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PARKTRONIC NEWS (the last proposed 'fix' did of course not fix it, BTW) -
viewtopic.php?p=921465#p921465So this morning I was up at one of our data centres doing data centre shit. This particular data centre is very close to the car specialist who's allegedly had the Merc loads of times for days on end, so once I'd finished doing the data centre shit, I drove over to the specialist, parked up, walked into his workshop and introduced myself.
The chap was most friendly and forthcoming, and he is indeed very familiar with my car, but it appears that there has been a slight, ahem, 'disconnect' between what the dealer has been telling me the specialist chap has been up to, on how many occasions, and for how long, and what he's
actually been up to, on how many occasions, and for how long.
TL:DR version is he's only ever had the car for an hour or two at a time (and certainly never for a day), and what he's basically been doing is diagnosing as best he can in the time he's had, telling the dealer what they need to do to fix it, but the dealer hasn't been doing a very good job of it. He quite openly said this will be because the dealer is trying to save money by getting his workshop guys to do it, as he's quite expensive.
One very interesting snippet of information is that it looks to him like the car has had a bit of respray work done front and rear at some point, not for anything serious more a sort of 'scuff or nudge' than an actual banging into anything else, but when the bumpers have been put back on and the sensors remounted and whatnot - it's not been done 100% right which is why the Parktronic is misfiring all the time. He said it's basically a good system but very sensitive to not being set up completely correctly.
I literally just asked him 'So can you fix it then?' and he was like 'yeah no problem', they (the dealer) just need to get it booked in with him for a full day instead of an ad hoc hour or two when he's got a small amount of time free (he's generally booked up 2-3 weeks in advance), he'll get both bumpers off so he can get to everything easily, properly sort out what needs doing and what bits need replacing, and then they'll need to be ordered, and once the bits arrive he'll need the car back for another day or maybe half day to get the work done, and that'll be it.
I thanked him for his time and said goodbye, returned to town and presented myself at the dealers and gave them an abridged version of the tale, but left in the key point that I'd spoken to the specialist myself and he'd said quite clearly he needs a proper chunk of time with the car to fix it, and that's the only barrier to the job getting done once and for all.
The chap at the dealer said he'd get back to me ASAP, and sure enough within an hour he'd called me back, and the Merc is now booked in for a full day with the specialist on the 24th October.
So it looks like there may yet be a working Parktronic at the end of the tunnel.
It's like one of those multipart questlines in WoW that just seems to go on FOREVER.