Norm - Good luck with your Lexus purchase. They're good cars.

I think the problem with your MB experience is that you were going in the wrong direction. As you got newer cars, you also got into technology that isn't inexpensively repaired (and wasn't that reliable either). The older cars didn't carry this baggage.

There's a whole raft of people on this forum that firmly believe that MB quit making really good cars quite a few years ago. I'm one of them. I'm a happy MB owner (and Toyota owner too).

just my $.02,
Wes