Maritime Motors (*****s??) Port Elizabeth

From once being the place to do business with, Maritime Motors (or *****s) is today a sad reminder of days gone by. Gone is the efficient service of years gone by. Now is money first. You wait 5 minutes or more for the poor overworked switchboard operator to answer. Oh, she is friendly enough but obviously under severe strain. You then ask for the service foreman and wait until doomsday and eventually get cut off. You then call the switchboard back and leave a message for the holier than thou workshop foreman to call back. Which off course is never done. The spares department is even worse. Their direct number is never answered nor are messages asking left at the main switchboard ever done, except once. Hooray. Moment of weakness? After eventually getting a service appointment to check out a faulty thermostat warning light and near R1200-00 later, I am proudly to be told, you need a new electronic thermostat which I already knew as the warning light identified it, but the experts needed two hours of "computer analysis" to identify! Must be using a 20 year old IBM 4,7 PC. A money making racket I wish I had invented.

Sorry sir, we have no spares. We will have to get a spare from Germany. Why, when the car is a locally built E350 Coupe? Don't Mercedes in East London keep spares or is it more profitable to import. Needless to say, the part was never ordered and only after repeated attempts to find out where it was was it eventually ordered. Now 6 weeks after taking it to Maritime *****s the first time has it been replaced at a cost of nearly R8000 in total -- for a thermostat?? The inside of the car was returned smelling of disinfectant but the dirty finger marks on bodywork were was not cleaned off. Sorry Sir, water restrictions!! A wet rag would have helped!! Needless to say, after supporting Maritime Motors since I bought my first Mercedes from them in 1962 - the new Maritime *****s saw my first and last visit. You think they care - not a damn. Another sucker is born every day. Only *****s treat customers in this manner.