According to an article in today's USA Today (09 Nov 2004) titled, "Costly doesn't mean reliable", Consumer Reports ripped the S-class pretty bad. They ranked the S-class in the same catagory as the BMW 7-series. Oh, how low mighty MB has sunk . . . to be compared to a 7-series. They are now in the "least reliable" catagory. The $16k Hyundai is in the "most reliable" catagory.

Mercedes "officials" have dismissed the criticism offering that their internal tracking "shows improvement across all Mercedes models." and "BMW officials say they are confident their cars will do better in next year's survey."

"'The better measure of reliability is the fact that 72% of the over 2 million Mercedes-Benz vehicles that have sold in the USA since the 1950's are still on the road today,' says Geoff Day, Mercedes spokesman."

The reliability reports were generated by owners of 1997 to present-day automobiles. These are not test, or mfg reports, but owner feedback.

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Sheech! Talk about ostrich syndrome. Geoff did not elaborate and say that probably 75% of the cars on the road are pre-1996 models, cars that were designed by engineers and not designed by accountants.

I'm glad I have one of the last "real" Mercedes that have been made.

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Despite what some might say about the quality and usefullness of CR, I've found their auto reports to be fairly accurate, as to reliability of various automative sub-systems. (A long time ago, when purchasing a used German sport coupe, CR rated the '74 Opel Manta as very highly rated, except for the carburator. Got one, and sure enough, had to replace the carburator in due time. Car gave me good, long use, racking up 180,000 miles before I junked it.)