Mercedes just made me hate them

Mercedes recently revamped the high mileage awards and no longer offers lapel pins to original owners. So apparently they don't care enough about their customers to give them a 25 cent piece of metal? How bogus. The high mileage awards used to be much more thorough for original owners and I'm pissed as hell that 13,000 miles before my car can get an award they start skimping. This is enough that I'll never buy a Benz, my dad will never buy another benz (he bought 5 in a row, with the last one being a W126 in 1985 since all the newer models since have been much worse), and we might not even get a 300C SRT-8 like we had planned since it's the same parent company. I know other companies don't even have an award system, but to have one and then start skimping is so cheap. It's a lot like what I expect from Mercedes nowadays.Those cheap bastards. Richard

Reply to
marlinspike
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A bit of over-reaction for "a 25 cent piece of metal."

Kal

Reply to
Kalman Rubinson

That may not be accurate.

I think it was Napoleon who remarked how men were motivated by virtually worthless bits of metal pinned to their chests.

I may not have those details exactly right.

In ant event, the marketing people should be smacked with a ruler.

.

Kalman Rub> A bit of over-reaction for "a 25 cent piece of metal."

Reply to
greek_philosophizer

(snipped horsewank)

hehehehehehehehhhe

Fuck me sideways with a beetroot!

If a 25 cent piece of metal is thta important dont buy a Benz!!!

Nige

Reply to
Nige

You can go fornicate yourself with a 10 foot clown pole

Like I said, I won't be buying any more. What's left to seperate Benz from BMW? Nothing except for lower sales and not doing as well in the quality surveys. Benz really did die in 1992. Richard

Reply to
marlinspike

I don't think it is. This is just yet another step Benz has taken towards turning into complete utter crap. They stopped caring about their products in 1992 and now they show they don't care about their customers.

"But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and specious forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the state of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult" - John Locke - Second Treatise on Government

This is just as applicable here as to government. Benz has made move after move in the direction of not caring and now this is the last straw, and it's not strange for people to be up in arms about this. I rather have nothing than have to deal with bullshit. Richard

Reply to
marlinspike

Oh dear...

I only heard about this award in the USA through this NG. Didn't even know it existed before then. Can't say I have been bothered to check existence in Europe.

Between my dad and me we have been driving Mercs almost continuously both as company and privately-owned cars since the mid-sixties.

I think you have been cheesed off by the removal of something that you expected to obtain. Maybe this is just the trigger for you to do what you intended at some stage?

I agree with you that it (award withdrawal) is a stupid thing to do but it alone should not have an effect, everything else being equal. What other brands give out awards?

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

It's in Europe too...and everywhere else Benz's are sold

Between 1972 and 1985 my dad bought 5 Benz's. From longer ago that I care to know to 1972 his dad was buying Benz's, basically there was always a Benz in the family. My dad fully expected to replace our 380SE with the next gen S-class until he saw what the 140 was like. Haven't bought another Benz since.

I'd say this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I would have given Benz a chance if their cars ever started to get good again, but not now. As long as the awards system stays like this I'll never buy a Benz.

Granted none, but I think take away an award is worse than never having one, plus now what's left to seperate Benz from everybody else? They aren't clearly better than other similar cars any more, and now they don't show greater care for the customer either. Richard

Reply to
marlinspike

What is a clown pole?

I never saw Ronald McDonald with a pole.

.
Reply to
greek_philosophizer

Yeah you never saw him getting jiggie with Burgie.

Reply to
Martin Joseph

What would you do if you made a product that the buyers could brag about the quality by getting badges, then the quality of your product dropped so low that people no longer bragged? Only way out is to drop the badges. Problem now is all the old MBs with the badges, none on the new ones. Everyone now knows the quality is not there. If it were me, I would lower the requirements, send the badges on my own without being asked for them, in hopes people will display them.

Paul

Reply to
Paul

Makes me wonder the real reason MB is stopping the mileage awards. I doubt it's the cost of the program. I would think it more likely that it's an acknowledgement that the cars they are turning out today aren't going to last like the ones in the past. Might be embarrassing to have customers asking why there are badges for mileages the cars are incapable of ever reeaching....

Reply to
trader4

My understanding is they are not discontinuing the awards program, but have just stopped giving out lapel pins along with it. You still get the badge for the grill and a certificate, but no lapel pin. The program is still listed on the US website:

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Reply to
Rodney T. Grill

YES! Finally someone gets that I'm not talking about those things used by nautical types to split twine but that I'm referring to Cpt. Haddock's mansion. Hooray! I think you should go buy youself a cookie for this. Everybody else thinks I'm talking about a nautical tool Richard

Reply to
marlinspike

Right, before you got different, ONE PIECE, badges (silver, gold, platinum IIRC) for each award, and if you were the original owner you also got a certificate and a lapel pin. Now everybody gets 2 piece badges so as you step up in levels you just replace the lower part saying how many KM and you get nothing special for being an original owner. Just as with everything else, Mercedes is skimping. Richard

Reply to
marlinspike

Yuck.

Badges, we don't need no stinkin' badges.

Driving an older car in nice condition is enough of a badge for me. It's pretty obvious to anyone who cares that a 20 year old vehicle in nice condition has been around the block a few times and is being cared for...

Marty

Reply to
Martin Joseph

There aren't very many original owners that keep these cars that long (understatement of the week).

Sorry you are PO'd about this, but if this is a make or break deal for you with an auto vendor, I recommend you seek professional help( and I don't mean a mechanic :~)

Reply to
Martin Joseph

I have to agree - no, a 25-cent piece of tin is not reason enough to buy, or not buy a Mercedes. But that's not really the issue.

Here's the real issue: This is just one more symptom of a penny-pinching, cost-containment, corner-cutting mentality that has slowly permeated MB over the past few years. Figure it out - if the bean counters have cut corners on something so inexpensive to the coporate bottom line, then where else have they cut to the bone?

If you have a new Benz, you have my sympathy. It's not about the money - I can afford (most) of the new models. I just happened to become acquainted with Benz when they were a premier automotive company - not just a cost center that could as easily be producing discount home appliances.

Chrysler has brought a Wal-Mart mentality to the company that is entirely unsuited to the Benz automobile and it's market. Hope the stockholders are happy - but then, they're never dedicated to the company - just whichever company nets them a bit of profit six months down the line - when one company is trashed, they move their portfolio to greener pastures.

Conrad

Reply to
Conrad

This is nonsense.

Using this logic there would not be any quality companies that lasted. Which there are.

Cutting costs is what business is about. Maintaining standards is also important.

Time will tell if the Mercedes marque can continue to stand for something other then just overpriced garbage.

Personally based on what I see in this NG, mercedes is due for a revamping, with more attention to basic quality and less to ove-engineered bells and whistles.

This could ultimately make it a stronger brand IMO.

Reply to
Martin Joseph

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