Guys,
after doing DIY troubleshooting on my benzes pretty much every weekend and reading posts and posts of trouble, I was just thinking today, my corolla has more miles on it that the 124 at the moment and never did it leave me stranded on the road, require a jump, snap a fuse or had me go to the dealer besides the 60K mile service. same can be said about a honda that my friend owned that had more than 300K before he sold it for good price. And it made me wonder. when we opted to buy a mercedes, did we buy quality/reliability or a three point star with contiunous problems and DIYs under the hood ?

My Mercedes never give me any trouble, been driving them for 30 years. Never got left on the side of the road.

If I had to drive a Honda every day, I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be on the side of the road.

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Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

I have owned many Hondas and currently drive a C43, which I bought new. The only real complaint I have about the C43 is that the quality is not even close to what I got used to from Honda. Once you strip away the air of arrogance, Mercedes is just not on the same level in terms of basic engineering. One of my Hondas is a 15 year old NSX that is still more reliable than the much newer C43.
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My honda is rock solid reliable even when you consider how heavily modified it is.

Have owned it 7 years and it has given me trouble only once when the screw retaining the Distributor rotor came off and tried to mill down the inside of the distributer cap. Thing is It still ran....poorly but it ran.


Its not terrible comfortible, but it handles incredibly well and is fast as all heck...and the best part is I only have $6,000 invested in it total. And it has years of trouble free life left in it.

If my two Benzes or any future Benz I may own can match or beat that reliability I would be very happy with it.

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Be grateful you don't live in the " Rustbelt ", because there would not be anything left of your Honda after 5 years.

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2007 C 230 Sport.

not many other cars survive the rustbelt without battle wounds either, Benz included.

I'm at the southern end of the rust belt and my honda for years saw road salt between DC and Pittsburgh. Its still in wonderful shape and its an '89.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Did you ever see the bumper sticker that said something like this "Its a Jeep thing if you have to ask you won't understand"?

Thats kind of how it is with MB. I'll take a $30K S430 any day of the week over a new Accord. The MB is just a better driving car period. If someone is making that comparison I suspect they don't have any actual wheel time with a W220.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Thats a good thing about living in the southeast - rust is not often (if ever) an issue. When a car originally from here has rust- it is normally not from salts on the road in winter, but rather from the typical high humidity/moisture that normally plagues the southeast year round'.

We get a lot of tourists through here, as a couple of busy freeways pass through and around our city, so I see cars from all over. I see cars from northern Ohio, Michigan, New York, etc- with rust all over. One I often take notice of (since I owned one) are the 90-93 Accords. The typical rust spots are toward the back of the wheelwells and toward the lower front of them as well. A lot I see here from up north are rusty. Ones normally from here have no issues. My old Accord was originally from southern North Carolina before it came here to eastern Tennessee, so naturally, it was rust free - as it had always been a southern car. I sold it to a couple in Rock Hill, South Carolina, so it got to stay in the south.

Riiiiight - my aluminum car is going to rust. Brilliant.

You'll have to forgive him...he is a porn star from Ontario

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1995 black pearl/black Mercedes-Benz E420 :

Was your MB purchased new by you or did you buy it used? You may have inherited someone else's neglect.

I seem to recall a thread here where Steve Brotherton said the worst thing that ever happened to a car was it's owner.

Just the other day Larry Bible commented about a Honda his daughter drives. Total POS from what I can gather. I too have one of those Hondas you mentioned with alot of miles, but I was the original owner and not someone who never grasped the concept of regular maint.

I'm not sure. I have a 190 16v. We bought it when it was 2 years old. It had 40k on I think. It's a euro model. It did not seem abused and for 10 years it was fine but my folks rarely drove it. I bought it from them 3 years ago and have put nearly $10k into it and I am still not done. It seems to go in for major work 2 times a year. Sitting back and thinking about it, I do not think I am mad at the fact that it goes in 2 times a year. I cannot say I know how it was treated the 1st 2 years. My folks did basic maintenance but they only put 30k or 40k on the odo in 10 years.
I think what irks me the most is that nothing, and I mean nothing is easy on my car. I have to have the valves adjusted on my car tomorrow. It is not a matter of pulling the valve cover and taking a wrench and feeler gauge like it was on my 77 240D. No, they need to pull the cams (double OHC) and remove the buckets, measure the shims and add or subtract shims. That’s 5 or 6 hours of labor at $75 a hour. My steering box when out, My steering box is unique to my car. $1800 for a new one. Thank god they could rebuild it for $700. I know I bought a performance car. But why can’t the engineer talk to the mechanic when he designs my car? Why does everything have to be such a PIA to fix on it?

I have been told that on 190’s there is a gear that runs the distributor. Apparently it is notorious for failure. The part is cheap (by MB standards) at under $200. Thing is I am told you have to nearly rip the engine down to the block to replace it. Why? That is not what I expect from MB. Things break down, SH&T happens. I understand that. But I am disappointed with the design of my car.

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Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

do you think the guy that buys an f40,a modena or that new bugatti says 'hey why do i need to do so much maintainence on this car,when i haven't changed the plugs in my yugo for two years!'if i gave you the choice between a brand new accord or a 5yr old porsche i know what 90% of us would take sure it's frustrating when things go wrong with our babies(how many accord drivers refer to their cars like that?) but when they're running strong you wouldn't want anyhting else(well,i wouldn't!).i grew up with the"engineered like no other" banter and wish i never had to worry but that's life.
to paraphrase Heston you can take the keys to my M.B. 'from my cold dead hands!'
for my wife's crv-just write me the cheque!!

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'95 s500 (bought for wife but can't bear to share!!!) 125kms
'92 legend 180kms
'88 tbirdturbo(fantastic car-only regular maint.)120kms
'87 mustang gt(gone)
'86 tbirdturbo(gone)
'85 mustang gt(gone-but not forgotten)

MB's are three point star with contiunous problems and DIYs under the hood. My car was in "Like New" condition and I have spent more time at the dealerships and DIY in the last five months than I have in the last ten.

"engineered like no other" is similar to Ford's "Quality is Job 1". Mercedes engineering has not impressed me.

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Zafar
94 E320 58000 Miles

Then again, my 87 300D hasn't have that much wrong with it (AC gone now, links in the rear suspension, starter locked up at 180,000 miles). The 280 SE is 31 years old and runs line a top. Blew a transmission cooler line and it needed tons of work when I got it, but it sure beats the you-know-what out of the Nissan I drive for work with similar milage.

Mercedes are NOT low maintenance cars -- they require considerably more work than a Toyota or Honda, but will generally outlast them, and the parts are usually cheaper.

As far as engineering goes, the difference isn't what it once was -- after all, MB used a fully independent suspension starting in 1953, disk brakes on all four wheels starting in 1959, etc. Drive a 1950s American car, you will see why that slogan appeared. Again, everyone else caught up.

I'm still in love.....

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!