i beg to differ, as a mercedes owner which come's in the same civic price class, have no issue with shahnawaz and have visited their twice and also to INH in so far the 6 months i have owned the car, the 10k that they were asking your friends is for Mercedes Star diagnosis (SDS) not for changing or fixing headlight, the SDS tells you exactly which light and which bulb is culprit and also whether its a bulb fault or wire fault without opening anything, it maybe that the mechanic figured it out it was loose connections but if it was not the case then you would have had a error and malfunction on the dashboard that wouldn't go away,shahnawaz are the only ones who have a fully upto date star system.
anyways although i wont goto shahanwaz for everything they are not bad and for work relating to engine or fluids shahnawaz is my 1st choice, for work related to suspension and elelctrical issues i prefer INH
oh and the part of charging 1 lac for tuning is also absurd as Mercedes requires no tuning, just spark plugs theres nothing to do in tuning, what shahanawaz does is give you what mercedes calls a B service in their manual, as indicated in your dashboard which included brake fluid fuel filter and pump in most cases, and ATF.
local mechanics would never do that, INH does it though if you ask for it.
the point is if someone with zero knowledge but a proud owner of a mercedes benz walks into shahnawaz, gives them the keys and sits in their lounge drinking coffee telling them tuning kardo he will definitely get a huge bill or made a fool out of because shahanwaz has this bad policy of treating their customers who bought grey imports or bought not from them as lowly unless you make your presence and knowledge aware. and if your car already has a computer malfunction and you goto them they will first make sure you sign a undertaking and will first remove and fix that malfunction before doing anything else even if its not even related or will refuse to accept and service that car.
so i think its a misstatement that never goto shahanwaz or they loot you. yes they can make a fool out of you in cost only if you let them, their actual work in as far as i have seen is on par with foreign mercedes services at least in uk.
this should hopefully clear any misconceptions at least about owning a mercedes and servicing in this particular regard.
