Brancart, a piracy business with a Mercedes logo?
My Sprinter (2003) 316Cdi suddenly stopped on the highway in Belgium, just after the border from France. I was first towed to the nearest Mercedes workshop, but they couldn’t help me, as their computer system was down due to a network error. I was then referred to Brancart in Quiévrain. What was not explained was that they couldn’t look at the car for 6 days.
When they were finally able to look at the car, they said that the problem was bigger than first thought. They had to order parts, and that would take a few days. When that was done, they had found another problem, and again had to have new parts. – This happened 2 more times. Then I understood that now I was being scammed. This was also because I heard the engine running inside the workshop, – while they told me that the engine wouldn’t start.
I found a reason why they had to release the car, even though it wasn’t fixed. The engine started, but had almost no power/rpm, – and a lot of white smoke was coming out of the exhaust pipe. I sent videos to my mechanic in Portugal, and he said that I just had to get the car out of Brancart, and down to him. The problem could be as simple as changing a nozzle/injector, – as I originally thought.
To get the car out, I had to pay over €1,800 for their “work and parts”.
Despite this, I slowly managed to get the car over to France, to a place I could park, where there was also food and a toilet.
The insurance company (Zurich) managed to get the car transported to my trusted mechanic in Portugal. He could assure me that Brancart had really done nothing but train and escalate the problem. My Portuguese mechanic fixed the car in 1 day, and it cost €350,- including parts and VAT.
I had a lot of shipments on hold, so I had to rent a car similar to my Sprinter, and carry out the assignments that were pending and already paid for by the customers. The total cost was over €11,000 for the entire Brancart episode.
Leave a Reply