i love the very smart inovations that mercedes has enginered into there cars,even in the mid to late 80's,i just recently found out one of my exterior lights was out,so the exterior lamp warning light popped on my dashboard,also i love the low front brake pad warning indicator light,you just dont see anything close to this on general motors cars until the mid to late 2000's,i say this as a previous general motors service technician.its nice to know mercedes engineers take so much time to care about the little things.i also love how the drivers side outside door mirror is manual,but the passengers side is electric,this is quite obviously due to the fact that you cannot reach it,lol very intuative,three cheers for germany.

GM sucks. Wish they were a British company.

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'02 BMW 325i
'85 300D 450k
'93 190E 2.6 170k(killed by tree)
'08 Ducati Hypermotard 1100S 6k
'06 Ducati S2R800 14k(sold)

well they are a very rich organization,italian and german are known for there high end quality,the only downside is you need to buy a mechanic to come with the new car.at least with american your 12 year old nephew can help you to a 30k service

I know. Ingenious.

Strange though their instrument panel lighting stayed kinda outdated through the 90s. Lexus had the electroluminiscent lighting when it started cranking out the LS400 in 1989. I have owned a 1990-91 and loved the dash lights. However, the dash in my 88 300SEL is attractive imo. I love the looks of the clusters of the Mercedes. ALL of them... all years... all models.

I found out tonight that starting WAY back in 1965, Chrysler had a "gauge warning" system on the Imperials. It was much like you see on many 90s-current cars like where you get low on gas, car overheats, etc, a check gauges light comes on. Thats exactly what they had... it said "check gages" when the car overheated, fuel was low, low oil pressure or low battery voltage. Pretty snazzy for 1965. Mopar was usually behind on alot of things, but some things they were ahead of the game on... at least in the late 50s-mid 70s.

Kysor warning system, worked great.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

Back in 1955 or 1956 Ford decided to become the "safety" company.

Things like dished steering wheels, padded dash and sun visors, etc.

The consensus a few years later from a marketing standpoint was that this was a failure because Americans didn't want to think about safety.

Mercedes--in addition to being the inventor of the automobile--has always been the leader in safety, too.

Since they weren't really in the "third world car" (descendants of Model T) business as much as USA companies, they were maybe slightly more immune to marketing pressures (and probably safety was OK in Europe and with their more sophisticated customer base).

It's not really surprising you find things to like about Mercedes as opposed to 'merikun iron, but in the long run you'll find you're comparing apples and oranges and comparisons are really not meaningful.

PS: One of the world's best "car magazines" is from the UK and is called simply "CAR." They used to have a monthly review of all cars sold in the UK and their one-liner about Volvo was ... "after SAAB, the safest car made in Sweden."

PPS: Beginning with follow-on to W124, i.e. W210, both side mirrors are electrically adjustable on Mercedes. "Quirkiness" doesn't cut it competing with Lexus.

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Kent Christensen
Albuquerque
'07 GL320CDI, '10 CL550. '01 Porsche Boxster
Two BMW motorcycles

And your 12 yo nephew can contort his little hands to get up in there and change the plugs on a GM small block that has them located INGENIOUSLY between the exhaust headers in an inverted orientation. GM sucks, and also who told you they were a rich organization? They're broke, dude! Bailout! I know you're a former tech or whatever but that doesn't make GM suck any less, no offense. I've owned GM before. Their products are garbage.

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'02 BMW 325i
'85 300D 450k
'93 190E 2.6 170k(killed by tree)
'08 Ducati Hypermotard 1100S 6k
'06 Ducati S2R800 14k(sold)

We are GM. The US Government.

Volvo was the leader in many safety innovations: three-point safety belts, LSG windshields, dual-diagonal brake systems, ... many others that became mandated by laws around the world. Mercedes was a leader also, crashed more cars than any other carmaker, for safety. Crashed cars at every angle and every speed, many were crashed more than once at another angle. In those days, the head of M-B was an Engineer, nothing was spared and the car was sold with the "cost plus margin" method. If it could be made better, it was, and priced accordingly.

Around 1986 or so (don't remember exactly) the charmanship was turned over to a marketing type, who followed the rest of the world's automakers by letting marketing design cars based on what they felt buyers would pay for. Then, the car was priced based on market studies, the margin subtracted, and what was left was all that the design and engineering departments had to work with to design, engineer, and produce the car. Typical US/Japanese formula that gives us cars that are mass-produced and marketed heavily, not crafted and engineered heavily.

Ferdinand Piech saved Audi (IMO) due to his exitement for engineering, moving the quattro from a niche-car to a mainstream high-volume segment. Mercedes-Benz needs to re-gain the ground that they lost in the '90s by keeping engineering & testing a priority.

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

86560SEL..............

I loved the dash in my 1993 Lexus ES300! Bright, modern and clear..........until about 7 years later out of warrently parts of the illumination, specifically the needles, started to flicker and burn out. Lexus wanted a fortune to fix it and it was then not so nice. Turns out the dash was never meant to be used on full illumination but at a reduced level to prevent burnouts. The lights were on 100% of the time so you could see the gauges. Nobody including Lexus anticipated burnouts but it became very evident as the early models started to age. There were DIY fixes or places you could send it to for repair but it was too much trouble and still costly. Sold it in 2003!

Also, I liked the "Check Gauge Light" you mentioned too. That was a great idea!

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1989 300E

2005 Acura TL

2011 Hyundai Elantra Limited

Swing hard! Take chances!

Yeah, my friend had an ES300... 1992. The dash lights were nice on it too, but had problems. Seems the ES300s had more problems then the LS400 clusters, but they definitely had their fair share of problems too. I have been lucky with mine though. I bought my first Lexus in 2003. It was a 1990 and it already had 220K. ALL of the dash lights worked fine (to my amazement - it may have been repaired before by a PO?). Around 255K I hit a large pothole and the speedometer needle went 1/2 way out. This bugged me to the core, but I didnt want to spend $$$ to fix it, so I sold it at 275K. Then I bought my 1991 LS400 in 2007. It had 199K and again, a perfect working instrument cluster (all needles and backlighting worked properly) and it was still fine when I sold it at 227K two months ago. I had a pic of the instrument cluster saved on Photobucket, but I cant find it. Oh well.

Some of them had problems when it was cold the clusters would not light up at all... or would wait to warm to illuminate. I never had that problem thankfully. I always kept mine on full brightness, even at night, but it was a little too bright at night on full brightness... it would illuminate the entire car interior.

Here is the cluster on my 1988 300SEL. I really like it, but I dont like how the black has turned white looking. This is something I have seen on some other Mercedes when shopping for them, but this is the first I have owned like that... my other two Mercedes wasnt like this.

Black has turned white looking? I see black gauge faces. Don't really see what you're talking about. Only white I see on those guages are the numbers. They're supposed to be white.

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'02 BMW 325i
'85 300D 450k
'93 190E 2.6 170k(killed by tree)
'08 Ducati Hypermotard 1100S 6k
'06 Ducati S2R800 14k(sold)

Yes. Its hard to see because of the camera, but in person the cluster where is it black all around the gauges has a white looking residue around it. This is not the first Mercedes I have seen this on.