Yes, Mercedes definitely have some great designs over the past few years, and yet it's easier said than done. It may appear pretty and fancy on the drawing board, but when it gets to the assembly line, everything just falls apart. After all, they just lack the mindset of Japanese, determination to make their products reliable and perservereance to come through for their products . They are just the Eropean equivalenant of Detroit atuo industry or even worse.

I have another concern to mention about Mercedes engines. Since early 1990s, some of the Mercedes engines were not manufactured in Germany anymore. Instead, they have outsourced engine production in other countries, for example to a South Korean automaker. If you have the August 1996 issue of Car and Driver, I am sure you have read that the Korean Automaker Ssang Yong has been producing engines for Mercedes. Here's an excerpt from the article.

This agreement led to modern engine in Changwon, on Korea's sourth coast, that builds eight differet Mercedes gas and diesel engines, including the 3.2 liter six-cylinder used in the latest E-class.

So what's it going to be is up to your own discrepency. I know I may have offended some of the Mercedes loyalists on this forum, and I do apologize for that. But I once was a Mercedes loyalist myself, so if I see the company I once had so much passion of being on the wrong track, I can't ignore it and let them go practicing the business the wrong way. Look at the BMW story. They once was in such a bad shape and their chairman almost sold the company to Mercedes. But he didn't not. Who pulled the company back? Neither upper level management nor the chairman himself. It was the BMW loyalists, each holding a tiny piece of the company's stock, refused the Mercedes take over and helped rebuild the company's image and reputation. Just my two cents. Thank you for listening. Let me know if I was wrong.