Mercedes Benz wrote off smart car, in for a routine service

[headless]

We had our second Sheffield Smarties meet today, and one of the members was telling me about her awful time with her car.
She took her Smart Roadster into the main Mercedes dealers in Lincoln, Britain, for a standard b service, she left the car and went to work, a few hours later she got a phone call from them, they said, We have some bad news for you, we have had a little accident with your car.
What do you mean a little accident, have you scratched the door or something.
No, one of our mechanics took it out for a test drive and was going round a bend and a car was coming the other way on his side of the road and he swerved and crashed it into a ditch, the car is a write off.
To cut a really long story short, she had months of trouble trying to get them to replace her car with one of equal value, and had to get a lawyer friend to sit in on a meeting with the dealer principal to get a conclusion to the whole fiasco, so she turned up in her "new" car today, it is 6 months newer than her old car, but has 2,000 more miles on the clock, so I suppose it is a fair swap in the end.

What do you guys think?
Headless.
ps. All smarts are sold and serviced through the Mercedes dealerships here in Britain, there are no Smart only franchises over here.

[donnyonee]

sounds fair, as long as shes happy.

[RVGRINGO]

Maybe even more than fair, since the Smart Roadster is no longer built and they must have had to do a lot of searching to find one for her.

[Kermit]

I would like to know how they compensated for the time she didn't have her car. Did they give her a loaner? 6 months may not be much of a difference as far as the age of the car....if we were talking dog years than that may be different. The 2k miles isn't too bad. Hopefully it is a car with full records and has a few extra nice items on it too that her other car didn't have.

[gbryers]

While the replacement seems, based on the limited info given, a fair deal, the fact that a lawyer had to get involved to get anything done should have yielded some other concession - factor warranty or something, to compensate. But not knowing British law on the subject, we can only provide opinion... Having said that, IMHO, MB did the least they could do to rectify the situation...

[forestacademy]

2000 more miles could very well have been less than the miles she would have put on durring the time lost. So other than Lost time, she may have come out ahead. Maybe

[smart fortimo]

Sounds to be an equitable situation in the end-- no harm, no gain.

But Headless, along with an assessment, you weren't fishing for some MBZ dealer-bashing from the Yanks, were you?

Cheers,
Timo

[chieftmc]

Sounds like an equitable ending. Yes, she was out some time but in the end, MB did the best they could do.

[headless]

Originally Posted by smart fortimo

Sounds to be an equitable situation in the end-- no harm, no gain.

But Headless, along with an assessment, you weren't fishing for some MBZ dealer-bashing from the Yanks, were you?

Cheers,
Timo

No, not at all, we are quite capable of doing our own MBZ dealer bashing over here on our own forums, just posted the story as it was a doozy.
To clear up some other points, yes, they gave her a for2 to drive until the conclusion, and they wanted an extra £2,000 off her as they said the car they were giving her was worth the extra because that is what they could get for selling it, the difference between trade in/resale value, now that is naughty.
Ellis

[BigWarpGuy]

I am glad I have Allstate Auto Insurance. If something like that happens to my little car, it is replaced. I am not sure if it covers being driven and wrecked by an auto mechanic. It will be interesting to find out if it does.