[Guest]

Seems to be a common occurrance...

Including myself, I know of at least a half dozen similar incidents where salespeople ordered cars incorrectly. Unfortunately, sales are so good that they're not willing to do much about it.<p>In my case my car was 3 months from production (after 1 year of waiting) when a customer backed out on an identical car that would arrive in 4 weeks. I was promised the available car, so my order was re-spec'd for another costumer. Seven weeks went by and the salesman kept telling me my car was held up at the port. It turns out the car arrived at the dealership on schedule, but it was "accidentally" sold to another customer. The salesman lied to me for 3 weeks so he could buy time to try to find an identical car available at another dealership. He ended up telling me the truth and had to give me the next available production slot that wasn't locked. Then the re-ordered car was incorrectly ordered with the K2 package. Luckily, the K2 package could be removed without me paying for it. I ended up getting $900 off the price of the car, but that was in '99 when dealer margins were 14% instead of 7%. I wrote a letter to MBUSA and included it the M-B customer survey that I got a month after I bought the car. The salesman was fired shortly after I returned the survey.<p>If I were you, I would tell them that you plan to write a detailed description of what happened in the survey. That survey is important to both the salesperson and the dealership and they'll probably start negotiating with more than a $50 set of floormats. Start thinking about that CD changer or extended warranty.<br>

 

[Guest]

Re: Seems to be a common occurrance...2

What happened to Brian happened to me as well with scary detail. I'm still waiting for my CLK which is set to arrive here this summer, but then my salesman said it's been pushed towards more the winter time or Jan 02. I was pretty upset at that time, then he said that there was a cancellation set to arrive in a week. He said it would be "up in the air" for those who ordered to purchase. He said whoever gets to the dealership first, gets the car. Few days later he said, car was sent to wrong dealership in N. Carolina. Then after I called him (not him calling me) he told me the manager decided to sell it to the next person on the waiting list. Is this correct procedure? Anybody else out there bought a CLK after "being put up for anybody"?..or is it common for the dealership to sell it to the next person in line? As much as I love this car, it's making me sick of all this waiting!

 

[Guest]

Re: policies...

Normally, the dealer will offer the car to either the next person on the waiting list, or the next person on the waiting list with a matching order (same colors and options).<p>However, this is obviously not always the case. In my case, the salesman later tried to tell me that the customer that got my car had actually been waiting for 5 months longer than I had. Obviously, this was a lie since if that were true, his car would have been built two months before.<p>Consider the following scenerio: Dealer has an ordered car that just arrived and the original customer cancelled. Another customer walks into the dealership and wants to buy the car today. The dealer has two choices. 1) Tell the new customer to put down a deposit and get on the end of the list. Then go through the waiting list in order having various salespeople call their customers and tell them about the available car. Then arrange to sell the car to the first customer on the list that accepts, probably several days later. Then move up everyone below the taker on the list. Or 2) Sell the car to the new customer and leave the list as it is.<p>I know of at least two cases where the dealer opted for choice (2). In one case they just wanted to make sure the car was sold by the end of the month to meet their monthly sales target.<br>

 

[Guest]

Sometimes bad things work for you....

A CLK55 "dealer present" arrived at a dealership unannounced. The dealer choose to sell it to the next person that came through the door, looking for a CLK55, instead of offering it to someone on their list. <p>I was the lucky person. Instead of waiting 7-12 months, I could have picked up the car the same day. I picked it up a week later.<p>But, if I was on the other side, and a dealer screwed with my order, I would be pissed off!<br>

 

[Guest]

I had a similar situation. After a 9 month wait, my car arrived with K4 package that I didn't order. That package unlike K2 can't be removed. It turns out I like that package but didn't originally order it so I didn't mind terribly, but still it's upsetting to think that they may do this (add options) and force the cost on customers because these cars are selling so well. Anyway, they absolutely wouldn't budge on the price of the option. I ended up getting a heavily discounted price off a CD-changer ($900 off), mats, free detailing for the next year as compensation. They also gave me a 1% reduction in financing which save over $2000. The advice about threatening to write a letter to MBUSA in the post below is a good one which I wish I knew. Who knows, I could have gotten the changer for free.