actually got worse as compared to the last report:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...tos_quality_dc

"But Chrysler and its Dodge, Jeep and now-defunct Plymouth brands all out-ranked Mercedes, which had 327 problems per 100 vehicles, up from 318 problems in last year's survey."

Another interesting tidbit...
http://www2.autospies.com/article/in...&categoryId=10

This would reflect the '01 models when the new C-class had problems. It should continue though '06, as the '03 E-class also had problems. Assuming the current cars have competitive quality, MB should start to improve on the 3-year quality survey in '07 or '08.

Ouch! Lets hope my 04 holds up

Interestingly, since MB was made very aware of their quality (as BMW is being made aware of their styling), we should be seeing a sharp jump in quality now.

Think of the MB interiors. After the plastic S-class of 2000, MB gave us the E-class of '03, the C-class upgrade in '05, the new SLK (which is very nice), and the CLS. My guess is the the new S will be a knock-out.

The same for quality. Should be better now, great by '06.

MB will probably subsidize the residuals to a certain extent. Certainly, Lexus resale is high because of the reliability, MB lower because of the problems. Hopefully, resale won't dip to the levels that force you to lease.

Did the S class really have Vinyl seats in its history?

My relatives had a 1983 W126 280SE - that car had MBTex. Actually, I prefer MBTex to leather for resistance wear and tear, ease of maintenance and longevity. Beats leather any day.

I like leather in the home though.

Just read in the WSJ today that DCAG is recalling 98,000 MB vehicles in Japan following customer complaints about vehicles with low levels of brake fluid. The cars affected are the e-class, s-class, cl-class, clk-class, and a-class. The recall is in addition to a global recall of MB vehicles equipped with SBC.

I used to have a 1985 380SE. MBTex was standard on the car. I think most of us upgraded to full leather, but it was at additional cost and definitely not a standard feature. I owned that car 17 years and the leather held up beautifully. My detailer always commented on how Mercedes has the best quality materials out there.

" ...Calling this latest thinking nothing short of a “paradigm change” within DC, Wolfsried lays down another ultimatum: Mercedes-Benz will not copy BMW AG's much maligned iDrive instrument control system.

“Functions that nobody uses and which benefit nobody have no place in the car,” he says, adding in the last year alone Mercedes has removed over 600 functions from its vehicles.

Functions being removed include the tunnel air-circulation system, which was activated by pressing the air re-circulation button for two seconds. The system immediately would close the air re-circulation flap and open the windows and sunroof a few inches to remove any contaminated or stale air that entered the car going through a tunnel.

CD-ROM and DVD-based navigation systems also will be phased out in the next two years, because the discs tend to warp at temperatures above 113° F (45° C), says Mercedes.

The auto maker will switch to hard discs, as well as Smart Media and PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Assn.) cards as storage devices for future navigation systems.

The goal is twofold: to improve the overall ownership experience while reducing quality glitches. Mercedes has been penalized of late because of less-than-steller electronics systems. Customers complain the buttons are confusing and systems break repeatedly. Mercedes wants to put a stop to this and boost quality in the process.

Mercedes also is shifting from fiber-optic cable to conventional copper for many vehicle communications applications because of problems related to the fragility of the fiber-optic cables."


OK, so our Benzes are not perfect, but you can see that they will be! Who says "Change is bad"?

that tunnel mode is (was) a good feature - why they decided to remove that, I have no idea.

I don't know that hard disk drives are going to work well in a car - they are not reliable was exposed to shock from bumps and such, and don't have a super wide temperature range either. the solid state stuff is a good idea, but a multi GB solid state memory card isn't cheap.

It might not be a card, but a permanent chip that can be flashed by download or addressed & updated like the channel list can be when Sirius makes a change or when you first subscribe & permission is given to the radio to receive them.

Solid state memory used on SD and Memory Sticks is about $250 or so per GB discounted retail.

From Thursday's WSJ

------------------------------

Japan's Car Makers Dominate
In Survey of German Drivers

By STEPHEN POWER and NEAL E. BOUDETTE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 1, 2004

German drivers were once again most satisfied driving Japanese cars, though some local manufacturers, such as General Motors Corp.'s Opel unit, are improving significantly, according to a customer-satisfaction study by J.D. Power & Associates.

On the down side for German brands, DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand suffered a setback, falling out of the top 10 in overall customer satisfaction.

The study, which looked at buyers' experiences with new vehicles registered in 2001 and 2002, parallels J.D. Power's U.S. study released this week. The U.S. survey showed increasing satisfaction with U.S. makes, while Mercedes, Jaguar, and Land Rover lagged behind.

The scores are based on responses from more than 24,000 car owners in Germany. The German study is significant because Germany accounts for 20% of all new-car sales in Western Europe. Companies that score well tend to command greater loyalty than those that don't.

Like J.D. Power's 2003 study of car buyers in Germany, this year's was dominated by Toyota Motor Corp., which received the highest overall rating, scoring 844 points out of 1,000. Next in overall rankings were Mazda Motor Co., Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.'s Subaru brand and Honda Motor Co. BMW AG, the top-ranked European brand, took the No. 5 spot.

Toyota's Corolla, Avensis and RAV4 models also took the top ratings in the lower-medium-sized car, upper-medium and sport-utility categories. Porsche AG's 911 was rated the top sports car, the Mazda Premacy the top minivan, and the Honda Jazz the top small car. In the luxury class, PSA Peugeot Citroen SA's 607 sedan was tops, followed by the BMW 7 Series and 5 Series.

In a boost for GM, Opel showed the most improvement, increasing its score 14 points to 790, beating the industry average of 786. Opel was still ranked No. 12 overall, however. A year ago, Opel was below the average and ranked No. 15.

"Opel has said they've been working hard on quality and reliability, and the effort seems to be paying off," said David Sargent, director of European operations at J.D. Power in Guilford, England.

Moving in the other direction was Mercedes. At 792, its score was above average but five points below its 2003 score. It was ranked 11th, down from seventh last year. Once a perennial leader in J.D. Power rankings, Mercedes has been plagued by glitches in the complex electronics it has packed into its vehicles.

In the past year, Mercedes has begun removing electronics features from its vehicles in hopes of improving their reliability, a DaimlerChrysler spokesman said.

For example, older models have keys that adjust seats and mirrors for a specific driver and a "tunnel air" feature that automatically closes vents and opens windows slightly to clear tunnel exhaust from the interior. Both were dropped, the spokesman said.

Volkswagen AG's VW brand also struggled, with a score of 768. That was an improvement from 2003, but placed Europe's largest car maker at No. 20 overall. VW was well below Volkswagen's down-market Skoda brand, which was ranked No. 9 with a score of 798.

Again, history that MB and everyone else knows about. I'd expect the '04s to be stronger, and by '06 to be very strong. Of course, that won't be reported until '09!!!

oh no, its just over $100 per GB now:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...238598-1284860

but how many GB are needed to run the car functions, like 8GB? that's alot more expensive then a DVD drive.

The nav DVD probably doesn't have over 1GB on it. Streets and Trips database is on a single CD (not DVD).

I guess my pricing is off because my wife's new camera uses the ridculously expensive Memory Stick Duo. Sony couldn't just use the similarly sized SD cards?

I notice they are listing me as a senior member. I wish they could avoid references to my age!

Hehe, I was in the same position as you back in the days, my friend. Good luck being the senior.

this is turning into a constant, I keep reading about this and I'm concerned because reliability reputation is the hardest point to recover to the cosumer's eyes...

All I know is that I have had my E for two weeks and I have had it in the shop twice for service

that kind of stuff doesn't bother me (depending on what the problem is) - there are always initial defects, I can't think of a single car I ever owned that wasn't back at the dealer twice after delivery to fix initial quality problems. that includes Honda.

its what happens after the assembly related problems are fixed that concern me more. Either additional new problems keep cropping up, or service departments that can't actually fix a problem (whether due to their own incompetence, or lack of a proper fix from the manufacturer) - resulting in repetitive visits.