I gotta say I enjoyed reading this thread quite a bit, and I feel I should add a bit to it as well.
Since my family started owning cars, we had an 89 Nissan Sentra, a 87 Pontiac 6000le, a 94 plymouth acclaim, and my 85 190E
The Nissan was a great car, my sister drove it for a very long time and she didn't put a cent into the car, we tried to sell it at the end, but it would not pass safety because of the rust. It needed one timing chain change, and had some 200K miles on it if I remember correctly.
The Pontiac loved eating water pumps, but it had flawless A/C, it had its share of problems, but all were fixed with very little money, until finally the engine gave way in a terrible way, just as my parents were getting off the highway.
The Acclaim was a business car before we bought it. It was horribly abused, and I happened to be its first driver. That car cost me at least $300 every month for about a years time. It lost a wheel on the road, it leaked and still leaks everything. It went thorugh two starters in a week. Any repair done to it makes it more and more noisy, it sounds like a train now and none of the noise is due to the exhaust system.
I gave up on it when the tranny went cause $2000 is a lot of money for a student.
Around half way through paying off the tranny on the acclaim I got my mercedes. Now this is totally different. When I saw its owner history, the car had more owners then years, to be exact, I'm the 19th owner of an 18 year old benz. Not to mention that quite a few of the PO were car rental places. Clearly the car had a problem before it got to me and was majorly abused.
As so it happened, I got the car right after an engine swap, and with the sever case of hesitation.
Today, the car has been with me for 16 months, I had done 32000km on it. I have done numerous jobs on it, to list a few, timing chain including sprockets guides and anything else that wears out in the front, driveshaft, differential, half shafts, tires, all sorts of electrical problems, the a/c does not work still, and many many more.
BUT, I really didn't have to do any of those things, the one thing I would have had to do is replace the fuel pump relay when it started overheating and shutting down the fuel pump causing my car to stall for a minute or two. The other thing was adjusting the fuel mixture to get rid of the hesitation, but that didn't cost anything.
Now I do admit that if I were to take my benz to a shop, or dealer, I would spend a fortune on it, but I realized something, everytime I took the car to a shop, it came back in worse condition then it was the day before. It took me two visits to a shop to realize this and since that time I only had it on a lift to change the tires. I simply don't let anyone touch the car anymore.
It never left me stranded on the road, and my parents are now asking me if they can take it to Chicago to visit our family because they are afraid to take the acclaim. Mind you, from Toronto to Chicago, it's quite a drive.
I should also mention that I never trusted the car, not after the acclaim. I am still waiting for the day when I have to call a tow truck to get the car home, and I have everything ready for that day, but more so then that, I try to do anything and everything I can to make sure that day never comes.
Oh by the way, I didn't even spend a whole $3000 on all the repairs I have done. So for all you benz owners who spent huge amounts of money on these cars, do yourself a favour, find someone who will love the car, and let them fix it, I knew nothing about fixing cars when I bought mine, and today, I'm getting offers at gas stations for it, am I gonna sell it? nope
not if things keep up this way.
If you ask me, it's not the car that should be questioned here for its reliablity, but the owner.
xp