Mercedes moves closer to “mushroom” technicians.

About 6 years ago we sat in on a Mercedes dealer meeting in Frankfurt Germany. During the meeting they showed how in a perfect world directed diagnostics would be used to create parts swappers at the dealership. The car would be plugged into the diagnostic machine, information would be analyzed at the factory (or regional fix it center by company engineers), and the repair would be disclosed to the dope on the other end of the phone. Goal? Reduce the competition in the aftermarket by removing trained technicians and rely on “directed diagnostics” to fix the car.

While that has yet to happen we have seen 2 to 4 year complete service offered on a number of German car makes. Recently Lexus began to offer 2 year bumper to bumper service in a effort to keep the customer in the loop.

Mercedes is once again going after service by announcing, in an article on Boy Genius report, That the new Mercedes F-Cell hydrogen car will be available only on a lease. That’s right lease only. If you want some further chuckles CLICK HERE and see how the article, written by a tech geek, justifies the high price of the lease only car by saying it is “a car that literally emits water instead of toxic sludge”. I don’t know about you but I could not find that trail of toxic sludge coming out of my car this morning. (I’m sure we could follow the reporter around and find the toxic sludge coming out of him.)

So how’s that for a head scratcher! Point is by testing the water with a lease only vehicle Mercedes again looks to capture the entire service model and keep it in house.

Since the dealerships notoriously cannot comply with factory directives we’d say get ready for the F-Cell by attending the soon to be released, “Hindenburg Hydrogen Car Training class”. Participants will be issued Nomex coveralls, ear-plugs (explosions are loud), and a pair of the latest Nike running shoes.