Brian, I'm betting you're are a better mechanic than me, so I will defer to you. If you think MB ac units are just as good as any other car, I won't argue with you. However, from my point of view as a driver (not a mechanic) of 2 MB's, both W124's, I have found they cost me a lot of money on the a/c's, with multiple repairs (my current one I'm posting about on this thread, a 1991 300d with 167k on it), I've had repaired 4x in 4 years.

I've replaced the blower fan and regulator cable I think it's called that goes to the fan, then a MB specialist mechanic replaced a (?) drier or something once. I've had more freon added last year, then more this year, so we now know there's a leak. In all cases except this last recharge now just 3 or 4 days ago, the a/c has never been "cold". It'd been adequate at best, but no more. The other day, as I posted, it is blowing now at a very nice 40 degrees, and feels great. That's the coldest that car has ever blown, in the 4 years I've owned it.

On my 1988 300 CE that I had 14 years ago, ditto with that. It never cooled well. I took it to a MB specialist at the time, who "fixed" it for $500 (I'm assuming now he added a bit of freon for $500), and it didn't blow cold. I took it back to him 2 weeks later, and he made it like he was doing me a favor to work on it again. When I got it back, it blew a bit cold, but very marginal.

Also on both cars, I get the fog line on my windshield due to the pods not closing tight, so on a nice dry summer night, I'm the only one with my windshield wipers on. I've also seen many MB's here in Atlanta, and online, with tinted windows, which to me, is another way of saying their a/c's probably don't blow cold, and ones I've seen advertised, often say, "a/c doesn't blow cold, it probably needs a recharge".

But if you think MB's don't have more problems than other cars, I will believe you. My view is just from a driver's point of view and casual observations of what I've seen (ie, I haven't kept formal track of how many work, and how many don't). I'm also under the impression that BMW's did not have very good a/c's, either. From all the problems I've had on my 2 MB's a/c's, and probably $1,200 later, it seems to me their a/c systems leave a lot to be desired.

If I could wave a magic wand, one thing I wish MB had on these cars, is a simple low/med/high setting, and a quieter fan! Low is too low, it hardly puts anything out at all, so I nearly HAVE to switch to the annoyingly-loud auto or high settings ("auto" is typically high or low, the variable 'medium' setting it puts out temporarily doesn't stay around very long). I think on Honda's or Toyota's I've had of the same years, low is quiet and puts out a fair amount of air, and even a notch or 2 up on the fan is still reasonably quiet.