rjm

Well, it's been great, but I finally made the plunge. Bought a new E-430 in January, 2001 and it has been a great car. Had the usual suspension parts, seat rails and mounts, radio failure, and other minor problems, but overall, it has been a great car. Last week after exiting the freeway and stopping at a stop sign, the car would only go in 1st gear. Took it to the dealer in "limp-home" mode and had the Transmission Control Module and Harness changed. A transmission seal had leaked into the harness, shorting out the TCM. The harness had to be shipped from Germany. After a week in the shop, the final bill was $3000, and the car was 30 days out of warranty. Luckily I had purchased the Starmark Extended Warranty when the car was new, so the cost was ZERO. I got to looking at the maintenance schedule. Upcoming B Inspection would cost $500, transmission flush...$300, would need a new brake job ($800) soon, a new fuel filter at $200, and who knows what else, so decided it would be a good time to trade. Drove the E-350, E-500, and the E-350 ADI (what's with the analog clock in the instrument cluster, the funky center armrest, and the rock-hard seats?)....then I drove the Lexus LS-430. Everything that is optional on the Mercedes is standard on the Lexus and the Lexus cost much less....and the Lexus has been #1 in quality for the past 9 years according to J.D. Powers. MB quality has plummeted since the merge with Chrysler and is now rated just above Suzuki, Daewoo, Isuzu, and Kia....so it was a no-brainer. Cashed in my MB Extended Warranty (got 88% of purchase price refunded) and traded for a new Lexus LS-430 yesterday. I am delighted with this car. My only experience with MB is with the E-430 but the Lexus is everything the MB SHOULD have been. So farewell to all the great guys and gals on the W210 group...best of luck to everyone. Hopefully Mercedes will see a fast turnaround in quality with the new CEO (from Chrysler of course) and I'll be back in a few years with a new MB. If not, I'll stick with my Lexus and BMW. Best of luck to all, and thanks to all for the great discussions and information that I have received from this group.

Vader55

Good luck with the rice

sbarsap

The below quote speaks for itself:

Enjoy the ride though. We will miss you.

OceanView

Good luck with the Lexus, it is a great car.

benzboy

Big mistake! MB is for those who like to DRIVE. Lexus is for those who like to RIDE.

TruE320Ridah14

why not get the new IS350?

eLemnt | 0ne

IS350? That's like the C-class for MB. He had an E-class and he upgraded to the LS. The flagship model that is comparable to our S-class.

E-Klasse

I am sure a Toyota Camery is more reliable and cheaper but a Benz is a Benz. The LS is boring... At least you can say that you had a Benz.

vraa

Man, get ready for not having to go back to the dealership. Get ready for having your car not have problems. Get ready for not worring about something going wrong during a date.

Make sure you check out www.clublexus.com .

I'm vraa over there, drop us a line in the Clubhouse!

rjm

Ricky:
Thanks for the link....didn't know about that one...will sign on over there.
rjm

king_j

smart move.
im thinking of doing the same
97 e320 with a blown headgasket, tranny problems, and suspension problems
btw, car has 65k miles.

vraa

Anytime man, if you're on late at night, be sure to join our THE LATE NIGHT members club

eLemnt | 0ne

That sucks... I have a 97 E420 and haven't had any problems like that, except my steering rack leaking, and my car has 161K miles on it.

Maybe you got a bad apple :p

The Godfather

Let's face it, LS430 > W210.

TruE320Ridah14

a little off topic but funny

The Godfather

I don't find the humor in it, and I don't see how it would be remotely relevant to the thread...

TruE320Ridah14

I know it is not relevent but come on it is chappelle!

Dema

What was your deal for Lexus? I hate my current ES300 and can't wait when lease ends. Too many problems (brakes, vibration, pulling right, navigation system and so on). I hope flagship LS is much better, so keep us updated with your satisfaction. I was thinking that never more Lexus for me, maybe I need to try again? I do not want to spend more than $20K if I trade in E-430.

d2Benz

German technology ----> Japs technology

hmmmm, LS is a much smoother ride than our E class.
I do hope that the MB "suits" visits sites like this to read up on people's feedbacks and experience with the cars they are making today....Maybe they will go back to making reliable cars...The Japs, especially Lexus are rulling the luxury world.

But, I love the CLS. As 4 me I think I will be a MB-man 4 Life, unless I have a terrible experience with a MB
'nuff said.

cheers

vraa

d2Benz, what do you mean about that first line.
Does it mean German Technology is better than Japanese technology or that German Technology succumbs to Japanese Technology

I agree with the latter.

BlownV8

There should be no doubt that Lexus is making a much higher quality and more dependable product than Mercedes. However, a Lexus has no soul and is boring as hell to drive. If you want a dependable luxury car and the plain Jane vanilla wrapper does not bother you, the Lexus is the way to go.

d2Benz

Ricky....I've seen peeps traded their benzes, and not just W210 for Japanese rides...It used to be the other way around...that's why I said that the MB decision makers should visit sites like this to get better at their games. Like Blown V8 said, ther japanese rides are smooth and full of free options, but you are NOT in a protective cage incase you get in an accident. Have U seen the "totalled by a Ford....." thread. I wounder what kind of injury the member will have today, if he was in a Lexus OR Infinity

my $.02

cheers!

PHXATC

Somebody here already echoed my feelings...driving a Lexus is like driving your fridge, it's got cool bells and whistles, but it's functional and boring to look at with no soul.

Lexus build great cars and the LS is the top of the heap. I like the car, we just don't enjoy driving around in a floating hot-tub crate. We'd rather have a car with soul and lines. Pizzazz. Zing.

I'm sure you'll enjoy your new Lexus.

lexrex

You can say that the Lexus has no soul, but remember that the Jaguar & BMW folks view Benzes the same way.

And I seriously doubt that a W210 is any safer than a new Lexus LS.

BlownV8

The 210 E is rated as the safest vehicle on the road when looking at death rates in accidents:
http://www.autospies.com/article/ind...articleId=4330
http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cf...ercedes/1.html

Is the Car Unsafe, or the Driver?
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: March 15, 2005
One way of reading the new report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is that the Mercedes E-Class sedan has the safest design of any car or truck and the two-door Chevrolet Blazer the worst.

Another way to read the report, to be released Tuesday, is that E-Class drivers tend to drive more carefully than Blazer drivers.

The report, which analyzed the driver death rates of 199 vehicle models, gave an uncommon level of specificity for a crash study. Such studies tend to focus on the death rates in different classes of vehicles, like small sport utility vehicles or midsize cars, as opposed to giving data for specific models in each class. But the study found that in almost every vehicle class "the death rate for the worst vehicle was at least twice as high as the rate for the best."

For instance, among four-door midsize cars, the Volkswagen Passat performed best, with an average of 16 driver deaths per million registered vehicles annually. At the other end of the spectrum, the Chrysler Sebring had 126 driver deaths. Among midsize S.U.V.'s with four-wheel drive, the Toyota 4Runner had 12 deaths per million registered vehicles annually, compared with 134 for the two-door Ford Explorer.

The analysis by the insurance institute, a research group financed by car insurers, found that many of the best-performing vehicles were expensive luxury models with the latest safety technology, while many of the worst were cheaper models with older designs. Over all, luxury sedans, as well as midsize and large minivans and station wagons, tended to have the lowest fatality rates.

The report examined how 1999 to 2002 model cars and trucks performed on the road from 2000 to 2003. Only relatively popular models were studied and one critical demographic adjustment was made. Because female drivers aged 25 to 64 are less likely to be involved in crashes than male drivers, the study considered women of those ages in equal proportions to men, no matter the vehicle. That way, if one kind of vehicle attracted more women buyers than another did, the prevalence of women did not skew the results.

But other personality factors could not be adjusted for, for instance, minivans and stations wagons having low fatality rates both because of their size, which makes for larger crash-absorbing crumple zones, and because of who drives them.

"They tend to be driven by soccer moms and dads," said Adrian Lund, the chief operating officer of the institute. "They tend to be conveying their families and are careful when they are doing that."

Automakers expressed a range of concerns about the report.

Alan Adler, manager of safety communications at General Motors, said, "It is impossible in looking at these statistics to know what role driver behavior, such as drunk driving and driving without a safety belt, played in these deaths."

Studies by model are also rare, because they sometimes involve relatively modest amounts of crash data. Researchers from one major automaker, which declined to be named, said the limited amounts of data for some of the vehicles gave them pause, and they also found the age range of 25 to 64 used in adjusting for women to be arbitrary.

Russ Rader, a spokesman for the institute, said women who were younger than 25 or older than 64 tended to have higher death rates than women in the middle, making an adjustment less germane.

So how should a safety-minded consumer weigh the report?

Mr. Lund said his group's study of actual traffic fatalities should be considered alongside the results of its crash tests, as well as those conducted by the government. The government's test results are available at http://www.safercars.gov, and the insurance group's tests, which are intended to complement those of the government, and the full report, are available at http://www.iihs.org.

Another limitation of the report is that it does not include models that have had their debuts in recent years, and some existing models have been recently redesigned.

"What you want to do is look at crash test results of vehicles as well and pick vehicles that have good frontal crash ratings, good side-impact ratings, good head restraints, and check these results and see if that model has had a good record in the past," Mr. Lund said.

The average model in the study had 87 deaths per million registered vehicles annually.

The two-door Chevy Blazer had 308 deaths per million registered vehicles annually, the most of any vehicle in the study.

"The two-door Blazer is an old design, so it doesn't have the latest crashworthiness features built into it," Mr. Lund said. Further, two-door S.U.V.'s tend to be less stable than four-door versions. On the other hand, "two-wheel-drive S.U.V.'s are cheaper vehicles and they tend to get driven by younger males."

Young males are the highest risk group of drivers, Mr. Lund said. They tend not to wear their seat belts as much as other drivers, they are more likely to drink and drive and more often are speeding.

But the Blazer - not to be confused with the more recently designed Chevrolet Trailblazer - has also not performed well on crash tests, where driver behavior is not a factor. The S.U.V. received the lowest of four ratings in the institute's frontal crash test and only one out of five stars from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in its most recent rollover test.

The study reinforced some well-known traffic trends and also suggested that good design can trump them. Pound for pound, cars are safer than S.U.V.'s because S.U.V.'s ride higher off the ground and have a greater tendency to roll over than cars. Rollovers are particularly deadly, leading to one of every three deaths in motor vehicle crashes.

Large cars, and particularly luxury cars, have lower than average fatality rates. The Mercedes E-Class sedan, the best performer over all with 10 deaths per million registered vehicles annually, was one of the first vehicles to have electronic stability control as a standard feature. Stability control is a technology growing in popularity that helps drivers regain control of their cars when they swerve or spin.

"We feel we're on the forefront of safety technology, and this test, because it uses real world data, underscores our leadership," said Rob Moran, a spokesman for Mercedes.

Pickup trucks tend to have higher than average death rates. Among other factors, pickups are a challenge to design because their beds are sometimes loaded with cargo and sometimes empty.

Smaller cars and smaller S.U.V.'s tend to have higher fatality rates than medium-size and large models. Large S.U.V.'s tend to perform well because of their girth, though other studies have shown that that also makes them particularly lethal to the occupants of vehicles they strike.

But the Ford Excursion, one of the largest S.U.V.'s made, had 107 driver deaths per million registered vehicles annually, significantly above average. By contrast, the Toyota RAV4 was among the best performers, with only 18 deaths per million vehicles annually, even though small S.U.V.'s are a vehicle type that typically does not perform well in crash studies.

"We think this reflects changes in how these vehicles are being made," said Mr. Lund. "And we're seeing changes in driver demographics, with more women and fewer young males, who used to dominate small S.U.V.'s.