I'm done with Mercedes-Benz

I don’t have beef with Mercedes-Benz, at least not yet. I very much respect the history and the heritage of Mercedes-Benz. This post is based on my own ordeal with the brand as of 2026.

I’m going to start with the fact that my experience with MB has always been terrible. Since day one to be precise. The only reason why I’m just saying that out loud is because the only pure Mercedes in the garage is also incredibly unproblematic - the AMG S63 Coupe. MB peaked with that car and it’s a lovely thing to drive and own. It’s truly a peak modern luxury car, not just as a part of the MB lineup (in the past). The S Coupe was serviced couple of times at MB, all of them being a terrible experience. And this is someone who shows up with an S Coupe, I can’t imagine how they treat the rest of the customers. I’m not going to get into details regarding the S Coupe, but the fact is that it’s not been serviced at Mercedes-Benz for a couple of years now. 

Fast-forward to mid December 2025, the SLR suffered an alternator failure. 

This is an alternator failure number 2 since December 2021 (basically when Paris Hilton’s SLR arrived in Bulgaria). The first one ended "theSLRtour I" just 3km away from the Bulgarian border, in 2023. With the alternator failure being a reoccurring issue, we took the decision to take the SLR to Mercedes-Benz. And then it got ugly. 

We called MB the same day the alternator failure happened. It was explained to them that the car is an SLR, it needs a new alternator and it also needs to be in-house diagnosed. They were like “Sure, bring it in tomorrow.”, which is what we did. The SLR was at MB the next day. We told them that the SLR is there for 4 reasons: 1. To get in-house diagnosed

2. For an alternator replacement

3. To investigate the root cause 

4. To include this repair in the official service history of the car

They come back with this rather scammy offer:

You can also see the date - 12.12.25. 

And all of a sudden we couldn’t get a hold of the person/mechanic responsible for the SLR. Crickets, for days. I was ready to go there in person to check what’s going on. We couldn’t even reply to their offer. Out of the blue they reappear with “It’ll take a year to get some of the parts delivered”. It turned out they initiated a different parts repair that was not discussed, nor needed. We reply again with “The SLR is there for 4 very specific reasons. Can you at least diagnose the car first? We'll pay additionally just for that.”. Didn’t hear anything for another day or two and then: “No, we’re not going to diagnose the car.”. This is when we decided to take the SLR back and take it elsewhere to get fixed. In the meantime we receive a call from MB stating “they don’t feel like it at all anyways” - they don’t want to touch the car. But! But MB being MB, it took them another 3 days to release the car and send a quote for the STORAGE. LMAO. So charging for storage is fine, but you can't charge me to run the diagnostics??? This is fucked-up on many levels. So, we asked them “Where do we take the car to get the issue fixed?”. They recommended another dealership in another city, We called them first before shipping the SLR just to get another “We don’t feel like it” sort of reply. 

This marked the end of the SLR - Mercedes-Benz journey. The end, but also the beginning of so many questions. 

• Who’s responsible for the SLR?

  
  

• Who do I call when the car breaks down?

  
  

• How do I even keep up with the official service history, when MB "doesn’t feel like it"?

  
  

• How is this even considered a Mercedes, when the official repair shops are scared to work on it?

  
  

• Am I on my own?

  
  

I understand many people view the SLR as the best Mercedes-Benz ever, but it’s only the best, because McLaren built it. I have embraced the British side of this car long time ago, hence why this is my first rodeo with MB when it comes to the SLR. I just wanted this repair to be included in the official history of the car. A valid reason when it comes to collectable exotics. Mind you we’re super chill exotic/supercar owners. I can’t imagine how the average SLR collector navigates through the maintenance. Service history is of paramount importance to collectors. Does Mercedes-Benz treat this car as something people just look at and don't drive? Like, legit. I found the part they gave an estimation for the backorder of 1 year on eBay - new, ready to be shipped. It’s like they treat us as if we’re dumb? Or maybe we got so many cars that we won’t notice the SLR missing for a year? I don’t get it. Does MB even care about the SLR or they’re just using it on IG and Facebook for legacy likes and shares? There is only one way to find out. This will be a full-scale investigation on my end. And if my suspicions turn out to be true - this can be a massive automotive scandal. Yeah, I'll do the job of the so-called "automotive journalists". Does anyone even care about how the automotive world functions at this point, or we just hype boring cars? It's like the majority of the car community is pre-programmed, no one really has an opinion nowadays, it's all very performative and fake.

MB - McLaren had a very messy relationship, still do. MB renewed the trademark for the SLR in 2019. People got hyped there might be a successor coming, but nah. It’s just to show the finger to McLaren. Have you noticed the lack of SLR-related posts on McLaren’s end?! It’s because MB doesn’t allow McLaren to associate themselves as much with it as MB “should”. Even though the SLR is the most significant car that McLaren has ever built - their first full-scale production model, the F1 was a limited-production car. So, the SLR means so much more to McLaren compared to what it means to MB. It’s one of the first production cars ever to use a carbon fiber monocoque. Not only that - it’s the first production car ever to have a front crash structure made entirely out of carbon. Yes, McLaren did that. That’s McLaren’s expertise in carbon fibre, not Mercedes’. The only Mercedes that has carbon fibre in the chassis is the CLK GTR - and it’s not entirely out of carbon fibre. So, Mercedes doesn't have the knowhow when it comes to what made the SLR special. It was all McLaren. I’m sorry to MB fans, I do have some in my readers and followers, but I consider the SLR to be a McLaren, even more so after the recent events. 

Now, with the relationship between the two manufacturers being on rocks for 2 decades, I feel like such mistreatment of a very limited volume production car on Merc’s end is unacceptable. More and more people are waking up and realising it’s one of the greatest cars ever built and are buying them to DRIVE them. Not to take cute photos on sunsets, not to brag about how much the hood costs, but to DRIVE them. And MB has a very limited time window to sort it out. The SLR's value has risen with 50-70k in the last 3 months. Maybe we’re looking at a half a million car by the end of the year.  So, who do I call when I have an issue? Is MB going to start to feel like it? Because if they don’t feel like it, it’s much better to say so and leave us handle it on our own, which is what we do anyways. At least MB won’t hurt the SLR’s reputation by being inadequate. 

So, yes, I don’t have beef with Mercedes-Benz, at least not yet.