AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/09 Report--

In October 2017, the Mercedes-Benz E200L of Mr. Cai in Zhengzhou, Henan Province was unable to drive due to a burst engine. The investigation found that the engine cylinder replaced by Mr. Cai in the Mercedes-Benz 4S store turned out to be the "three no" products from the e-commerce platform. After many negotiations, the car owner took the 4S store to court and complained to the Zhengzhou Market Supervision and Management Bureau. After three years, Mr. Cai's road of safeguarding his rights finally came to an end.

The middle cylinder of Mercedes-Benz is the "three nothing products" from the e-commerce platform.

It is understood that Mr. Cai's Mercedes-Benz E200L was purchased in 2016 at a price of 430000 yuan and fully insured. In July 2017, Mr. Cai's Mercedes-Benz E200L was damaged by a heavy rain. the staff of the insurance company said that the price of 210000 yuan was too high and suggested that only the engine cylinder be replaced. After the insurance company selected the price of four Mercedes-Benz 4S stores in Zhengzhou, the insurance company finally selected a Mercedes-Benz 4S store named Zhengzhou Huisheng, and the insurance company promised to replace it with the original parts.

After two months of maintenance, Mr. Cai went through the formalities of picking up the car at Huisheng Mercedes-Benz at the end of September at a maintenance cost of 156000 yuan. On the 21st day after picking up the car, Mr. Cai burst the water temperature while driving Mercedes-Benz, and completely broke down on the way to Huisheng Mercedes-Benz. 4S shop confirmed that it was the lack of water pipe buckle that led to antifreeze leakage, which eventually led to cylinder burst of the engine. For the responsibility for this incident, the 4S store believes that it is caused by improper driving by the car owner and is unwilling to bear the maintenance cost.

Mr. Cai reported the incident to the relevant departments and filed a case for investigation at the end of 2017. According to the investigation of Zhengzhou Market Supervision Bureau, the cause of engine cylinder burst is engine cylinder burst, and the core component of the engine is the middle cylinder of the engine. Through the analysis of the maintenance list, it is found that there is no product code and logo description in the engine cylinder, which confirms that the 4S store does not use the original accessories. In addition, it is well known that each car has a unique identification number on its engine assembly, which is engraved on the side wall of the middle cylinder, and the new middle cylinder removed from Mr. Cai's car can also have a number. but it is obviously not in line with the usual number on Mr. Cai's driver's license.

It is understood that, as the only supplier of accessories, Mercedes-Benz China only provides a complete set of engine assemblies, not medium cylinder accessories alone, and the general manager of Huisheng Mercedes-Benz has also admitted this fact, so what is the way to replace the middle cylinder?

According to the investigation of relevant departments, the middle cylinder was purchased by Huisheng Mercedes-Benz from Zhengzhou Garden Auto parts Company. According to the Zhengzhou Garden Auto parts Safety Manager, the engine cylinder installed in Mr. Cai's car is an old-fashioned general accessory, and there is no identification number when it arrives. In order to avoid tracing back to the source, the engine is bound to be worn off before it leaves the factory. As for why there is exactly the same engine number on the middle cylinder, an manager said that without the number, the insurance company could not settle the claim. The 4S store found someone to retype it in the market according to the original car number, because the follow-up no matter the annual inspection or the warranty, you need this engine number.

According to the bills and maintenance lists obtained during the investigation, law enforcement officials compared the price increase of spare parts of Huisheng Mercedes-Benz in the process of repairing Mr. Cai's car. Huisheng Mercedes-Benz made a gross profit of more than 24000 yuan alone.

Further understanding learned that the engine cylinder in the hands of an manager was unexpectedly "Amoy" on an e-commerce platform. After inquiry, the reporter found that there were nearly a thousand merchants selling engine cylinder blocks, but the transaction records and evaluations of these stores were almost zero. An manager said that basically offline transactions are mainly, few car owners pay online, and stores do not need these evaluations.

The attempt to settle the 4S store was rejected by the owner, and the owner sued the 4S store.

During the investigation by law enforcement officials, Huisheng Mercedes-Benz twice tried to settle with Mr. Cai for compensating Mr. Cai for a new car, but only if a confidentiality agreement was signed, admitting that the 4S store knowingly replaced the non-original three-free cylinder products for it, but Mr. Cai directly refused.

Zhengzhou Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau found that Huisheng Mercedes-Benz 4S store violated the rights and interests of consumers, and confiscated 20430 yuan of illegal income and fined 244300 yuan against Huisheng Mercedes-Benz in April 2019. Huisheng Mercedes-Benz refused to accept the punishment and decided to submit a reconsideration to the Zhengzhou people's Government and appealed to the Zhengzhou Intermediate people's Court.

Finally, in May this year, the Zhengzhou Intermediate people's Court finally ruled that it supported the administrative penalty decision of the Zhengzhou Municipal Market Regulatory Bureau. The court held that both insurance companies and Huisheng Mercedes-Benz have the obligation to truthfully tell consumers the true situation of the engine involved and to provide goods and quality equal to the price they collect, otherwise it constitutes a fraud to consumers.

It is worth mentioning that after the court made the final judgment, Huisheng Mercedes-Benz still did not cooperate with the payment of the fine, and it was not until the court issued the "enforcement notice" that Huisheng Mercedes-Benz paid a total fine of 420000 yuan on July 1. Regulators said that as a 4S store authorized by Mercedes-Benz in China, Huisheng Mercedes-Benz ignored consumer trust and did not actively negotiate with consumers after the incident, but further concealed the truth and violated the principle of honest operation.

Mr. Cai's three-year road of safeguarding his rights has finally come to an end. In Mr. Cai's case, some netizens said, "even if there are more problems with Mercedes-Benz, the number of people who buy it is still increasing."

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat