Here's the thing - MB's design to production cycle for a new vehicle is about 7 years or so. This refers to the time that transpires from a blank sheet of paper to a car that is rolling off the production line. Given this length of time, and given that the "merger" took place in 1998, it is *impossible* for any car introduced and in the showroom by 1998 to have any DCX influence.

When Daimler bought Chrysler, it was never to harness Chrysler's engineering potential. It was never to ride the coattails of Chrysler's sterling retuptation for quality or value. It wasn't even for their distribution network (which is why Fiat bought them). It was to extend the life of obsolete tooling and production that MB had finished with. W210 architecture shows up in the 300E and Charger after it goes out of production in Germany, along with 722.6 transmissions when they start moving towards the end of their life cycles. The entire first generation SLK chassis gets a new lease on life under the body of a Chrysler Crossfire (manufactured in Austria by Magna Steyr). MB diesel engines show up in Jeep products prior to the introduction of BlueTec. The Dodge Sprinter van shows up with only the badges changed from MB product. MB's last generation hand-me-downs were going to be better than anything Chrysler could engineer at the time - it was a way to ammortize the cost on engineering for MB over a longer amount of time.

The fact that MB quality took a dive at about the same time of the merger was a coincidence that had nothing to do with the merger. It had more to do with a change in design and engineering philosophy at MB.

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Jonathan

2011 Mazda2
2000 E320 4Matic Wagon
1994 C280 (retired)