I love my proud-to-be 'pre-1996' MB. I have all the luxury of a new mid/top end car (as in windows rolling up when the car is locked from outside or the driver's door not locking up if the key was not used to lock the car, *I am scared to death to lock the keys in the car, so I am fond of that feature*), reliablity, and low-cost in one little pink package. I just finished installing a stereo system into my friend's '66 Mustang, and I love my car even more (there should be no comparison engineering-wise, but I am just mad at all the wounds I recieved from the moron - so many metal parts sticking out with no use whatsoever, I nearly got killed just tucking away the wires under the carpet).
Is it me or did MB lose its famous reliabilty when it got to the states? Might an agreement made in 1995 allowing MB for US market to be assembled in either US or South America be the reason? Germans are famous for attention to details and making sure by hand that every bolt and nut is tight in their cars, might the US assembling factories be a bit less attentive, thus causing MB to start falling apart right from the conveyor? MHO - result of reading long and ugly descriptions from people who wanted to get reliability and got something scary.
Thinking about it now, I can't really believe that MBUSA factory would not be able to make sure the quality is the first (well, at least second) priority on its list.
site: http://www.mercedes-benz-usa.com

mb forever

Better try another 300D

Sorry, but it was owner's fault. How does it feel to run Mercedes-Benz with crappy acid battery? Ever heard of Calcium? Try a sealed battery like a Bosch Silver, that makes less than $100.

Saw many people around who don't perform any sort of maintenance, use bad quality supplies(gas, oil, coolant, sparkplugs, battery etc) to save a few bucks and later cry with crocodile tears on how the car failed in the middle of a traffic jam at 100 F while running to a business meeting

If the car was actually built on the American continent, the carelessness for details (see above) is understandable (ever heard the story of the blonde girl with a Toyota?)

~Nautilus

__________________
1990 260E Sportline (that's 300E 2.6 for our American friends) -> sold
2001 E320 4Matic Elegance -> my Dad's daily drive
2005 Seat Leon FR 1.8T

I have owned MB"s constantly since 1968 but that will soon come to an end. I recently purchased a new MB which is now for sale. Hard to believe how cheap they are now building them. I recently purchased 2 Lexus' one for myself and the other for my wife. I can't believe that I am going to say this but there is no comparison bertween the newer MB's and the Lexus. I was once part of the crowd that said "give me good old German cars" and "Lexus is nothing more than a copy cat". From what I have experienced MB should be copying Lexus and stop living off of their reputation.

Its the owner's fault? A car that was serviced by Mercedes Benz since new?

Running a cloth wire housing underneath a battery ISN'T poor design? Did I miss something?

The battery was a Mercedes Benz battery. Not some foreign junk, I assure you.

__________________
1987 300SDL (324000)

1986 Porsche 951 (944 Turbo) (166000)

1978 Porsche 924 (99000)

1996 Nissan Pathfinder R50 (201000)

I have a 96 W210 E320 with 147,300 + miles on it.
This is my first MB after a BMW 5 series and a Lexus LS 400.
I Love this car. I have been lucky not to have the problems that you did. Maybe your car was a bad apple.

I was thinking about selling this car but I realized that there is nothing wrong with it. Mechanically it is sound. It's almost as good as when I bought it new and nothing out there is really worth me spending another $50K - $100K of my hard earned money. I do plan to drive it till it dies or until its not financially feasible. For every dollar I save driving this car, I will save it toward buying the new MB E320 CDI Diesel.

My BMW was a POS!
It had so many electrical problems, I had to sell it after only 25,000 miles. I bought it new and lost my a$$ on it.

My Lexus LS400 was a good car.
I did have a few problems with it at first but everything was taken care of by the service department through warranty. Even things that I was not aware of were replaced/repaired immediately. Only reason I got rid of it was because it was totalled in an accident.

Comparing my experiences with these 3 service departments, Lexus wins hands down. They are customer service oriented with the goal of making you happy. They always have a rental car available for free if you make an appointment in advance.
BMW and MB charged you if you wanted one.

Now my wife has a 98 Lexus ES300 and it is a smooth running car. It was bought new and has about 155,000 miles on it. It also runs very well.
I have logged every maintenance item for both cars and at the moment, the maintenance for the MB is about 2.5 times more than the Lexus. For people that are satisfied driving a dependable car (like my wife), its hard to justify spending more money on maintenance. If this is you, get the Lexus. It is a good dependable, trouble free car with an excellent service department.

Bottom line.
You really can't compare a MB to a Lexus but if you want reliability, dependability and low overall cost of maintenance, Lexus is the way to go.

IMO like Nautilus said, so much of a vehicle's reliability comes down to proper care maintenance. To me, what country the car comes from is pretty irrelvant (not that I'd buy a Yugo, however ;-).

I have a '98 Dodge truck and it's been absolutely reliable, after almost 100k miles I've only had it in for one non-maintenance repair. Whereas the '02 Honda Accord my wife drives has had funky transmission and brake problems since new. I'm not trying to say that Dodges are more reliable than Honda's, it's just that generalizations don't always apply. My advice is do some homework and pick a vehicle that fits your lifestyle, and realize that by their nature certain brands will cost more to maintain than others.

Now if you want some real repair expense, pick up an old Jaguar or a Ferrari.....

__________________
1999 SL500

I think there is a general trend towards lower reliability in the long-term, and this isn't just with the high-priced marques such as MB, BMW, Volvo, etc. All cars in general aren't lasting the way they used to. Complicated electronics are part of it, no doubt. But I have to wonder if how much responsibility the whole leasing phenomenon has in the way that cars are becoming "disposable", as Steve put it.

Most cars are leased for a period of 2-4 years. In most cases the car will be under warranty for the entire time the original lessee is driving it. The lessee flips the car in the 2-4 year timeframe and moves in to a new, fully warranteed car and has nothing but good things to say about the ownership experience. The dealer and manufacturer (especially the manufacturer) are happy because they've moved another car over the curb, making profit not only on the sale but more importantly on the finance contract.

Who ends up with the car then? People like you and I and everyone else who participates in forums like this for *all* makes and models. People who will turn their own wrenches to varying degrees, and don't mind driving something older that still looks good. We inherit the problems, but since we may not have bought it through the dealer, neither the manufacturer or the dealer really care about us. So we pay for the wiring harnesses, head gaskets, mass airflow sensors, etc.

As long as that original consumer is happy and keeps coming back for another lease, the manufacturer and dealer are happy. So they design the car to be trouble-free for just long enough to keep that original consumer happy. We, in essence, subsidize the lesser factory quality because we pay the price to repair things that should've lasted longer than they actually did.

If the orignal lessee is looking at "disposing" of the car after 4 years, it stands to reason that the manufacturer will increase profitiability by giving them a disposable car. Why build in quality that will never be appreciatedy by the person who paid the dealer for the car?

Jonathan

Like I said before I have a 1978 Chevy Suburban, 300,000 mi. Drive it every day.I bought in 1986. I do all the maint. and repairs. It has been in the shop 2 times. Transmission rebuild 2 years ago and starter ring gear 4 years ago. I have rebuilt the front end, replaced rear axle bearings. Rebuilt the limited slip rear end 5 or 6 years ago. drive shaft bearing and U-joints. Change the oil every 5,000 mi and Trans. every 15,000 mi. The wiring harness is original. The heads have never been off( they need it now ,smoke when cold). As for the Benz the 1983 268,000 mi and the 1987 230,000 mi. both had the original wiring harness and head gaskets. The 87 300d I rebuilt all the suspension front and rear. The 83 as I remember A/C, shocks ,ball joints, brakes nothing really big. Norm in FL

Norm,

I see that all of your cars have alot of miles on it.
I am not sure how many more miles you expect out of them but you should be happy. Maybe you bought those cars used with high miles already on the odometer but then, I am sure you have gotten your moneys worth.

Personally, I feel like I got my moneys worth on my MB.
I was only expecting to get 100,000 miles on it and then was planning on selling it but was "inspired" by people on this forum. Now I strive to achive 300,000 miles. As far as I am concerened, every mile I get out of my car is like extra gravey for me.

Your bad luck with your car is just 1 experience out of many other peoples favorable experiences with the brand.
Did you ever think that the previous owner may have driven it hard or not maintained it well? Just a thought.

Jonathan, I think this is the most profound post I've ever read - quite seriously. Shouldn't you be spending your time with economic think tank or something rather than this?

Having 241,000 miles on my 124, I feel the original purchase price of this car equaled two $23,000 300E's. How far will she go I wonder -- I'll be ecstactic at 315k, anything after will be more gravy. If MB came out with a model today w/o all the gizmos and similar in build quality to the 300E, I'd probably buy one. It has original transmission, same engine (top end rebuilt), suspension has been repaired/replaced but expected, no major electronics repairs (ECU, MAS, etc.). Average maintenance per year has been about $1,500, all DIY because this car is anything but intimidating to work on.

When people learn how many miles are on the odometer they can't believe it. ("how can peacefully drive out of town?") blah..

I can't speak for the 210's but I am sure happy with my 124 purchase.

__________________
-Paul-
'01 E430, Sport 72,000 mi
'98 C280, 126,500 mi

For deanyel & DslBnz:

In Eastern Europe, given the fact that buying a car during Communist times was hard and spare parts practically nonexistant, the drivers had learnt a thing: never treat your car as either crap or deathless - both ways it will fail when you need it most. That is, if you want to keep it beyond the 2-4 years of leasing, use only the best supplies & consumables (fluids, sparkplugs, batteries, gasoline) and change them religiously.

~Nautilus

__________________
1990 260E Sportline (that's 300E 2.6 for our American friends) -> sold
2001 E320 4Matic Elegance -> my Dad's daily drive
2005 Seat Leon FR 1.8T

MB's cost more to maintain compared to other brands like Toyota/Lexus. There is no question about it.

The root cause is the MB design/manufacturing problems.

They cost more because MB design/manufacturing systems are inefficient and they have like that since the 80's, possibly earlier.

The MSRP for my 94 E320 was $43000.00; I would not have paid more than $20,000 for it.

This is my first and probably the last MB, I am switching to Lexus as well.

Compared to other cars that I have owned, my 94 E320 was far worse. It was in like new condition, one owner, MB dealership maintained. I spent over $7000.00 in just the first year of ownership! All MB/MB Supplier design/manufacturing defects and/or MB dealership incompetence.

__________________
Zafar
94 E320 58000 Miles

While I feel deeply sorry for you for two reasons: 1) that your MB was troublesome and 2) for you have paid $43,000 for it I think the M-B/Lexus competition is seen through "a bit blurred" lens...

Since 1995, I've seen plenty of articles from the American continent complaining about German cars' unreliability, while they placed M-Bs, BMWs and Porsches almost every time in the last places in reliability top; on the other side, German press articles complain about the "poor quality of manufacture" in American-made cars - guess some big corporate interest was involved

On the other side, most W123s, W124s, W126s and W201s one sees on the street here in Romania were never repaired at the standards of your M-B stealerships - a Romanian will never pay $5,000-10,000 a year to fix his M-B, we simply don't earn that much! And the fact they still run well, even after 25 years of harsh use, poor fuel and hole-littered roads, makes their owners, when asked, to shake their heads and say "this is how German cars are, they're deathless"

Now I wonder: why do our M-Bs (speaking strictly those on the forum) fail?..... or they actually don't, just we ask too much from them? I've seen M-Bs or BMWs with 600,000km on the odometer, but no Toyotas or Hondas even nearby

~Nautilus

__________________
1990 260E Sportline (that's 300E 2.6 for our American friends) -> sold
2001 E320 4Matic Elegance -> my Dad's daily drive
2005 Seat Leon FR 1.8T

Haw many years ago did Romania get its first Honda or Toyota?