Wanted to share the following, which I found on another site:
http://forums.mbnz.org/forums/w163/view.asp?thread=557
I had a 98 ML320 and currently own a 99 ML430. There were a number of bugaboos with the first car, but they were all minor and the kind of thing to expect with the first production run. The 99 was much better--no real issues, so I would expect the 00 to be even better.
BTW, the reason for the new car so soon--I was on a surface street (zoned for 35) when I was hit by a Camaro going over 107 MPH (the police re-enacted the accident). My ML 320 spun and rolled across four lanes of traffic and a median strip. Both my 18 month old( strapped into a Britax car seat in the back) and I WALKED AWAY from this with nothing more than a few scratches from flying glass. The Camaro that hit us literally broke in half.
For me, there was not even a moment of hesitation about whether to get another ML.