Very refreshing to hear a dealer service good news story. Probably would not
hurt to mention this Dealer's service department by name.
Pete

Just wait till your car is out of warranty and then the My Hyde
character will appear...

It would be interesting to read about this same experience had it happened
after the warranty had expired.

In the old days, when MB wasn't selling the volume it needed to be viable
for the long term, the money went into the design and build of the cars
before the cars went into service.  Like so many other modern consumables,
it appears to be more cost-effective (for the companies) to do damage
control after delivery than it is to proactively, preemptively forestall
those problems on the factory and design floors.

Of course, in the old days, when MB wasn't selling the volume it needed to
be viable for the long term, I wouldn't today have had the number of MBs in
my driveway, either.

The fact that they're scary to own without a comprehensive warranty in
place, combined with overpriced, overrated dealer service departments who
are more likely to do $1500 electronic component swaps than genuinely dig
into a problem, further aggravates things when the ownership turns into
out-of-pocket maintenance.

I grew up with MBs, from a 1958 300SL my dad suddenly found himself with
when a friend was unable to repay a loan, to a 1959 190D that ran for three
decades without anything but very basic driveway maintenance, to college in
a 20-year-old sedan, to an adult with pretty much anything I wanted.  In the
old days, when they needed repairs, they needed those repairs only half as
often, but usually with more expensive repair charges.  So in the end, they
were durable, well-built, and ran longer, but on average were less expensive
to own in the long run, thanks to durability and slower long-term
depreciation.

That's no longer true.  I begin to hyperventilate when my new MBs reach
end-of-warranty life.  I no longer have the confidence that a dealer repair
shop will treat my money with any kind of respect.  In many cases, I've been
the one to tell the service department about a TSB on an issue that they
didn't know about, and there is no situation in the world where I would not
lose patience with something that wasn't fixed correctly the first time,
whether covered under warranty or not.  There have been times when I've
returned a car or truck to the dealer four different times to get one single
thing repaired; the warranty doesn't cover my time from work, my waning
trust in a brand I used to love, or my peace of mind in wanting to keep the
car for as long I would hope to.

It's all different now.  But for me, it's not how good it used to be, it's
more that there's nothing else to choose from, even with things different.
An MB, even today, is still a combination of qualities that can't be touched
by any other company.

With all due respect , those seem like very minor problems that the service
department repaired. After you spend 30K + on a car I don't think the
dealership deserves a pat on the back for fixing a few warranty issues. Back
in the early 80's when I bought my first MB ( 1982 240D ) Mercedes service
was top notch , during the late 90's it went way downhill.and with it ,went
the entire MB ownership experience (IMHO)
                                                                           
                                                                        -Dana