or rather, mb's with lemons?

The drivers door of my '88 300e was t-boned by an old lady, and her insurance paid for a new door. While it was being worked on, the insurance gave me a renter: a brand new Jeep Cherokee Laredo. After a few days, i got the 300e back.

Hence I can compare an SUV with a sedan cruiser. As they are from two different categories and about 13 years apart, it makes for an interestingly ridiculous and pointless comparison.

First, the acceleration: the SUV was a hair trigger, just touching the pedal goosed the engine, where with the sublime MB the acceleration was at a gentleman's pace - sure, one can floor it, manually shift and tear ass but the MB seemed to have a balance between the power of the engine, the weight and acceleration. The jeep lacked this, like an engine designed in one factory is dropped into a body made by another with little thought to how they blended.
I suspect the extreme weight of the MB has something to do with it, I mean you really feel how heavy the car is, yet its cornering, turning and maneuverability matched or exceeded the Jeep.

The jeep seemed very light and in high winds and at high speed it didnt hug the road. The acceleration of the jeep at 50 mph and up sucked, like it had to downshift and work to get speed, where with the MB it had scads of power once it gets going.

Naturally, I wont be taking the MB off-road but many SUV owners are suburb-lubbers anyway. However, it was interesting riding so high in the Jeep, towering over everyone on the road.

glad to be back in the MB! Jeeps are great things to rent, but I wouldnt want to live there.