Let this be my last word on the subject. First of all I AM a Mercedes owner and have been for the last 260k miles. I don't own a BMW. I erroneously replied to what I believed was a blatant false statement- that people should not get the false impression that MB cars are troublesome and unreliable. Well they are! And getting worse with the introduction of each new model. Just read the posts for the last 6 months, and decide for yourself. If you want to judge engineering, fix every damn thing that goes wrong with your S class all these years as I have done.
I have a strong automotive and mechanical backround- having been a heavy diesel mechanic, automatic transmission rebuilder from turbo 400 to Allison heavy trucks. When I was young, some 40 years ago, I used to build race engines for Penske Racing in PA. on the weekends. Mark Donahue, the race car driver who died, built me a special suspension for one of my cars that outperformed a 911 Turbo carrera on twisty roads in PA. In return, I built him a custom CHEVY motor that he put in a special Camaro, shortly before he died and gave it to Aronoway(the fellow who developed the Cigarette boats in Florida for a 100k boat. In my spare time, I built custom cars for people from the ground up if they had enough money including a custom body(first car was an exact replica of the Ford GT40). I took classes on suspension design at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with with a fellow, Dave McClellan who later headed up Corvette division when Zora Arkus Duntov left. He found my ideas so helpful that he sent me a $1,000 set of stainless steel shocks GM used at their proving ground to design the Corvette suspension because they came apart and had 100 interchangeable valves, etc. The point is
I know cars. Though these days, I am only interested in driving what I believe is an excellent car- the 750iL. If you check the web site I posted at the beginning, you'll see I am not alone. And finally, I was in Italy picking up 48 IDA Weber carbs at the factory when I read in the paper the quote by Enzo Ferrari. He said it!