There are many Mercedes-Benzes sold through grey importers every year in Malaysia, and many of them come in for servicing and repair at authorised Mercedes dealerships, as many smaller grey importers have no service facilities. Although Mercedes-Benz has a global warranty policy, there are certain exemptions.
European-spec vehicles run on Euro 5 fuel, which means that when you fill them with lower-quality fuels there’s a good chance the engine will suffer. However, due to the high-quality nature of these vehicles, the problem usually only shows up after the third or fourth year of use.
Many customers think that the vehicles themselves have problems and demand warranty replacement to fix this problem as they are not aware that that their grey import vehicles are not the same as the ones sold from authorised dealers in Malaysia.
Hence, Mercedes-Benz Malaysia has issued an official statement to all its authorised dealers and service centres concerning warranty coverage for failures resulting from fuel quality on grey market vehicles.
The statement clarifies that, any failures in Mercedes-Benz vehicles brought in through unofficial channels will not be accepted under warranty by Daimler AG as they are unprepared for local fuel quality.
“The fuel quality in Malaysia does not meet the operating requirement of vehicles produced in other countries. As such, imported vehicles which have not been suitably adapted to the local fuel quality, may experience failures,” explained Mercedes-Benz Malaysia President and CEO, Roland Folger.
“Only vehicles purchased through Mercedes-Benz authorised dealers are prepared adequately for the local conditions and it is our obligation to warn the public of the risks that are taken in purchasing a Mercedes-Benz from an unauthorised dealer.” Folger added. So in a nutshell, if your grey market Merc suffers a malfunction which has resulted directly from our lower quality fuel, the global warranty does not apply.
