes Benz as a replacement for fear that such a vehicle will suffer from the same problems. Whilst an E Class is a possible solution, I will need to weigh this up against such a vehicle having higher running costs (fuel, insurance and service) and being physically bigger.

So I am now waiting to see what Andy Ferrier and his team come up with as a solution to this problem. To date I have been more than impressed with the service and the respect shown to both me and my vehicle by the team at Mercedes Benz in Boston only let down by the vehicle supplied by Mercedes Benz themselves. I would rather not find myself in a position where I am demanding a full refund and having to go car shopping again but this outcome is now firmly in Andy’s hands

So to summarise

After months of trying to fix build quality issues on my new C Class Estate, the dealer has failed. The vehicle has now spent close to a month off the road in the possession of the dealer.

I believe this is down to the use of sub-standard and poor quality materials used during manufacturer but clearly the car is NOT of satisfactory quality so after giving the supplying dealer ample opportunity to rectify the problem I am left with no option than to reject the vehicle as is my statutory right under the sale of goods act.

At this stage I am prepared to let Andy Ferrier see what he can do regarding a replacement vehicle but reserve the right to demand a full and prompt refund if something suitable cannot be agreed.

So I am now looking to Mercedes Benz UK and Mercedes Benz of Boston to “put things right” whatever that may look like. I have been disappointed by the quality of the vehicle supplied but am hoping that this is limited to the C Class only and that a solution can be found that can restore my faith and confidence in the Mercedes brand

Yours sincerely

I have my car back from the dealer and it rattles still.

Indeed there are more rattles than ever before.

I have called the dealership, spoken to David the service manager and told him that I am now rejecting the car as being not of satisfactory quality.

He has told me that he will speak with the Dealer Principle on Monday and come back to me with where we go next.