let me put it this way, when the ml series was first promoted by benz, it was a spectacular design. i put in an order based on those early design proposals. as you should know, what appeared bore no resemblance to the initial design[show car]. before my ordered car arrived at the dealer's, i rented one that was virtually brand new[less than 100 miles]in beverly hills. less than 24 hours i was returning it. it had rattles out the wazoo and the remote central locking system was not functioning and the windows once down would not go up].

returning to houston, and discussing the problems with my long term friend and service manager, he admitted that the ml's were having these problems. he suggested that i change my order for the forthcoming v8. he felt that it would have the problems resolved.

in the interim, i began to evaluate lexus products. in beverly hills one can long term test almost anything by renting from the budget agency. i tried a gs400 - wonderful rocket but no back seat space. i tried a ls400. the first one had their lcd dash - absolutely horrible to use[and at night a disaster]. i exchanged it for another one that had a more conventional dash. a lovely car.

but owning a lexus where i live made no sense, the nearest dealer was 65 miles away and i found lexus to be a marque that has some other foibles. oh, and when a lexus dealer opened that got closer, closer than the benz dealer, i tried the lexus suv, a lx470. what a horrible car. horrible seats. and the service dept was just a disaster. but at least the dealer had some honor, after 1100 miles of torture he repurchased the vehicle from me for what i had paid him for it.

but lexus had at least one good idea, you had a choice of a conventional dash or the lcd display.

benz unfortunately decided to force the lcd display on all - there was no other option. i found this an intolerable mistake. and my long-term service personnel friends at the benz dealer do not disagree with me.

as to the grand ml, benz went chrysler when it put the full size spare upright within the car. sort of like the jeep products. what a bit of stupidity. an SUV with no room in the storage area.

encountering these bad ideas[imv], i determined that older benzes were the answer. and my outlook has been rewarded. i am pretty certain that current and future benzes as chryslerized will not be on my shopping list. at least not as long as i can acquire low mileage older models.

as i think i said at the get go, my feeling had been that successor vehicles would be improvements. i do not feel that way now.

i shall close with this pov. within the last several months, i drove a very cherry 500e with less than 30k miles. beats any of the new stuff hands down.

so it goes