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Mercedes Benz

4th August 2005, Page 62
4th August 2005
Page 62
Page 63
Page 62, 4th August 2005 — Mercedes Benz
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cour call for help to Mercedes started well. After a single ring and a brief choice from a voice mail system we were talking to a real human in under 20 seconds.The operator took great care to establish our location we didn't help by not having the postcode of the RDC. Our location seemed to be unfortunately placed in the Mere network as the operator had to decide which of two dealers to use, plumping for lntercounty of Milton Keynes.

Despite that the whole process was handled in just over four minutes.After another five minutes we were called back with the message that our allocated fitter was on another job but would be with us in two hours maximum; in the event that deadline was missed by 26 minutes (See nine toarrive.) For the second CM breakdown test in a row we've found ourselves feeling sympathetic towards Merc's man, Simon Dennis, who told us: "Ordinarily I'd get to someone between 60-90 minutes it was just one of those days." Dennis's first c.all out,

an injector problem on a Vito van,"turned into a three-hour job", although to his credit he finished ahead of time. Unfortunately that persistence knocked back his final arrival time to our non-existent,non-startingActros.

Like all the manufacturers, Mercedes was invited to comment, and MD Ian Jones responded:"We are disappointed with this result because it doesn't reflect our normal standards of performance. In the past two years we have doubled our number of 'Service 24h' vans, opened 35 new or completely refurbished dealerships and increased our Service locations by 50% and there is a real energy in our organisation to provide the best service possible.This is a snapshot, not the whole picture."

Back at Bedford, and commendably resisting the temptation to thump the CM journalist holding a stop-watch. Dennis described the kit on his Sprinter: "Alternators, starter motors -we don't carry batteries as nine times out of ten you can get them started and going." Dennis was unusual amongst our breakdown technicians by being on emergency call-out work full time. However, like his counterparts he sees traffic congestion as a growing barrier to rapid service:"I've been doing this for six years and slowly it's been getting worse. It's frustrating for me and the customer. If you break down at Sam or 5pm it can be a nightmare." Having a patch that includes the Ml from Junctions 14-18 can also be pretty tough especially when there's a pile-up.

Dennis's advice to Actros drivers is to learn to identify the fault codes that can be displayed on the tractor's dash they have a 0-3 number prefix indicating whether you have to stop the truck or can still drive it to a dealer. "It says what the codes are in the handbook," notes Dennis,"but a lot of drivers don't read them." Sounds familiar?


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