I just don't know whether I even care about the JD Power survey. How a car behaves in the first 90 days just isn't important. I'm more concerned with how it's going to look, hang together, and drive when it's 9 years old. Heck, I don't plan to ever own a car that's only 90 days old - too expensive! While it would be better if there were no bugs in the first three months, that experience pales relative to the experience over the first, oh, seven or ten years. So far as I can tell, Mercedes is still a solid performer on these longer term timescales. The best? I don't know. So long as everything made by Lexus ranges from bland to offensively ugly, and I'm not near enough being dead to buy a Cadillac, guess I'm stuck with Benz...

BTW, I'm getting real sick of all this crap about the 210 being low quality. I own both an early 124 and an early 210 chassis car. I like the interior of the 210 *much* better. It has tremendously less plastic, more wood, more cloth, and more leather. The door panels on the 124 are 100% monotone plastic - no wood, no leather. The 210 has wood trim, cloth trim, and leather trim on the doors. The A, B, and C pillars on the 124 are plastic. The A, B, and C pillars on the 210 are covered with fabric. The headliner of the 124 is plastic. The headliner of the 210 is cloth. Wanna know which one has the richer looking interior - the 210, and it ain't even close. Anyone who says the 210 looks cheap doesn't know what the hell they are talking about.

BTW, yes, I am grumpy today!