hmmm... i have an 06, i had a problem with the shade, but that was replaced free under warrenty... other than that, nothing out of the ordinary...

 

The car? No.

Fellow Benz Owners? You betcha. Whining cause things go wrong. Its a car. They all have some issues.

MBUSA? Yeah, they suck a lot. Seriously.

Your friends are not being honest with you then. Audi's and VW's have just as many if not more problems as a Benz. If you wanted an appliance, you should have shopped at the Toyota dept store.

 

HELL YEA! we own 2 toyo rav4s... never had ne problems... one got into a nice little accident, and after it was repaired, it runs like its new... gotta love those cars... now those cars should be title BUILT TOUGH FOR THE ROAD AHEAD...

 

[QUOTE=Outland]The car? No.

Fellow Benz Owners? You betcha. Whining cause things go wrong. Its a car. They all have some issues.

Well I thought that paying for a a higher end car I would get better quality.Thats why Im *****ing

 

HAHAHAHA!!! I'm sorry! My brother has a 2000 Jetta, and I swear that car is the automotive anti-christ! It is the biggest piece of ****, and I cant wait till he gets rid of it! And my friend with an Audi A4 has the same stupid problems as the Jetta. The glove box door is the worst design, and it breaks at the hinge (replaced two on my brothers car, my friend had the dealer replace his under warranty). The hoses on the VW are easily degradated with the slightest amount of oil on them (Replaced 4 hoses and each time flushed and drained the coolant all within 1.5 years). That is a known problem at the VW shops and they dont do anything about it! Window regulators going bad (although MB has poor WRs too, replaced one already on my car, and my dad had two), keys die for no reason, along with so many other really annoting problems. Most of which can be relieved by proper maintinance. And I have also been in many VWs with various problems when I valeted.

But good luck to ya!

 

It was the control units which arent covered under the extended warranty and are more expensive than the regulators

 

[QUOTE=stephen4785]No.

You bought a more complicated car, with higher end engineering, design and performance. Quality can mean lots of things...a vehicle can be high quality and still break down...that's reliability.

 

[QUOTE=Outland]
owned...

 

I have several friends and coworkers who all bought into the VW/yuppie/audi crap a few years back...I can't think of one who can claim to have had a trouble free experience. Great interior designs, and at times interesting styling, but the rest is pure marketing.

My wife's best friend had probably the worst of the bunch, a new beetle that left her stranded 4 times, for 4 different reasons.

 

If you bought a 2001 four months ago... you have a six year old car and problems with a used six year old car is not unusual regardless of make.

 

[QUOTE=Outland]quality-An inherent or distinguishing characteristic; a property.
A personal trait, especially a character trait

Superiority of kind: an intellect of unquestioned quality.
Degree or grade of excellence: yard goods of low quality.
adj.
Having a high degree of excellence: the importance of quality health care.
reliability-the extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same results on repeated trials

So your trying to prove me wrong for whatever reason and defend Mercedes quality. I think its confussing that your saying a higher end engineered car could have good quality but low reliability and still be considered high quality.I havent heard anyone say " Yeah X car has great quality but breaks down all the time" . You might not have had any problems with your car and think Mercedes makes the best cars. The common conception of Mercedes is that its a high quality car that doesnt have many problems. Its also an expensive car and the assumption is that if you spend more money on a product instead of less money on a cheaper product it will last longer. In my case Iv spent more money and had more problems out of my car than the car I sold to get the benz.

 

[QUOTE=stephen4785]
once again... you have a 2001... thats 5 years old... so its going to have problems... if you can name me one car that has NEVER had a problem in 5 years... ill be damned...

 

Nope, still impressed. Sometimes things go wrong, that's life.

I would still rather have my 2005 C230 over the Acura MDX that I sold to get it. This is my second Mercedes and I am glad I found my way back.

 

[QUOTE=rrpnow]My 2001 WS6 Firebird 0 problems
my 2001 Dodge ram 4x4(that goes off road alot) 0 problems
my mother in laws 2000 Toyota Avalon o problems
My sisters old 96 Geo Tracker 0 problems
And I can go on and list more cars/trucks and friends/families cars/trucks that havent had any problems with.
I understand that cars are gonna have problems.Any cars. Someone in this post wrote that they had problems with their sun visor and his car is an 06. The visor is a common problem ever since they started putting it in their cars. Theyv had years to get it right and still havent managed to make any improvments in it. The control units under the front seat-Iv replaced CU's-cpu's,ecu's before so I understand that those will go out sometime. But the variety of mechanical problems Iv had and the severe lack of service at the dealer have dissapointed me.

 

Well at least everyone else has had good luck with their cars. Ill just try another brand untill I get something that doesnt break down and have a mulititude of problems in a short period of time

 

i gotta agree, you bought a used 5 year old car. you have no idea how the vehicle was cared for previously. not sticking up for MB, believe me, i know they're not the most reliable and trouble free, but if you had bought the car new, i'd maybe sympathize with your argument about MB's quality or reliability. however, hope things work out for you bro and all goes well with the ride

 

My two cents.

First of all, you have yourself a 2001 there...first year for a big restyling. Typically in the automotive industry, these are cars to be leased or avoided because they are "more" likely to have glitches and problems. Not that they will, but the chance is higher. Example - we had a 1995 Chevy Blazer (first year of restyling)...that car had a new ABS computer system installed, 3 transmissions, 3 LED tail light strips which kept blowing out, and the dip stick corroded and fell off INTO the tank! PS - from another thread discussing the lack of a dip stick, look at it this way -- you can't have this happen to you!

I went with the 06...near the end of this car's run before a redesign and my only concern was the new engine - but they've had good history on their engines....

On to our Audi - we had a 2001 Audi A4 1.8T. That car was beautiful and a pleasure to lease - NOT own. Every year the digital display on the dashboard (in between the gauges) would fail and come up as a "no charge" $1,000 light bulb.... yes a thousand dollar light bulb! The sound system was mediocre, the turbo engine had a vibration that I did not feel comfortable with, etc. My cousin purchased a used A4 1.8T and the engine was just replaced under warranty... The engine.

So what am I saying here? I'm sure MB are not without their problems as well - but all car companies have their share of glitches, and design "oopsies" which some people unfortunately have to suffer with. When I got my car, I figured it was a pretty safe bet because its nearing the end of it's design life, but by no means to I expect it to be perfect electronic-wise (especially with all the gadgets and gizmos that I opted for - navigation in particular which I hear has a high failure rate)...

I once read that on average most cars have a certain percentage of cost as a proportion of how much repairs will be... spending twice as much money on a benz, I budget for twice the repair costs... is that the way it should be? No... but better safe then sorry. No car is perfect, just be prepared for minor inconveniences.

PS - One more story re: Audi - our vehicle once dropped all of its oil and would not start, etc. We contacted Audi roadside assistance and the first question they asked was if we were in a "visible/busy area"... they were concerned with getting their "broken down" vehicle out of sight and this tells you something about the company.

After my accident, I contacted mercedes roadside assistance and they cared more about my safety than their "image" of being on the side of the road. That, right there, I prefer.

- Eric

 

i am unimpressed with the type of material mb is using for the armrest because mine peeled out after about a year. Other people in this forum also have had the same problem. The dealer replaced it under warranty and beside that everything else works great and the car is fun to drive.

 

I'd like to add one point here. Regardless of make or brand, i you pay more for something, you expect more. Therefore you are bound to find more problems with something youp aid more for. For example if you buy a bently you would notice every little imperfection in every little element of the car, whereas if you buy a hyundai, you probably won't notice even if a relatively larger problem exists. This all comes down to the human response. You are bound to care more for something you worked harder to obtain. This might give the elusion that you are having more problems with a higher priced product, but is this really so? You might be simply judging the two products on a wildly different scale.

Just my 2 cents.

Dion.

 

personally I'd expect nothing when it comes to any used car...nothing that wouldn't gone wrong that is especially when the car is already 5 years old. On top of that the 2001 is the first year of the W203 which has been known to have problems.

Audi and VW wouldn't really help you there if used if what you are looking for. My 2000 Beetle 1.8T is filled with electronic problems. 1st is that the battery would die if not driven for 3 days and none of the tech anywhere could fix this problem. 2nd is that electronic spoiler that was suppose to be automatically deployed at 90mph now no longer works. 3rd mas sensor has been replaced few times. 4th the power window would often fail from it's one touch mode. 5th the headlight and all the lights dims for a second when ever I flip on some switch somewhere. 6th air-bag warning has been on forever even after beeing fixed supposely.Tthere are other problems as well, but mainly cosmetic in the interior trims. The engine however is the only thing that makes me happy when driving that car. All the problem are recurring problems and since the warranty has gone out I've yet find a fix for many of them.

 

In 2004 the chairman of DaimlerChrysler knew that the quality of Benz cars would stink up an outhouse. He rolled some heads, and put an engineer in charge of Mercedes. He rousted the suppliers. Siemens balance sheet is now suffering because of the QC concessions they had to make. Bosch threw up their hands and got out of the lighting business. Union bosses from IG Metal spent weeks clicking their heels whilst learing what was expected of production line workers. The result is a large improvement after the facelift of 2005 models. Warranty expense is way down on those cars (05 & 06 European production) to the point that the excessive red ink has slowed. There is a newly minted chief at DaimlerChrysler these says, and he did such a good job handling the tiller at Chrysler, there is hope for quality cars into the future.

Expect problems with older cars, and the dealers will jack up your trousers and rotate your wallet for parts, especially electrical items.

 

I assume the plastic clips and stuff were broken when you bought them. If the previous owner let problems accumulate and then just traded in the car, you now "own" those problems.

If those problems existed before you bought the car then you did not do a good enough job of looking it over before the purchase. If this was your first MB you should have found someone from the community who really knows the model and taken them along to inspect the car.

 

It sounds like you got a weak battery, is it the original? Put a load tester on it, it will give you the condition of the battery, not just voltage, it can also test the alternator which also could be the problem.

 

You guys stop putting this guy down because he's complaining about his car's problems. Everyone knows benzes have problems, even new ones. If you doubt it, check here www.lemonmb.com
I love benzes too but let's be real, DaimlerChrysler needs to get their act together. That's another thing, though. A member here is frustrated because he is disillusioned by the benz promise. Don't hate on him for that. Just cause everyone loves their car and deny the issues is no reason to be down on someone. People have different belif systems, different value preferences...the original poster values reliabilty more than anything, apparently. To him, reliability equals quality.

 

well, not everyone. The person who started this thread didn't. Otherwise he would have gotten himself a vw or audi