I've been in the quality Assurance business for over thirty years now and I'm really disappointed to hear and read of the general decay in the quality of today's goods.
I don't mean low end stuff, I mean branded items like Nikon and even our beloved Mercedes Benz vehicles. ( As a ML-320 owner, I was stung by the comments in some posts.)

My specialty is pharmaceuticals and I recently came upon a case of a life saving asthma inhaler made by a major pharmaceutical company but a significant number were made without any active ingredient -inexcusable!
I think the constant cutting back by all the firms is a major cause, along with some of this team based manufacturing, where the team members check their own output.
As Mercedes Benz owners we expect the quality commensurate with the marque. Maybe the owners who had a series of cars through the years can comment on: Are you getting the quality you used to get and expect today? Also, is there any solution? I was going to say, go back to Japan to learn what Dr Deming taught them after the war, or have they forgotten as well.
Just the ramblings of an old QA man.

HUDOFF
 

I beleive the quality is still there in todays Mercedes automobiles, but many of the models now have been cut down to a price thanks to increased competition since the mid to late eighties from other maunufacturers.
M-B can no longer just charge whatever price they want today

Additionally i beleive people today are more demanding than ever in regards to other merchandise. We expect the manufacturer to be held accountable for everything including normal wear and tear it seems on items like, shoes, automobiles, clothing, etc.

We all feel that the quality is different from the old days. Less? Hmmm... I don't know. I do know that the cars are less expensive and do still last a long time. The ride has changed with the times. Most people are wanting a sporty feel...And, not to mention Mercedes is now marketing to that younger croud because finaning is so good. ??

My theory on this is that quality may have slipped a little recently due to cars being built to a cost. However, many cars today are much cheaper then their previous counterparts. Mechanical longetivity on engines and/or transmissions are probably still the same.

Suppose that car x was built to a cost, and the manufacturer manged to knock $10,000 of the cost of the car. The car then ends up in the dealer 6 times during the warranty period to fix defects. Warrenty expires and car takes three more trips to the dealer to fix defects, total cost $5,000. Car is know good as old car for still a cheaper price. That's my theroy on it. It all adds up in the end, and the current car with all its gadgets is still cheaper than the more basic, previous model.

Also, a lot of the defects are found in electronic gadgets that weren;t even present in the previous cars. So even if present reliability if each individual component were the same, it would still suffer more problems because there is more to go wrong.

I agree with hudoff. Quality has declined out of proportion to the cost we pay nowadays.

It is the global effect of cost-cutting where everyone is doing something not for the love of creating, but for the love of economics.

All they're concerned about the is the ultimate cost of production (quantifiable) versus the cost of satisfaction (priceless but sadly, measured by the volume of sales, where higher sales = higher satisfaction). But irs a load of bull****.

Look at our houses built today. Cracks start cropping up on its first anniversary.

Houses built just after WW2 still stand strong and solid.

The bottom line is, the workforce of yesteryears put more pride and responsibility to the work they invest in. Today, we just do so, coz we're protected by unions and minimum wage/working hours control.

I suppose its quality living for everyone at the expense of quality production. But I just can;t agree with my own statement.

Someone prove me wrong, please.

:)

maybe the problem is a decline of "perceived" quality. The benz doors don't thunk like they used to. We want that solid sound every time we close the door to reassure us that it is a solid and safe place to be.

But not readily apparent to us are the improvements in the general structure of the car, in terms of torsional rigidity and flexure, and crash protection. For sure, also in terms of strength-to-weight ratio - either improved strength with the same weight, same strength with less weight, or improvements in both.

Longevity is also helped by rust protection/resistance, but this is not readily apparent from the appearance/feel of the materials - only time will tell.

i had the left front fender of my 1989 190e replaced because of rust perforation, and the unit they installed seemed like it had much less undercoating than the original fender. I hope that it is because they used better materials.

probably the parts of the car that contribute most to perceived quality are the interior materials that directly interface with the driver and passengers. Feel, texture and appearance count a lot, but only time will tell whether these will last. It was partly the move to more recyclable materials that increased the amount of interior plastic. I just hope they uphold the tradition of using long-wearing materials. My 12yr-old MB-Tex interior hardly has any wear.

Fit and finish however are another matter, as are the presence of squeaks and rattles, and slips in these areas are inexcusable.

having said these, i still want my solid-thunking doors ...

The invisible hand
 

The market is only responding to customer demands. Sure the quality of most consumer goods is lousy, but only because the market demands it. The average consumer cares only about price whether it is an airline ticket, a dishwasher, or a Mercedes. Those of us who appreciate quality are a distinct minority. Vintage stuff of good quality is rising in value. Just check out the prices on WWII vintage machine tools. They cannot be replaced today at any cost.

Sigmet

'80 300 SD
'80 450 SEL
'73 450 SEL

Based on my personal experience, I would not buy any MB other than 85 or earlier diesel models. My MB experience is with a 80 240D and an 87 300 SDL. I religiously tracked all failures in both cars. The 87 just had more failures, and they were all very expensive to repair. I have friends with newer model MBs, and I really believe quality and reliability have gone down.

I think we are all getting shafted by the auto industry, but I think we deserve it. If you look at the ads, and they are that way for a reason (they work), no one ever cares about reliability and longevity. It's all image BS.

Take the idiotic SUVs (stupid utility vechicles). They are prime examples of retro engineering...station wagons on pickup truck frames, with embarrassing fuel economies, handling characteristics of trucks, and stopping distances of a country mile. And they sell like crazy...why...because of image.

I think that collectively we are just too stupid to get a better deal.

Joe

What must not be forgotten is that the members on this board represent a very small minority of the automotive public. The people here are people that buy cars based on longetivity and drive them for 20 years.

MB's central marketing tactics are not engineered for the people on this board. There is a huge pressure to build cars to a cost. Remember that the person spending $50,000 is probably going to trade the car in after the warranty expires. To this person, failures do not matter, they are taken car of for free, and a new car is acquired in four years. People also want maintenance-free cars. Come on, 10,000 miles between oil changes with regular dino-juice, that was probably a bad idea. No transmission fluid changes ever needed, surely it has to get dirty at some point in time no matter how resistant the fluid is to heat breakdown.

It is my opinion that a great majority of MB's customers want low-maintenance cars, and MB is trying to satisfy those people.

They are, however, still great cars. It doesn't look like they are leaving people stranded, it is just a matter of failures with overly-complex gizmos.

OK...lets go back to 1975. Let's see, your PC is running at .....0 MHZ because you didn't have one. Now, they're pushing what... a gig and a half. My 25 inch Zenith color TV worked OK in 1975, and it cost $500 in 1975 dollars. Now for $500 in 1975 dollars you get what...36 inch stereo with PIP etc, etc.

Come on...the auto industry has made only baby steps compared to many, many other industries in the last 25 years. I agree with you, fuel injection is great...and if it weren't for the europeans, Detroit would still be selling us carbs and every cold morning would still be an adventure.

We need to demand more, or we will continue to get less.

Joe

We can't just demand and think they'll supply us with what we want. You think the guys at MBUSA don't cruise this site? Most people on this site own MB's with many many MANY miles on them and they expect their cars to take them another jillion miles. Face it guys, we're not the people who influence the big guys. We complain about not being able to order tex interiors anymore, but when push comes to shove, I don't think there are enough of us to even make them sell us the raw materials.

Also are we willing to pay for what you demand? Basically what we want is a master coachman fitting our body panels together. Next time you walk by a tailor, go ask him how much it costs for a suit. Craftsmanship is rare and getting more and more expensive these days. I'm afraid the days of custom fitted gusseted leather trim are gone. Take heart in the fact that you can at least get yourself a nice pair of Pradas for your feet :)

Kuan

I think the reason TV's are so cheap is that the technology is old. The money has already been made on the TV. In the restaurant industry we say "it's all gravy from now baby." Back in the old days, we didn't need all this processor speed. A radio shack word processor with a 300 baud modem would work for almost anything. Text was all we had. We walked to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways and we punched cards with our teeth. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating. Believe it or not, computers have been dumbed down since 1975. We need WYSIWYG interfaces because people just don't have the time to mess with their config.sys. Lotus was invented because nobody had time to write SAS code. What we're doing right now can be accomplished without such a WOB.

I don't think we don't demand excellence from the automotive industry. We just do it in different ways. Airbags, crumple zones, low speed resistant bumpers, automatic tensioning seatbelts, "smart" airbags, MCS, COMAND, teleaid, ESP, HID headlights, seatwarmers, non-collapsible passenger compartments, parktronic and drive by wire systems, CD players, and even more important, cupholders. We want cupholders like we want MS Windows and the manufacturers provide. Perhaps if we stop demanding so much from them the auto manufacturers will return to things dear to the Mercedes heart. We just won't be able to sip our lattes on the way to work without spilling on our tex interiors :)

Kuan

PS: Right now I'm using a Mac LC475 with 8 megs of RAM. It's slow as a 240D but it's lasted me 6+ years now.

Kuan, I agree 100% with the comparison to PC's. My first computer that I bought back in 1983 was a TI-99/4A. It had a stainless steel case, cost TI something like $134 to build, and they finally ended up selling them for $49.

The expansion box was built like a piece of German stereo equipment, all metal, but the technology was obsolete way back in 1983 when I bought into it.

Now I'm pretty set on replacing my computer every three or four years, mostly because the same $600, spent on a new PC every few years, will buy me a computer that won't be obsolete for another few years.

For me to spend $4000 for a state of the art machine that will be worth under $1000 within a year is bad economy, to me anyway. How many people on this board will pony up $300K for a handbuilt Maybach, vs buying a nice S-class for $75K and then trading it after a few years? The Maybach is nicer, but is it worth $225K more?

ergo, in our global state of affairs, no manufacturer
including MB can dictate their price, and at the same token
expect to be solvent. maybe that was then, but not anymore.
hence, for a product to be affordable, quality must be
compromised.

Maybe this isn't the best place to post this (or maybe it is). But I'm going to keep it short and sweet anyways..

The main reason I left the dealership and went back to Precision was because I was absolutely disgusted with today's "plastic" Mercedes (sorry to all you new car owners). But having direct experience on them really told me alot about the quality of their products anymore. I prefer vintage models, and that's what we work on at Precision, and it was terrible to see that only a few of us at the dealership knew what we were doing when a vintage one rolled in. Most of the guys there would just stare at a Bosch injetion pump and scratch their heads until one of us came over to assist them. However, those guys who lacked "mechanical" skill are experts on the computer stuff. But all this new modular design, inside and out isn't my idea of what the Mercedes-Benz star stands for. This is a company that built incredible cars like the 540K and the 300SL Gullwing and now they're just going plastic like everyone else. Well, at least Rolls Royce and Bentley still retain their dignity. And now what do I read in the newest issue of The Star??? Mercedes-Benz going NASCAR?!?!?!?! I won't even start on that..

Quality
 

In my opinion, Mercedes quality has declined dramatically since the mid-'80s. The reason is competition from Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura, and the emergence of BMW as a desirable car. In the '70s, BMWs were owned by a few oddball people who understood how ahead of its time the 2002 was. By the mid-'80s, every yuppie wanted a 3 or 5 series Bimmer, because they were the thing to have, much like huge luxobarge SUVs are today. BMWs sold for a lot less than comparable Mercedes models then, and had a much more "hip" and youthful image. The first Benz to try to grab a share of that market was the '86 300E, a milestone car, but still more expensive than the BMW 535i with a bigger engine. Benz had to continue to cut costs on each new model in order to compete with BMW and other "in" brands like Audi, etc. Then the biggest blow was delivered in 1990 when the Lexus LS 400 came out. Here was a car that cost $35,000 (about half of what a full-boat S class cost), was quieter and smoother than anything MB ever made up to that time, and had quality that was hard to fault. Again, MB learned that they were either going to have to compete on cost, or settle for a very small market share made up of older rich people. The above factors resulted in the Benzs we have today, with wrinkly leather on the seats, plastic door handles, plastic chrome trim, and big plastic shrouds over the engines. They ARE cost competitive with similar Bimmers, Volvos, Audis, and other comparable cars, but they are no longer a substantial cut above those cars in the quality area. Whether you consider this tradeoff to be a good or bad thing depends on your perspective, I guess.
Colin

I think ever since Mercedes reached the "magic" 100,000 cars sold in the US, mark, they have been trying to sell even more. It is sort of like rock groups. They start out hard edged, but as they gain popularity, money and all the trappings, they want more. It becomes addictive. Before they know it, they've become a just another "sugar coated pop" band and lost their identity. Someone here onced mentioned that Mercedes marketing is itching to have a Mercedes in every driveway. I agree that ever since Lexus and the alike came out, Mercedes had to play catch up. Mercedes even admitted that in hindsight, that in the mid to late 80's they nearly priced themselves out of the market. So now they have to make their cars more modular to keep the cost down. I look at the interior of my car and just think of how labor intensive, therefore expensive, it was to put together. Just about everything is screwed together, not clipped in. I know everyone says "they don't build them like they used to..." I think, as most of us here do, this time it's true. Cars today are all about gadgets, black box engineering as I call it. ESP, ABS, EDL, etc. Any and I mean any of these things can be installed in any car. Today society is too easily impressed with bells and whistles. A "luxury" car today is defined by how many "black boxes" it has. So people focus in on these things and the manufactures know it.

[Edited by rickjordan on 03-19-2001 at 08:14 PM]

dose this mean that our wonderfull pre 85 M B 's are going to gain in value like a pre 64 model 70 Winchester ?
William Rogers.....

William,

I hope so, but I'm not planning on it.

I think that the entire car market has changed and MB has changed with it. I'm disappointed with the sound of my '01 when I close the door, but in most categories, I believe it is a much better car than those that came before it.

Have a great day,

Sound of Door-Shutting
 

BMW did a study on the shutting of doors, and the sound they produce.

They found out that a potential sale was ringing if the buyer felt safe when shutting the door [solid feel and less vibration], plus reassured by the "thudd" sound and not "dooshd" or "thhhuud" sound (trying to get that right).

I love the shutting of the W126 door. Very precise "thudd" and once inside, the safeness can be felt all round. Much better than the W124 and W210.

I doubt if this is quality, but the current technology of closing doors?

Door closing
 

My friend has an '85 280SL, and the doors close with a vault-like "thud"; no vibration or rattling, just "thud". It sounds like the doors weigh 500lbs each (hmmm, actually they just might), and this is a convertible. It definitely gives you a feeling of security and safety. The doors on my '71 Triumph TR-6, by contrast, close with a "slap k-k-k-k-dang-g-g-g-g", which inspires a feeling that the car is made of balsa wood and bird saliva, which it probably is not. As much as I love the TR (a car most Benz owners just would not understand), the sound of those Benz doors closing just screams "quality" to all who are in earshot.
Colin

Other "quality" has slipped too...
 

If you think the "quality" (any way you define it) of MBs has slipped since 1975, take a look around a our society in general. What sort of "quality" (behaviors) do you see today that would not have been imagined, much less tolerated back then?

Since I'm not adept at time travel I have no choice but to live in the present. I CAN choose my clothes, cars, music, toys etc. and I sometimes choose "oldies but goodies."

My gross pay is now about 6 times what it was in 1975, but then so is the cost of gasoline, automobiles and other toys. If I haven't made much real progress then I can at least be content that I haven't lost any ground, and I spend each day on the right side of the grass! ;)

BCingU, Jim

current MB Quality IS going down...
 

The current models of mercedes are not half as good as they used to be in the past. The materials mercedes uses are cheap, LOTS OF PLASTIC, everything is getting electrical controlled (complete motor management) and the cars don't last as long anymore (unless one is willing to pay some major repairs in time).

The first C class models (1993-1996) came with squeaking
1) front seats (the US have power seats and those seats do not squeak),
2) heater fans (the fans over scream any audio system),
3) clutch pedals (the US have auto transmissions only, so do not suffer that problem),
4) accelerator pedals,
5) steering columns and
6) SRS steering wheel rings.

Furthermore the diesel-injection-pumps of the C220D break down every 100-200.000km...
Electric controls take over manual functions (we have all read the numerous posts about the power windows...).

However, I still want to drive a Benz and nothing else (or maybe a BMW 330D executive, but I doubt whether they will be any better).

greetingz,

When it comes to cars, it is my considered view that the MBZ stands a class on its own. I have many auto-critics who stand by their opinion that notwithstanding the fact that the interior quality used today may not be as good as that of yesteryears, but as a comparison, stands above the other classes of competition.

The standard comparison drawn in the latest auto survey was as follows:

top of the list:
MBZ

runner up
BMW

3rd
Audi

4th Volvo

This was, of course, excluding the Rolls, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus and Bentley.

Lexus tops the list of undesired.

The Alfa wasn't too far behind.

Just a view.

I have to chime in here.....I also belive that quality has suffered in the latest models.
But I think you have to remember MB is trying to remain competitive. I have a 1992 S class that has a 72K window sticker.You can buy a brand new S for that today. Sure the new S doesn't have the handwork in it like mine...but I am unsure in todays market if people would be willing to pay $20-25 more for handwork. The cars would be priced out of the market.In todays world most people think the LS 430 exudes quality.Its price is 7-8 cheaper than the S430 with the same features...and what if the S430 was 30K more expensive...how many would they sell?...get the point?
Its all about making money and shareholder equity...todays market is very bottom line oriented...you can't build products and wait for the market to come....you have to build products that fit the market.If MB decides that the market will pay 150K for a car ..then I think it will be built...maybe it already is...I think they are going to call it the Maybach?....so maybe some of you guys that are quality fiends need to step up to the plate and put your deposits down on one of those

Quality in this, the 21st century...a mixed bag.
 

Quality is clearly a tough issue now-a-days. We are just finishing a nice, lovely new home in Nebraska with my wife and I being, for most purposes, the general contractor.

Clearly, for some things, quality is a problem. E.g. dimension lumber. We bought the best and are satisfied, for the most part. However, we will NEVER again say the old homes are better. Ours is far better than anything could be 20 or 30 years ago. Better glue, better windows, better insulation, better furnace and a/c, better....just about everything.

Now, on my cars...I love the MBenz. It does cost me a little bit in maintenance fees but my '86 has nearly 300k miles. Kathy's rice rocket (aka '91 Toyota Previa minivan) has 225k nearly maintenance free miles. But, nobody in their right mind would try to tell us we could drive the rice rocket to 500k miles. The big question with the Benzs we have is whether they will last 500k or 1M miles.

I have a good friend who has a Chrysler minivan with 400k miles on it and he and the van were recently admitted to the Chrysler Motors Hall of Fame for having so many miles. How big would the list be if every Benz with 400k+ miles was in the Benz Hall of Fame? Don't answer, kindly.

I close with three of my favorite quotes:

Buy the best and only cry once!

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the cheap price is forgotten.

Buy the best, pay cash and take delivery! (from Gary North)

Good point - wish we had mature trees...hope to buy some ten foot trees this spring and pay to have them moved. And, there are lots of updates that can be done, as you mentioned.

98%+ of the problems on this house of ours is with the shoddy quality of the labor. I am not anything close to a carpenter, but am detail oriented enough to drive a lot of people crazy. I notice everything and I mean everything. Some of the workers simply don't care or don't notice anything!

But, this is the way of the world now-a-days. My brother and I own a carpet cleaning company in Kansas City...finding good help is incredibly difficult.

As always...keep thinking.