Recently, there is a ridicule for Mercedes-Benz Maibakh circulating on the Internet: "The three-pronged starlight may not illuminate your future, but the tricolor poncho will certainly protect you from the wind and rain."
Why did the Trident Xinghui, which originally described Mercedes-Benz as luxurious and distinguished, get the limelight now by the cheap three-color awning? It goes back to the "bad worry" that a Shanghai car owner encountered after buying a brand-new Maibakh GLS480 in early July this year.
Maibakh leaked water for 10 days and lost 800 thousand.
As for the whole incident of defending rights in Maibakh, the "talk of steam pulling and scraping" has been reviewed in the whole process. The protagonist of the incident is a young Shanghai entrepreneur in wang xing. After years of hard work, he finally bought his own dream cars, Maibakh GLS SUV 480 for 2.15 million yuan. I thought I finally realized my car dream, but I didn’t know that what was waiting for him was a farce of safeguarding rights.
In order to accurately understand the full picture of the rights protection of the water leakage in Maibakh, "Auto Talk" contacted Mr. Wang, the owner of rights protection, through media channels. It happened that on the second day after picking up the car, the owner found that there was abnormal noise in the interior of the vehicle during driving. On the tenth day, the owner took a break and drove to the 4S shop for inspection. However, after the inspection in the 4S shop, he found no reason for the abnormal noise. He just perfunctory the owner and let him leave. Unfortunately, the sky was not beautiful, and it was raining when the owner left. Later, on the way home, Mr. Wang found that there was a more serious roof leakage in his Maibakh, especially the A-pillar. In Mr. Wang’s own words: "It rains heavily outside the car and it rains lightly inside." So before he returned home, Mr. Wang returned to the 4S shop for inspection again.
According to Mr. Wang, at that time, the maintenance staff of the 4S shop told him that he needed to dismantle the A-pillar to check the cause of water leakage, and Mr. Wang also agreed to the inspection. In fact, the 4S shop not only dismantled the A-pillar of the vehicle, but also dismantled the B-pillar, C-pillar and luggage structural parts without authorization. But in the end, the 4S shop told Mr. Wang that the cause of water leakage was unknown and could not solve the problem. Immediately, Mr. Wang asked the 4S store to contact the manufacturer for maintenance. The manufacturer in Maibakh said that he was responsible for asking Mr. Wang to authorize the removal of many appearance and structural components including the front top baffle and luggage rack, so as to find out the cause of water leakage and determine whether there were any problems in his own production line and raw material technology. For such a large-scale overhaul, Mr. Wang immediately explicitly refused to return the vehicle, but was explicitly rejected by the Maibakh authorities. The 4S shop was only willing to buy back the vehicle at a price of 1.35-1.5 million yuan, which means that Mr. Wang would lose 800,000 yuan in 10 days. I don’t think anyone would agree to such insincere "compensation".
The most exasperating thing is that Mr. Wang revealed that in the process of communicating with the 4S shop for maintenance compensation, the 4S managers came forward to negotiate several times, shirking each other, and even called the thief to call the police 110, saying that Mr. Wang deliberately disturbed their normal business order, which also directly led to Mr. Wang’s anger.
In the process of defending rights for more than two months, Mr. Wang drove to and from Mercedes-Benz Maibakh 4S store several times to communicate, and called the official 400 number of Maibakh for communication more than ten times before and after, but all he got was mutual prevarication. Even the 400 operators just said that there was a record and would give upward feedback, but in fact, Mr. Wang waited for more than two months but no official from Maibakh came to communicate this matter. As a result, Mr. Wang had to choose the way of protecting rights under the canopy and filmed the matter as a video of protecting rights and exposed it on the Internet. Immediately, the tri-color awning Maibakh became a beautiful weather vane on the road of automobile rights protection, which directly made Maibakh, a world luxury automobile brand, be criticized in the China market, and its brand reputation plummeted.
On October 12th, that is, more than three months after the owner defended his rights, the 4S store finally issued a statement under the supervision of the media, users and the whole society. Unfortunately, the whole explanation reveals the arrogance of the powerful and the shirking and irresponsibility of users’ rights protection.
China is not an "extra-legal place" for luxury brands.
For top luxury car brands such as Mercedes-Benz Maibakh, the China market is one of the most important markets and accounts for a high proportion of sales. However, although these luxury brands have gained a lot of benefits in the China market for a long time, they have not paid enough attention to their own responsibilities and owners’ rights and interests compared with the international market.
Once upon a time, luxury joint ventures and imported 4S stores were symbols of high-end quality and excellent service. However, in recent years, there has been a lot of chaos in the field of 4S stores, and frequent scandals have even been exposed by the official media. In the face of suppliers and manufacturers, many 4S stores choose silence, but seek to maximize profits from consumers. It is not uncommon for them to raise prices and seize certificates, which seriously infringes on consumers’ rights and interests.
Consumers step into 4S stores with anticipation, hoping to buy their favorite cars, but they often encounter a "blind box" car buying experience. Lucky people may mention qualified products, while unfortunate people may face various quality problems. Like that Maibakh car owner, the new car broke down soon after use, and the maintenance process was plunged into the whirlpool of high cost and potential fraud. In order to increase maintenance income, some 4S shops deliberately destroy vehicle parts, resulting in several times of soaring maintenance costs, and the quality of repairs cannot be guaranteed.
In 2019, the CLS female car owner of Xi ‘an Mercedes-Benz failed to negotiate the change of car due to the engine problem of the new car, and finally sat on the cover of the 4S shop and cried, causing social concern. Now, the GLS owners in Maibakh are also facing the problem of changing cars, and they are required to bear a loss fee of 800,000 yuan, so they have no choice but to expose their experiences. The road to rights protection of these car owners is full of hardships, which also casts a shadow on the public’s mind, once again triggering a wide-ranging discussion on the protection of consumer rights and interests.
The tricolor tarpaulin on the roof of Maibakh is unique but thought-provoking. Behind it is the hardship and helplessness of car owners’ rights protection. The legitimate rights and interests of car buyers can’t be ignored, and the car owner incident in Maibakh should be properly resolved. China market is not a luxury brand "extra-legal place", and China consumers are increasingly rational and have long-term Internet memory. If the rights protection incident is not handled properly, not only will the brand of Maibakh be damaged, but it will also trigger a chain reaction, exposing other foreign brands with similar problems. Therefore, it is very important to protect consumers’ rights and fair handling of rights protection incidents for maintaining market order and brand image.
