Galen Auch

Review of Sears Imported Autos, Inc.

I purchased my used ML350 from Sears a few years b...

I purchased my used ML350 from Sears a few years back, my first Mercedes. Generally a great car and I love driving it. I can't say that I have been overly impressed with the maintenance cost of this car though. What I was expecting was a vehicle with superior engineering...not what I found to be true...but that is another issue for another time. When you buy a Mercedes you don t expect to pay half the value of the car again in repairs. A VERY sad testament to the failure of their claim to have superior engineering and this should be addressed by someone at Mercedes. But I digress...

After repairing the front differential last year ($3,800), I was faced again with another very large repair of the balance shaft ($7,800). This was a known issue and should have been a recall or fixed by Mercedes for free, but my vehicle is out of warrantee. The class action lawsuit failed, so Mercedes was off the hook and legally not required to do anything for me. The car was not drivable without the repair, so needless to say, it looked like I would be paying for another very large repair bill. I spoke with Reid Willemsen the Service Manager at Sears. He said he would do all he could to help me out. After speaking with Mercedes he was able to reduce my repair bill by over 50%. The Services agent Lance Hoefener was also great to work with and I think he was helpful in reducing my cost even further. I don t know if I will be a Mercedes owner in the near future, but I will be a Sears Imports customer. I feel they were helpful and did what they could to make it right given the situation. I see the fault here as with Mercedes; they should have repaired this known issue and poorly engineered problem for free. But the Sears team made a very difficult situation better and did great work on the repairs!! Thanks Sears team, I am giving you 5-stars for your focus on customer service!! Mercedes...you get 1-star...