What should I do about my crabbing Mercedes-Benz?
QUESTION
Dear John,
My missus purchased a brand new 2019 Mercedes GLC43 AMG mid last year and of course - cue the music - it is suffering from the commonly known tyre crabbing issue. If I wanted crabs I would have a boys trip to Thailand...
This noise is unbearable and if we wanted excessive vibration in the seats, we would have opted for an E-Class!
To make matters worse, my missus purchased it without test driving it. Lesson learned for her – although I can never remind her of this, for self-preservation reasons.
First thing's first – I no longer live in Shitsville, rather Sheepsville.
Upon further research, this issue is only involving AMG models of the GLC43 as well as ones produced in right hand drive. Oh the joys of this.
We have taken it to Mercedes multiple times and there does not appear to be a fix for it.
This problem is unbearable; for such a high-end car, it really is beautiful car drives very well, provided you do not try to steer beyond 75 per cent lock. I’m wanting some advice on what we should do.
Would this be a situation we could appeal to lemon laws for? It is certainly a well-known flaw and according to the world-wank-web has been ongoing with this particular model for the last three years.
Does crabbing of the tyres cause any damage of excessive wear and tear on any components of the vehicle?
We are obviously not impressed that the known fault of the GLC43 AMG crabbing will significantly lower the resale value when we go to upgrade as well.
Whilst Sheepsville laws are a bit different to the laws of AU, I was wondering if you had some advice you could help us with.
Looking at the consumer protection act of NZ, in my opinion there are a lot of reasons to justify Mercedes taking the car back and either refunding the money, or swapping my dearest into another vehicle of equal value.
I have listed a few pages below but would value your no BS opinion and advice on what to do. Obviously Mercedes is going to dig its heals in pretty heavily regarding this, as any judgement in our favour could result in many other claims from GLC43 AMG owners.
NZ: Refund, Replacements & Repairs >>
NZ: Motor Vehicle Disputes >> (the car is more than $100k obviously)
Any help would make a world of difference to us.
Regards,
Cameron (Lover-of-all-things-sheep)
ANSWER
Cameron,
Greetings from Shitsville, where the sheep are (slightly) less traumatised.
Very funny email mate, in the face of a bleak position viz the Three-Pronged Suppository.
To them it’s an operational characteristic, not a fault - which is absurd, almost Monty Pythonesque, only not funny at all. Here’s my full report on that >>
It’s never going to be solved. Fighting it will be expensive. And I don’t have a grasp of consumer law in SheepShaggistan.
Essentially the only way this goes away is: You get rid of the car. If you can convince Suppository Motors Inc to swap it over for a 2WD Shitbox Benz then you sideline that problem at least.
They are pretty bad at customer (non-)care in general, however…
I don’t think this is all that helpful, sadly.
Consumer Law protection after warranty >>
Why New Car Warranties Don’t Matter >>
Please accept my commiserations. Perhaps your story can serve as a lesson to others.
JC
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