This Complaint Letter is part of an Activity on Quality Control and Quality Assurance.

Mr J. Blackwell
Managing Director
PMV Cars
Premier Motor Vehicles UK plc
Exeter
EX15 9BC

Re: PV450 series
Registration Number: HY03 TMK

Dear Mr. Blackwell,

Some time ago you issued an urgent recall notice regarding the seat belt buckles of the PV450 series. As I am no longer the owner of the car, I was tempted to ignore the notice, save myself some time and wish the poor sod who bought the vehicle "good luck".

However, I feel that you and senior management at the manufacturing centre should be made aware why I disposed of the expensive motorcar. It most certainly was not because of some suspect seat buckles.

In my opinion the PV450 range should have been recalled the moment they fell off the production line. Here follows an account of my 12 months PMV vehicles experience during which I covered a mere 2,100 miles.

  1. The fitted alarm, a disaster supreme: sirens and lights went off frequently when operating the remote control. I was told by your local experts that the security code was extremely long and sophisticated and it required pressing the button for at least one second. Horse-feathers: my present vehicle's code is just as long, it can even dead-lock the doors and has not once produced a false alarm. The alarm also went off for no reason at all whilst driving down the High Street - a rather embarrassing experience in a vehicle of such calibre. On another occasion, the interior lights illuminated during travel and without an obvious reason, though when reaching home and opening the driver's door, all hell broke loose. I was unable to shut the alarm off, much to the amusement of the neighbourhood. Your local dealer, was called out on countless occasions and there will be a record of the vehicle's history on file.
  2. Right from the first day the rear seat unit produced an irritating rattle. You tried over several days to find a remedy, but without much success, yet they still returned the vehicle to me. Since my local chemist did not run a special promotion on ear-plugs, I returned the car to you and was told that a new rear seat assembly would be required. Whether this was fitted or not, a week later the irritating noise was less obvious but still noticeable to an extent that would have made a Lada salesman blush.
  3. I made as little use of the vehicle as possible - the alarm was a bit of a deterrent - but I was slightly stumped when one day the battery failed to start the car. You did your bit again, I was given further expert opinion that the sophisticated electronics needed regular driving and 10 days rest was bad for the battery. I pointed out that I was not prepared to lug around a 10 kg battery every time I left the car at an airport for the duration of a short business trip. My fears of having to charge up the battery in foreign hotel rooms were unfounded, the battery was found to have two faulty cells. A replacement rectified the not too small inconvenience.
  4. Occasionally it rains in the United Kingdom. Imagine my surprise when one day I opened the passenger door and found ½ centimetre of water on the floor sill. The same water level could be found in the off-side rear compartment and further back into the load area. This amazing discovery was followed by another invigorating week for the vehicle at your service area. Just as well I have two reliable cars by different manufacturers at my disposal.
  5. By this time, and I trust you will not be offended by the thought, I had decided to sell the car. Three expensive adverts in the Sunday Times resulted in only one luke-warm enquiry and no sale, though, out of the blue a local person showed some interest in the pile of junk. Desperate to make a sale, I washed the car and even brushed out the immaculate interior. That was when I found a piece of plastic on the driver's floor. I picked it up and viewed it in amazement: it was the most crudely crafted piece of plastic I have ever come across - an accelerator pedal. Even found the plastic (yes, plastic!!) coupling to fix the pedal to the metal - now here is a reason for recall if you ever needed one! How about a bit of off-roading in Sloane Square (London, U.K.) with the pedal falling off?

    By the way, the local interest in the vehicle ended in no sale.
  6. The American style handbrake or "parking brake" indicates clearly that nobody had ever envisaged the PV450 to be used off-road with perhaps the exception of a Tesco's mother- and-child-only parking bay. I certainly would be unhappy to have to make use of such a contraption on the snow-covered roads of the Italian Dolomites.
  7. The leather seats were designed for Sudanese brass monkeys or Americans. They gave no hold and were by far the most uncomfortable seats I have experienced outside the cathedral of the Holy Virgin in Galway (Republic of Ireland).
  8. There is also the extreme use of cheap plastic in a vehicle of such a renowned past: the little handle which opens the bonnet will most likely not last for the third oil-change, the pitiful rear ashtrays (though I do not smoke) would never meet the stringent quality requirements of a give-away in a cornflakes box, the cupholders were surely designed by a brainless imbecile.
  9. In a last attempt to impress my clients with my car and in order to curtail my losses to a minimum, I contacted your sales director, Mrs Yvonne Wilson and checked out the latest PV450 series which by now had been improved and built by Austrians. Mrs. Wilson was fully aware of the history of my vehicle and expressed her sympathy with words to the effect " the quality one expects of owning a PMV" and that she would contact me. That was during December 2003. Last words of wisdom!

My patience came to an end and I have since bought another vehicle from a different manufacturer, the eighth in my ownership and a vehicle, which gives me the confidence to attempt to leave the periphery of Exeter. Though I miss the Bose hi-fi unit of the PV450...

I thought you might be interested in my humble opinion of the pile of junk which has lost me more than £ 10,000 in such a short time of ownership and just over 2,100 miles. It is my hope that somebody at Mercedes PMV will remember how the word "quality" was spelled just a few years ago. It might also be prudent to clarify the expression "off-road" to your customers as in the case of the PV450 it is more likely to entail the hospitality and bad coffee at one of your many dealerships.

Yours sincerely,

Edmund Nägele, FRPS
Edmund Nägele is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain
(Amended letter reproduced by kind permission of Edmund Nägele, http://www.nagele.co.uk/ml320)