I currently own a 2021 GLE and 2 2022 GLCs. I’ve owned MB vehicles for quite a few years. Prior to that I had owned 2 BMWs. I must admit all of my current vehicles and all of my previous ones have served me well with no major issues. Reading posts about various MB models has led me to believe that the quality control and therefore the reliability has taken a significant downturn over the past few years. I realize that consumers only post their complaints, no one wants to read that everything is going just fine, it’s boring. There has been several posts about how the BMWs have become much more reliable with fewer initial complaints and a better overall owner experience. I have learned over the years to not fully trust these reviews such as CR and just use them as a reference, and wait to hear what actual owners are experiencing. I do have a couple of friends that bought the 2023 GLC and they both had significant issues. I had also read about the many issues that plagued the 2020 GLE. Many contributors to this forum seem to take any criticism of the MB vehicles personally and will defend the hallowed MB to the hilt. I am not one of them, I truly enjoy my MB and would definitely buy another one. BTW, I never keep any of these vehicles beyond the warranty period, it’s too much of a gamble.
I was just looking for some valued opinions from either current or former MB owners about perceived declines in the quality control and reliability of newer vehicles and if their buying choices have expanded beyond just MB, or perhaps have eliminated MB as one of their options. Personally I believe that MB would be at the top of my buying list, however, much more legitimate consideration would be given to several other brands. Thanks

 

My 2020 GLE450 had a few minor issues within the first few months of ownership, those were quickly addressed by my dealer and the has been flawless since. I just traded her in on a new GLE63S, so far it too has been flawless. Fingers crossed that continues. Prior to the 450, I had a ML350 for 4 years which was super reliable with no issues. I've also read the negative comments posted by some, luckily that has not been my experience.

 

I know we're not supposed to mention it here, but consumer surveys suggest things are definitely trending the wrong way for MB. While I know many forum members have had few or even no problems, I've had a laundry list of issues. In fact, in two years of ownership there hasn't been a single day where something wasn't out of whack - and that's true even if you exclude the shifting issues. I don't expect any car to be perfect, but it's hard not to get frustrated when real problems don't get resolved. If I hear "it's working as designed" or "we weren't able to replicate the problem" one more time I'm seriously going to lose my *****.

 

Personally, I stopped looking at consumer surveys and filter most of the forum posts that do no represent a clear high volume trend of something concerning. Choose a car you like and be excited about it See some context below.

Our first car was new Honda Accord. The Internet loved it because it was "Honda". It had excessive vibrations due to early CVT issues, somewhat rough transition going from 5mph to zero, terrible wipers, small engine oil seepage. It did not need any repairs for the few years we owned it. It was just a car, nothing good or exciting, nothing bad, it got us from point a to point b. No sentimental value.

Our second car is Jeep Grand Cherokee. We were choosing between Subaru Outback and Jeep Grand Cherokee. The Internet loved the Subaru, for the same reason it loved the "Honda", Japanese cars have "high Internet approval factor". We hated it after test driving for 20 mins and ultimately went with Grand Cherokee (WK2). GC was supposed to be terribly unreliable car. The Internet hated it - "American junk", low reliability ratings at online journals. Well, It was best decision we made at that time - 7 years and 90k miles with normal city/hw driving, some trailer towing and zero issues. We only needed to keep changing filters, oil every 7-8k miles and wiper inserts. Like, I came to the dealer with 7 years old car and just asked them to change the batteries / brake pads/rotors not because they needed to be replaced but because I wasn't comfortable with these consumables lasting that long. We'll probably own it for few more years at least.

Now, we ordered GLE 450 to be our second car, after doing the research again, going through similar experience we had when we were buying a Jeep.

The moral of this story - buying a car these days, which is similar to 7 years ago, 10 years ago etc and doing all the research is rather stressful experience. Everything was better before, everything current is ****, German cars are terrible, American cars are terrible, only Toyota is the Savior etc. It sucks the good out of you to a point you don't even want to buy a car anymore.

For myself, I decided to stop focusing on every item people / journals write about and just be excited about getting the GLE. I'll deal with consequences if something happens. If it turns out to be problematic, sure, will fix it or trade it in and just move on to something else. It's easier to deal with actual issues vs hundreds of hypothetical ones.

PS: I'm not discounting or diminishing the issues some of the existing owners are having, just highlighting that your experience may not necessarily be the same.

 

It might take a recession to get the supply chain QC back to normal. IMO, when everyone is operating at or above capacity there is less competition in the supply chain where most components other than the body and drive train are sourced. Manufacturers are happy to get the product they need and competitive QC the last thing on the list. Kick the can down the road mentality…by the time they smooth one thing there is a redesign or other change to too many components. Unfortunately there is more problematic Tech and issues are across the industry.

 

I like to keep it simple:

Car breaks > goes to dealer > gets fixed > life goes on.

 

Remember some issues could be design flaws not quality issue.

 

everything is much worse than it used to be. That is not exclusive to Mercedes and often other manufacturers have it far worse than even the worst Mercedes these days.

It's to the point where my local Oreily's carries the OEM turbo replacement for Kia/Hyundai 2.0L's.

all these brands getting out of their lane have teething issues, and Mercedes with their constant need to develop new engines also have problems. It's not worth overthinking. I mean the GL/GLS family of cars have "electrical problems" and people write them off and its honestly just the floor electrical plug needing to be stomped on for the pins to reconnect lol.

 

The fact that this question (this thread) exists is proof that MB quality and reliability is questionable.

BMW beat MB in Q3 and YTD 2023 sales in the U.S. market. Both companies are operating in the same supply chain and economic environments. BMW won the fight this round. Consumers voted with their pocketbooks and the voting results have been duly certified.

There is no objective data on reliability, other than corporate financial statements where warranty expense as a percentage of revenue can be calculated. This takes time to decipher but it can be done. Ford as one example in the past was running about 4% of revenue for warranty expense. Good companies run 0.5% of revenue = warranty expense. Ford therefore, using this example, is a bad performing company warranty-wise. No surprise.

All else is opinion.

 

Me too:

Car doesn't break > life goes on

That's much better!

 

Yes, everyone's experience is different...As an MB GLC300 owner who saved to purchase outright I'm a little disillusioned with quality, lack of recall due to a major safety issue & dealer response to the failed 88 000 km engine!

 

Your frustration is understandably high.

With the average new car transaction price hitting $49,000, saving up to buy one takes a lot of effort. I know.

I don't understand your "lack of recall" statement, though. Also, what's the "major safety issue?"

If you're talking about an out-of-warranty engine failure on your 2018, the takeaway is more likely that it's not a common event, not reaching Recall levels.

The new 2019+ GLC engine is essentially all new, so improvements have been made since yours was built

That, coupled with the NHSTA's aggressive recall stance, probably indicates that it's not a typical issue. I don't think we've seen problems with the new version, so that's a step forward.

Hopefully MB will assist.
Did you contact Corporate?

 

Well, in regards to the M274 issue reported on the forums, I believe there is already a case with NHSTA, I forgot who started it and not exactly up-to-date on how that is progressing.

 

I have no before and after gauge since the brand new 2022 GLE was the first MB I ever purchased. But, that thing was littered with major quality control issues. Stupid issues that any typical quality control check at a normal factory would catch, but the idiots at the Alabama factory missed. I swear the entire factory is filled with minimum wage inbred morons.

 

fwiw, I have issues with my Alabama built c-class as well, but it is "just" a c-class so it might not be fair to compare to an GLE.
That said, I am just hoping the facelift V167 GLE has some quality issues addressed.

 

8 cars had windows that the adhesive supplier mislabeled. Supplier paying for new glass and labor.

 

I participate in several German car forums and have experience of owning 7 Audis.
Reading these forums is a very valuable source of information. All these German car brands have more or less breakdowns. Our cars are becoming more and more complicated, equipped with newer technologies, so we are all beta testers.
However, most of these car brands have recurring the same faults. Thanks to this, they are easy to diagnose and correct by manufacturers during updates.
The problem with the MB that I have noticed is that the faults occurring in the GLE and GLS are diverse and do not result from a faulty design of the car or its components. These are faults ranging from minor elements like wrinkled leather on the seats to serious ones, just like those with the transmission. This may indicate poor quality of assembly and poor quality control in Tuscaloosa or at their suppliers.
I really wanted to have a GLE AMG 63S, but the number of minor problems and the quality of MB service scared me.
BTW, none of my Audis had major faults apart from minor issues that I was able to fix myself.

 

No, a lot of MB’s problems can be traced back to that factory run by bunch of trained monkeys. There’s a lot of reported C class issues on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/AMG/s/OedP2V3r6F I don’t see many E or S class issues versus every model built at that god forsaken plant. Whatever Mercedes exec decided to build that plant there should have to pay back all of their dirty bribes and jump into a big pile of flaming dogcrap.

 

Things happen I guess. I think the better one so far was the fuel pump issue. That was way more significant.

 

BMW part is irrelevant. Mercedes said over 2 years ago they weren't interested in winning sales contests. They want to focus on profitability. The are building fewer ICE cars. C, GLC, GLE and GLS inventories are low nationally. We STILL sell every car we have and without resorting to discounts or gimmicks(unless its an electric car). Mercedes buyers are voting with their pocketbooks.

 

I dunno if MB has gotten worse as this is my first one but Japanese and Korean cars these days are quite nice and from what I hear on YouTube (since my government wont allow fair competition) the Chinese-made EVs are really nice too. So maybe it's a perspective thang. MB isn't really that much worse but in comparison to a Lexus or Genesis it doesn't seem like its worth that much more either.

 

It's not true that there's no objective data on reliability of automobiles. It seems that most people want to knock Consumer Reports, but the fact is that they (and JD Power) actually survey real-life owners with cars -- exactly what everybody wants. I have taken surveys by both CR and JD Power; they're objective and well-thought-out. CR reports the results of the five-or-seven most recent years of each model as reported by tens of thousands of real-life owners, in their annual car guides. And from the vehicles that I've owned, I can say that the data are pretty solid. For example, I have owned Volvos for decades, and I can say that electrical problems are the worst -- and this is borne out each year in the CR owner surveys (at least for cars outside of warranty).

I'm looking to possibly buy my first-ever MB. MB ICEVs have never interested me because I've never liked their looks (inside or out) and felt that they weren't as well put together (fit and finish) as the Volvos and Porsches that I've bought over the decades. I'm drawn to MB now solely because of the new 2024 GLE 450e PHEV, which has amazing all-electric range (up to 68 miles in real-world recent testing) and the capability of CCS DC-fast-charging, which is what I've been looking for elsewhere (and which simply doesn't exist in any other PHEV outside of the Polestar 1, which isn't a practical vehicle and is no longer made). So having heard "forever" about MB's unreliability -- both from CR and from friends who've owned them -- I'm naturally trying to find out what I can about its unreliability. I do not plan to own any luxury vehicle today outside of warranty, especially a PHEV luxury vehicle, so for me it's all about "what are the chances of major MB mechanical/electrical malfunction during 2-3 years of under-warranty ownership?" I hear of people having their new MBs in the shop for weeks in the first year of ownership (but in all-due fairness, I hear that from present-day Volvo and Porsche owners, too, in my monitoring of those forums).

So when it comes down to it, it's a question of "what percentage of new MBs will have significant problems requiring emergency servicing in the first year or two of ownership?", and nobody knows outside of MB. The automakers won't tell us. So I guess the answer is to just buy the car that we think will be good for us and our lifestyle, and plunge ahead. No automaker makes 100% bad cars that have huge failures in the first year of ownership, or they wouldn't be in business.

 

I agree and Forums aren’t always the best place to get reliable info. Those with a legitimate issue are looking for help and not someone telling them that they own a POS, Mercedes is unreliable, etc. I’ve been on this Forum since before the V167 was introduced. I’m about to receive my 3rd V167 in a couple of weeks. If there are issues my Dealer will make things right…
As a new member you may not be aware that there might be a Troll with a vendetta that jumps on every issue with the same nagative posts..

 

A survey is not objective.


caveat emptor in extremis

All MB four bangers have long lists of fatal problems and there is no clean point, yet, for an MB hybrid system. If you value your time and seek to avoid frustration in life, don't buy or lease that car.

Agree.

 

Volvo have more electrical problems than Germans? I am surprised, not saying I don't believe you but I was surprised, I would say I learned something new today.

As for Porsche having problems? Like which ones mainly?