Mercedes just made me hate them

So, why should Benz bother skimping? It's not like they're losing a lot on it.

Har har.

I agree and also have many fine older things. Including plumbing fixtures...

My wife burned out her Old US made one.

Craftsman ain't what it used to be. Especially in hand tools...

That is apparently the prime profile for "luxury" vehicles like mercedes. Old nuts like you and me don't count, because we probably aren't buyers.

This is somewhat of the classic self fulfilling prophecy of "cars that last"...

Cars are machines. as long as there are parts they can be serviced. If people keeps saying "Gee them volvos really last" then subsequent people spend more money making keeping there Volvos running due to higher expectations...

Still, I drive a 19 year old mercedes, so I do believe that true quality shows up in the older specimens...

Boo Hoo, all american cars are crap and Germany rules.

LOL

Actually, you should go look at the new STS. It's nice. Companies go through cycles. Someday hopefully consumers are informed enough to insist on something better.

Don't know, but that sounds like an engineering issue.

Reputations don't last. Look at OJ. It's very true that in many cases fine companies end up as nothing but there name.

So you think they are intentionally building crappy cars?

Sad, really, sorry your taking this new world so hard. Don't give up yet, it isn't over.

Marty

Sigh - according to my urologist, some of my old plumbing is... oh, never mind ;-)

She has my respect - and a certain amount of fear. Short of mixing concrete, I didn't think that could be done.

If only it were just Craftsman. But I'm sure the Sears/KMart mega-merger will make that all better.

Agreed, but if that is the prime profile, then we have a different product - NOT the product that earned the reputation, but something more homogenized to the "New World" way of doing business. I just don't think Benz when I see the newer machines, and while personally, I think this started sometime ago (Oh, ok dammit, there hasn't been a decent one since 1985 ;-) but the real slide down the slippery slope started with Chrysler.

I dunno about that. I'm the champion of lost causes. Everything built by man wears out and breaks and even God's own mountains wear down in time, but I've had too many vehicles that were just flat unmaintainable beyond a certain point - I would have had to rebuild the whole damn thing from the ground up. Perhaps people ARE more inclined to fix things on some vehicles, but perhaps some vehicles also respond better to that type of maintenance.

No point in maintaining a Vega beyond a certain point, for example - there is no longer any non-corroded peice of chassis metal to attach new shock absorbers to. I don't believe in life support beyond a certain point, but I think that point almost doesn't exist for the older Benzes.

(Jumps up and down and shouts "EXACTLY MY POINT") OK, now that I've got that out of my system... Those vehicles were satisfying to drive, and rewarding to maintain - OK, after a few hundred thousand miles, maybe you DO need new ball joints - replace them properly and you have another few hundred thousand out of the chassis. Worth doing, in my admittedly archaic playbook.

Actually, in 20 years, probably China rules, but that's a different discussion for a different forum. American cars do piss me off, because I'm an American. I remember a news special (20/20 or some such) when the first of the Infiniti/Accura/Lexus cars were making a splash. The German spokesvolks were asked if they felt the Japanese were encroaching on their market. They said no, they felt that those who appreciated their approach to the art of the automobile would continue to buy German. Interestingly enough, the Japanese said the same thing - they were targeting the Honda/Toyata/Nissan market that wanted something a little more upscale, but felt the German market wasn't penetrable. BOTH the Germans and the Japanese said that their only concern was that Americans might get their act together, as they were both using cutting-edge American production line techniques, robotics, etc. - that we were failing to implement on our own assembly lines.

There are signs of improvement on the American front. The cars we are turning out now are a marked improvement over the crap we thought we could get away with in the 70's and 80's. But some of the old shuck 'n jive attitudes still prevail.

Yes, the new STS is nice. It truly has some much-improved engineering. It also has it's share of bells and whistles. Stabilitrak? MagneRide freaking magnetic ride control suspension? I have no idea when my Bilstein shocks were replaced last - they may be original, although the idea of shocks with a third of a million miles on them still managing to dance that fine line between supple and responsive just blows my mind. Yet they do. Is a well engineered basic suspension a worse idea than a complex electronic system that may be (no, almost HAS to be) guilty of a dozen more possible points of failure? Here's a clue - How many Gran Prix racers are running the Stabilitrak system? Surely they need cutting-edge suspension more than someone driving their STS to the local convenience store. Variable valve timing? Don't get me started. What kind of cutting-edge 100th-of-a-second drag racing requires variable valve timing? Is this really something that's going to enhance the experience of hitting that long stretch of I-10 between Pensacola and San Antonio? Give me a break. Or give me a breakdown - another cute thing to die when you least need it to.

I contend that premium does not necessarily equal gimmicky, and that engineering should deliver real value and performance, not mere bragging rights at the water cooler..."I have an incredibly small penis, but my car has MagneRide AND Variable Valve Timing - so there!"

I'm not ready to drag the engineers out into the back lot, line them up and shoot them until I see what they originally specified, before the marketing and bean-counting androids trashed their original designs.

No doubt. I'm mostly expressing dismay at what in my demographicly insignificant view is a calculated series of steps backwards. Look at all of the automotive firsts the Mercedes marque can claim. Could those have even happened in their current corporate culture? In other words, could OJ have been OJ if he had to play checkers? It's the wrong game.

I think that when they are cutting corners to the point that even a lousy lapel pin (the original point of the post) is too much expense that yes, crappy is not necessarily the goal, but is necessarily the result. Just how freakin' cheap is that?

Nope it isn't over. One of the benefits of having a few miles on me is this - I really am much less worried about other's opinions of me. So... I don't plan on taking the new world hard - I plan on it taking me hard. If I don't like it, I'm going to bitch. I'm going to change political parties. I'm going to put my dollars where my mouth is, and not where I think things are going wrong. And wherever possible, I'm going to encourage folks to do the same. Education only hurts for a little while, but stupidity and apathy are terminal diseases. For people and for automobile makers.

Conrad

Frozen butter actually... Against my better advice. But it has a LONG and tedious service before she got to it.

I think that there was a phase long before Chrysler was even a twinkle in MB management's eye.

The legend goes that MBs were designed and built and then priced. However, as the car market became more competitive management felt it had to make to a price point, i.e. set a price and then build a car to fit.

It manifested itself in various details, like the removal of damping in ash-tray covers in some models. We're talking maybe 10 - 15 years ago. This cause a lot of negative comment and some of that was reversed. How much of this attitude lingers? Who knows?

In general one has to think in economic terms. Merc's bread-and-butter cars are sold in relatively large numbers against heavy competition. Quality and reliability do not have to suffer, as the Japanese manufacturers have shown. In my opinion the malaise arises from top management's fascination with irrelevant projects: household electrical goods, aerospace and the like, all of which divert from the main job at hand, which is to build trucks, buses and cars.

Maybe the acquisition of Chrysler was a mistake, but it is the one venture where I can find some sympathy, as it was a quick way of establishing a massive passenger-car presence in the USA. After all, Chrysler sales are about double the volume of global MB-brand sales.

On the other hand, maybe MB would have done better just growing organically, maybe even building more factories there?

Despite all the negative comments I am happy, so far (he said carefully), with my 2001 CLK Cab. Niggles have been handled well by the Merc garages. I have done only about 20 000 mikes since new; not much, but still.

DAS

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