I leased my Mercedes GLC300 last Jul. And the car was good until I sent it to get the first 10K service done at one of the local MB dealerships two days ago. On the way to work yesterday, there was white smoke from the engine if my car. And we found oil leaked out with pressure all over the engine compartment.
I contacted the dealership right away and had MB roadside assistance towed my car there. Today they contacted me that the seal of the new oil filter they put in there was broken. That’s why oil was leaking with pressure. They’ve replaced the oil filter with a new one and steam cleaned the engine compartment of my car. They basically admitted that it’s their fault (either a faulty part or human error) that caused all the issues.
What should I in this case? Is there any damage to the engine and should I keep the car? What would be proper to ask for as compensation? Can I ask them to give me a new car or terminate the lease?
Really appreciate all advice. I not it’s not a common topic on leasehackr. As I got lots of help from here back then, I really don’t know where else to ask about this.
Oh, you better believe it’ll be in the service history if any further issues arise from it. Just thank your lucky stars this was a lease and not a purchase!
If it was purchased car I’d be complaining to MBUSA and if anything else came of this issue continue pressing until I was happy with the result up to and including buyback if trouble caused ultimately caused severe issues (most likely won’t…)
@Yanglin there’s nothing really bad here. Oil filters have rubber O-rings in them (like a gasket) to allow them to seal well to the engine. What likely happened is the O-ring was not seated all the way, or maybe somewhat twisted / pinched and the oil filter didn’t make a perfect seal. Once you started driving and the engine heated up (creating pressure in the oil system) and oil started to push past the wrinkled / pinched part of the O-ring causing the leak. You obviously notice the leak quickly, and you didn’t continue to drive the car w/ a low oil condition, where the engine could seize.
There should be no consequence moving forward, its sounds like the dealership cleaned the engine compartment of oil, and as others have suggested, maybe you can get some future service for free.
You have no position to ask them to return the lease or ask for a new car. Sh!t happens, and you realized quickly, so have peace of mind there’s nothing wrong w/ your MB moving forward.
Thanks CaptQ for the detail explanation! I took back my car today. The whole process is very annoying. The customer service are terrible there. They did even bother to apology for all the inconvenience… They even going to charge fuel money for the loaner car that I drove for 2 days (10 miles per day). I definitely won’t go back there for service.
What nerve. They screwed up and still see fit to try to nickel and dime you on a couple bucks worth of fuel? Ding their ass hard on the survey and move to a better dealer.
So this happened to my C300 lease too. Someone didn’t put oil cap properly during service B and now the engine is toast and mb dealership has been asking me for proof of service B. What city are you in?
