Mercedes BlueEFFICIENCY injector problems aren't being remedied
Cars UK has asked Mercedes to address the concerns of our readers over issues with faulty injectors on Mercedes BlueEfficiency (OM651) models.
Rumbling on behind the current problems that Toyota have with their cars – and the Toyota Prius Recall we revealed last night – is a serious problem affecting Mercedes BlueEfficiency C Class and E Class models in the UK and Europe, and the GLK (which isn’t sold in the UK).
We first noticed the issue when Cars UK readers started to leave worrying comments about injector failures on an article we’d written about the launch of the Mercedes C Class Blue Efficiency in June. The comments and problems kept coming, so a couple of weeks ago we asked Mercedes to comment and wrote an article about the injector problems on the BlueEfficiency (OM651).
That new article elicited even more comments. Despite Mercedes’ assurances there seemed to be a lot of unanswered questions. One Cars UK reader – Richard Law – left a comment on the OM651 article yesterday morning asking owners of similarly affected Mercedes to contact him. He wanted to arrange a transporter to take his failed Mercedes back to MB in Germany. In just a few hours he got 26 phone calls, including one from the Independent wanting to do a story.
So we thought we needed to ask Mercedes to answer a few questions. Unfortunately they have told us that we already have their statement on the injector issue (you can see that on the OM651 article). A Mercedes spokesman told Cars UK:
I am unable to answer all your questions individually but have given you our company statement. Our customer services team are in contact with affected customers but if you know someone who has not received the care we have explained I would be happy to pass their details on to customer services.
So what are the questions we put to Mercedes on behalf of disgruntled Cars UK readers?
- MB has now decided to give all owners with a fault a replacement car from the first fault? You said the other day that you were only doing so after the second fault. When did that change?
- There appears to be insufficient comparable loan cars available. How can you address this?
- Is it correct that a recall is not being implemented because you cannot source enough injectors to do the fix for a proper recall?
- Has Dephi (supplier of the faulty injectors) been forced in to liquidation?
- How many cars are affected? We know you said a small number, but our readers experience is that the problem is very significant. What are the numbers?
- Do you feel that someone buying a car for anything up to £35k+ is being properly recompensed for all the grief by offering them a free service or a £250 voucher? I know we’d be livid.
- How many customers have rejected their faulty cars under the sale of goods act?
As we’ve said before, we do have a degree of sympathy with Mercedes – and other car makers – who are being forced to introduce new technology to hit the baseless CO2 targets set by Governments. But what we do have an issue with is the way customers seem to left in the dark and fobbed off. It does seem if you shout loud enough you will get your money back, or a comparable loan car, but what you can’t get is a quick fix for the problem. It doesn’t exist.
As you will have seen in the latest statement above from Mercedes they have said that if any Cars UK readers are not happy with the way they are being treated over the injector problems they will take any information we send them and pass it to customer services. We don’t know if that will help, but if any of you with this problem want to send us details we will be happy to pass them on. Just contact Cars UK with the details and we’ll make sure Mercedes gets them.
Let’s see where we go from here.
Please Note: In an effort to keep all comments on this issue in one place – and help readers keep track of what’s going on – we’ve disabled comments for this article. If you have something to say please go to the original Mercedes Injector Problems article and leave your comments there.
