"I am on my first MB and certainly not the last one... The 2000 SLK 230 has 40k miles and what I find with Mercedes Benz is that they are truly a well built machine however they do by all means need to have good preventive maintenace done to them just due to the nature precission machines. I have worked on many German built machines (non automotive) and found this to be true with thoses compared to others. Yes as a Benz owner it will cost some pocket change plus a little more to keep it running well...... ahhh the pleasure of driving the Mercedes offsets that so well."

MBLR, I'm sincerely happy for you and I wish you well with your car. I always hate to beat a dead horse but I have to ask what you mean. You said it's a well built and precision machine that requires good preventive maintenance. OK, what do you mean? Other then the advertising you read...SPECIFICALLY what makes it a well built machine as compared to an American built truck, for instance. Also, what SPECIFICALLY are you doing to make the preventive maintenance happen? Of course, you have a 7 year old car that has averaged less then 6K miles a year. How do you even feel qualified to answer the question? You have taken a deep breath and drunk deeply from the MB coolaid. You have no way of knowing anything about the current quality control problems that MB suffers from and has even been acknowledged by it's president. Have you read any of the 40 something pages on this thread? Have you seen very many threads that even get this long? I'm thinking that would be a clue. So back to the original question and I've asked it before....

What GOOD PREVENTIVE maintenance am I missing? I have fresh oil and filters in every hole including the tranny which Mercedes promised required NO maintenance at all. What would you tell someone who just spent thousands to replace it? What PM did he miss for that? How about the guy who takes his family to the movie and has the spring perch fail causing him to hit a bridge pillar at 60 MPH. What PM did he miss? How about the sucker who bought into the MB quality scam and was unable to get his sunroof to close causing damage to the interior and forcing him to find an open store that sold tarps until the rain stopped? Did he miss some PM I don't know about? He should have kept the tarp he had to buy on his way to work when his lowest bidder window regulator failed and he had to park it in the rain and hope nothing was stolen while he was at work. See any PM he missed? How about when he had the shop where he gets the car detailed show him the rust that was developing below the trim pieces? That must have been embarrassing. Did he forget some PM I don't know about? I could go on and on but you can just do a search and you'll have plenty of reading. In the meantime, I'll be waiting for you to tell me what preventive measure would cover ANY of the things I've mentioned.

I'll also be waiting for you to tell me how a marque like MB could let this happen to the brand. Again, hopefully you'll have no problems with your car. If you do, I hope you have the disposable income to throw at the problems that will start to creep up assuming you ever start to drive your car. Then your tune might change. In the meantime, I'm preparing to sell my POS. I will not be looking at newer MB's again. In the unlikely event I ever buy another MB it will actually be older then the one I have now and even that is unlikely. Once burned, twice or thrice shy.

One more thing. I don't mean to be hard on you as it might seem reading this. I don't feel like inserting a bunch of smilies and what not. I am trying to take some to task for blindly parroting the company line. That action is counter productive because nothing will change until MB gets it's act together and gets back on course. That isn't in process right now.