Try to get parts for my Mercedes for 18 days now

Hi,
in October I bought (what I thought) one of the best cars in the world - a 1984 300SD - beautiful car, traveling like in a cruise ship. Unfortunately this purchase of Mercedes turned into a nightmare. Juist to tell a few things: As I live in Southern Mexico I had to travel through whole Mexico. In Mexico City I was told that they could not fix my Mercedes problems as there are no Diesel Mercedes in Mexico. They told me that I needed to get an appointment with a Mercedes Service Center and then they maybe could fix.
I made the appointment one week later in Cancun. My appointment was Monday 10am and I was there in time. Within the next 90 minutes they make me wait - there were obviously much more important clients approaching and the small talk with them took a long time. When they started to talk to me the next important client arrived and they asked for some minutes and so on. I finally left after 90 minutes and had no service.
As next Mercedes Benz service is more than 6 hours from my home I asked my local mechanics to do the most important stuff. He needed a diesel filter and a center link and I ordered these parts in Houston as I was supposed to travel to the States. When I reached 3 weeks later the guy who made the order was not there. Another employee of Mercedes Benz started to help and search for my parts. After more than half an hour the next employee reached telling me that the first one had left for lunch and that he's going to help me.
I waited another 40 minutes and finally the guy reached with 2 filters that were not the right ones and he told me that he didn't find the center link. I had an appointment and couldn't wait anymore and left without any of the parts.
18 days ago my mounts of the motor were broken and I needed new mounts. I tried to reach Mercedes Benz of Mexico sent and email, received a non-deliverable-email-message one day later, tried to phone and 3 days later received an answer to this "non-delivered" email. They told me that they could order these parts and it would take 2 to 4 weeks to reach Mexico City and then more time to get shipped to me to South Mexico. So I tried Mercedes Benz USA central in New Jersey.
After another "non-deliverable" message after sending an email to them, I finally found an email that worked and received an answer within 24 hours. I described my problem and was given a phone umber and 2 names in Irvine, California. I called at 4:30pm and the answering machine said it was too late - (that was strange as California is 2 hours behind us!) but said that I could send an email to asktheexpert@mbusa. I sent the email and received a non-deliverable email message. OK, I waited till the next day and called in the morning. I didn't get any of the 2 guys whose name was on the email but reached another employee of Mercedes classical parts.
He told me an email address and I wrote my problem to him - no answer. I asked for a confirmation that he has receive the email - no answer. I sent another email: Could I please get to know if you received my email (3 days after I sent the email) and there was no answer.
I finally called the next day and the service person said he just received my email - OK, looks as if Mercedes Benz deliver emails 4 days after you write them. He informed me that he had parts of the requested parts and had to order the rest and it would take 1 day. I waited. After 2 days I contacted him via email and told him shipping address and my credit card information (except the last 4 digits which I communicated later via phone). And I asked if it please would be possible to send through DHL as all the others don't have offices even close to my home - they're all more than 6 hours away and are not very reliable - sometimes leave the stuff at customs and don't deal with it anymore but declare as delivered. In my experience in Belize with FedEx it happened once that they put the package onto a regular bus and it has been stolen - can you imagine the trouble?
Ok, Mercedes answered the next day: Sorry, was not possible to send with DHL - Mercedes has a contract with FedEx. As it's surely more important to deal with existing contracts than to make customers happy I accepted.
All of a sudden the next day (Friday) late in the afternoon I received a message that FedEx was not shipping to Mexico due to security issues (first time I hear such a thing!) I was asked to contact DHL and schedule shipping. OK, I thought, I could do the Mercedes job too. I tried the whole weekend to open an account, but they wouldn't let me open an American account as I'm no American citizen. So I tried to open a Mexican account. But with the Mexican account I couldn't schedule a pick-up from Irvine, CA. And I finally found a way to schedule this pick-up through the US-website of DHL but without account. I scheduled for today between 10am and 3:30pm.
This evening I finally found an email in my mailbox - Mercedes had sent DHL away again and is now asking to organize all the paperwork.
Can you imagine that now, after 18 days, I still don't have my parts and they ask me to do the paper work. Is this the new style of Mercedes Benz for globalization?
Once this company used to be the "creme de la creme" with an image - wow - i remember - my first job as a student was at the company's central office in Sindelfingen, Germany and it was an honor to have this job with the company.
Mercedes was a vision, a dream a .... and now they ask their clients to do the paper work from 2000 Miles away. Can you really imagine this?
Is there anybody with any hint to tell me if there's a chance for me to get my parts? I'm now ready to sell the car as fast as possible and get a car from a company that know about service and customer appreciation but does anybody have any idea how I could get my parts into Mexico?
Thanks and sunny regards

Sorry to hear all of this. Happens a lot. Even in Mexico, a good independent car repair shop can fix these routine issues.  If you are still going to keep your car, you and/or your mechanic should look at online assistance for repairs and parts.  Repairs: try www.alldata.com .  For parts: try http://www.autohausaz.com/ and other import car parts websites. Later website ships parts UPS international, both regular and express. Try using Google or another internet search engine to look for websites that offer repair shops in your area. Owning these cars, even newer years, takes patience and experience to get through the ups and downs of repairs. Hang in there.

Thank you very much, Bill, that was a very helpful post. I already contacted the Arizona company. Even as I think that it might be too late for me - I'm sure I'm going to sell this car as soon as it's going to be fixed - I appreciate your information. Thanks and sunny regards from Mexico
:-)

Hi Bill,

thank you again. After another day of nightmare with Mercedes classical parts I contacted the AutohausAZ and after a detailed description from Paul at customer service I could place an order online, 5 minutes later had paid through paypal and the parts will be shipped tomorrow via USPS and reach my place on Friday or Saturday. It was absolutely uncomplicated!
I'll sell this beautiful car with the huge service lack and will  buy a car from a company that kept a little bit of customer appreciation while proceeding globalization - you see how very much I'm frustrated and upset.
Thank you so much for bringing the light into this matter!

:-)

here to help.  Think Mercedes long term to get through the mid term hassles. Take care.