I had my 2004 E500 with 38,000 miles in for the annual (B) service this past week and I asked the service advisor to check the car because of somewhat slow starts in very cold weather. He later informed me that both batteries needed to be replaced - at a cost of $750!!! I asked him if he was kidding but he denied it. He said I could not only replace one of them and if I didn't replace both the car would likely fail to start and leave me stranded. No alternatives were offered. I told him to go ahead and to make sure the clock was reset before the car was returned to me because of the problems I had in the past resetting the clock. As expected, the car was returned with the clock off by 3 hours!

I called MB USA to report this, but they would do nothing about it and seemed uninterested.

It is either a ridiculous design issue by MB or price gouging by the upstate NY dealership - either way, this is my last MB, for sure.

 

you paid that much for some batteries dog? mercedes batteries are about 150-170 at auto zone or kragen man. you could go on ebay or amazon even and find them even cheaper if you dont mind a little wait. but for what you spent,...the wait would have been worth it. sorry man

 

dont blame the benz for crooked dealership. Price gouging happens in every make and model and depens on the people. Look like they used your lack of knowledge and trust in them to scare the hell out of you and thus charge you what ever they feel like charging. Highly inflated prices for two batteries. Let me ask this, has the car thus far left you stranded because of dead battery? So now of a sudden you take it to dealership and the car is one hair from totally exploding into a million piees and a meteror falling on it if you hurry up and pay some crazy price they make up.

 

Why do you think they are called "STEALERS"?

 

Last time I bought a battery at the local dealer, it was something like $125. This would be two years ago. I had always considered buying a battery from the stealer to be one of the only few good deals that can be had at a stealer.

$750? I'd be having a chat with the owner of the dealer. Then go find yourself a local independent Mercedes trained tech