..., or not CLICK ME!

My 12 year old's favorite car, a Jetta. Hecho en Mexico.

I think that anyone who has a lemon suffers, no matter who made it. Every carmaker builds lemons. The good carmakers build fewer than the bad ones do.

Rather than offering up a total red herring (look at how bad VW is!), let's just sympathise with those on this board who've got warranty and/or lemon problems with their C Class.

Reliability ratings are the only reasonable way to see which cars are better from that point of view. I prefer the European breakdown statistics, but there are others out there.

Yes, every manufacturer manages to squeeze some lemons on it's customers. The question is who treats you best when this happens and which brands is this more likely in. VW has an arbitration program so consumers can easily file a claim and get satisfaction without involving litigation, Mercedes those not, one of the very few. As for which brands offer the most dependability, go to the JD Powers 5 Year Dependability Study for 2002 and look for Mercedes, can't find it you say, it's there, grouped together with VW at the bottom as not good enough -

To see this go to - http://www.jdpower.com/
Click on I'm looking for News
Click on Customer Satisfaction and Product Quality
Click on 2002 Vehicle Dependability Index (VDI) Study
Click on the Press Release icon....

And read what I've been telling people for 20 years since I bought my very first in 1983. I always said my Mustangs were rock solid including our 1998, look under Sporty Cars, the 1998 Mustang is one of the top 3 most dependable 5 year sporty old cars (sorry, no C-Class here). I don't know if all Fords are dependable but the Mustang's have been great for me.

I used to own a 95 Jetta VR6 and bought it new. After 1200 miles, engine light went on. Check the engine oil level, dip stick have no sign of oil!! Went back to dealer and top the oil. Dealer said new engine will consume oil, tell me not to worry and keep driving. Well, after another 800 miles, engine light went on again. Went back to dealer and no oil left again. We did this till 5000 miles and I keep completing and they keep saying is normal. Finally they said this is not right and decide to open up the engine. Well, they decided to give me a new engine. The reason...the piston rings are all bad.
Well, the story doesn't end here. After they installed the engine, the idle is really unstable. The rpm goes up and down between 700-1000. I keep complaint to the dealer and they keep saying it's normal (as usual). Keep the story short, I went to the BBB process and VW decided to take my car to another dealer to check out what happen. The dealer who installed my new engine didn't do it correctly so the new dealer reinstall the engine again.
I didn't won't the artribution but at least my car finally runs normal.
ps. The VW dealer I went is in Santa Monica. (pretty much went thru all the advisors...all the same, including the serv mgr.)

Sure but think, if it was a Benz you would have had to hire an attorney and most people are intimidated by that. I was really annoyed when I found out that MB doesn't participate in California's lemon law arbitration program.