Ever browsed used car listings and seen descriptions that mention "fully serviced and maintained by agent"? You might be wondering why that is desirable.
Well, the 'agent' term refers to the authorised distributor of the car brand. And it means that the car is maintained with original parts and to a standard that is approved by the manufacturer. Hence, peace of mind and less potential issues.
But what does the authorised distributor workshop do that make them different from external workshops? Most of us wouldn't know the specifics… that is until Cycle & Carriage Singapore invited us for a look behind the scenes at its Mercedes-Benz Aftersales Centre.
The people: Trained and certified in their field
Our gathering point when we arrived at Cycle & Carriage's Aftersales service centre at Pandan Loop was a room at the Mercedes-Benz Training Centre.
We were told that on top of being equipped with the relevant qualifications in mechanical engineering, technicians here will have to go through comprehensive training programs. The facility is equipped with training rooms, labs and actual work bays for theoretical and actual hands-on training.
Each technician will then have to get their certification at the regional training centre (the closest one is in Malaysia). Such a rigorous training process allows the brand to maintain a high level of competency of its technicians to maintain the highest quality of service and repair work.
The equipment: Specialised and in accordance with the manufacturer
We were then given a tour of the service bays and the massive body and paint facilities. Here, we saw that the same high-level of standards is being upkept in terms of equipment as well.
The globally employed Mercedes-Benz Xentry system is used here to communicate with the vehicles' electronic systems to run tests, configure components, and install manufacturer-approved software updates.
Meanwhile, things are also highly specialised at the body and paint shop. Body repair is something that's often overlooked: Getting a damaged car back to how it looked like before isn’t the only thing here, repairing it correctly is important as well.
To ensure the integrity of the car body after the repair, everything here it done strictly by the book. Yes, the Mercedes-Benz Aftersales service centre has all the original factory manuals that states all the parts, materials, metal joining methods, welding point and other intricacies that is required for the repair. Every little detail including where to cut and where to weld a replacement panel onto the car is stated and has to be followed.
Cycle & Carriage has also invested in model-specific chassis jigs that allows damaged car chassis to be worked to its original specification.
At the paint shop, the use of a sophisticated paint mixing system from Spies Hecker that includes the Daisy Wheel, automates the process. Using a spectrometer, the existing paint formula on a car could be analysed, after which the Daisy Wheel is able to mix and prepare the paint formulations down to a 0.1-gram accuracy.
The use of these high-tech equipment allows Cycle & Carriage's Mercedes-Benz Aftersales service centre to restore customer cars back to how it was from the factory.
The parts and components: Genuine from the factory
Being an authorised distributor representing the brand, Cycle & Carriage not only has the capability to secure genuine parts directly from the brand - it is obligated to use only genuine parts.
While we were at the body shop, we were shown a pair of bonnets - a genuine and a third-party non-genuine article. While they look similar on the first glance, there are many differences, including the use of factory original sealant, and many more riveting points on the original. But above all, the genuine bonnet was constructed of aluminium and weighed in at 13kg, while the non-genuine bonnet was made of steel, and almost twice the weight at 24kg.
This highlighted the importance of using genuine parts on your car - there is an actual, tangible difference between factory original parts and subpar third-party replicas. Without the genuine part, your car might look the same, but it will not perform as designed by the brand's engineers.
The procedure: Factory manual with specific steps followed
With the right equipment, genuine parts and certified technicians, there is one last piece of the puzzle: The factory manual.
Having anecdotal knowledge of the difficulty and costs involved with sourcing for complete factory manual of certain car models, I was impressed by what I saw at the workshop.
Of course, with ties to the brand, Cycle & Carriage has access to complete factory manuals, but it was still quite a sight to see a whiteboard with step-by-step instructions laid out on it. And this is yet another reason why the authorised dealer can do it better than shops outside - there's no guesswork involved, and everything is done by the book.
Access to the Flying Doctor's expertise
After the impressive tour at the Pandan Loop facility, we made our way to the Mercedes-Benz Centre Singapore, located at Alexandra Road.
Over here, we had a Mercedes-Benz Service Clinic hosted by one of the brand’s 'Flying Doctor'. The Flying Doctors are specialist technical experts who are called in for complex cases. They are able to perform advanced diagnostics to resolve tough issues that could arise in a vehicle.
The ability to tap on the expertise of Mercedes-Benz's team of Flying Doctors supplements Cycle & Carriage's aftersales service capabilities to provide a complete solution for all Mercedes-Benz drivers here.
In fact, Cycle & Carriage's network of over 160 certified technicians in all three service centres across Singapore services more than 75,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles annually.
The first-hand experience allowed us to see how things are done at an authorised distributor’s workshop such as the Cycle & Carriage's Mercedes-Benz Aftersales Service Centre, and it sure is impressive.
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