Was at the dealership this morning to drop off the GLS for a repair. Had a few minutes to walk the showroom and sit in a few new ones. Had all of the EQ's out there, the GLB, new GLC, and so on. Not one of them, I would pay their premium for anymore. All of the plastic feeling inside of them now, and the seats seem to have gotten even more narrow, along with cramped cockpits thanks to the massive center consul. Creaks when you push on the plastics along the dash, the EQE with cheap hard plastics along 80% of the door interior surfaces, knees pinned together, etc. What is happening in Germany these days? VW has slid backwards in interior quality, MB seems to heading down that same path now too. Don't get me wrong, they look beautiful and all modern and stylish, but I would not want to spend a long day's drive in one anymore. None felt like that 10+ year car to me anymore. Sad really...

 

They put in the parts that are good enough for at least 4 years, I guess!

 

The billions they have to invest to turn the ship around and go all electric has to come from somewhere. The cheapening of the interiors is a real bummer and it's across the board. Everything from the C Class to the S Class. Had an S 500 loaner not too long ago and felt cheap. The leather felt like vinyl. It struck me that the S Class doesn't come standard with Napa leather. My C63S coupe interior with standard Napa leather feels much more expensive compared to that S Class. Then there's the hard cheap plastic on parts of the door that you touch all the time. The S Class was a bit better, but I subsequently had a new C 300 and the door handle is a brick of silver painted hard plastic. Absolutely horrible. Again, the door handle in my C63 is Napa leather. And it's not like the new C63 is more premium. The same parts continue to be cheap hard plastic. Then there's Tesla showing that there are lots of people willing to pay six figures for a plastic bucket and poor build quality.

 

I totally get that nothing is built like it used to be for a variety of reasons, but man, was I truly disappointed today with what I saw and sat in. Not that I have $135,000 to throw at a car in general, but if I did, I’m really not sure I would throw it at Mercedes, to be honest. Hard for me to explain I guess because they’re beautiful looking cars, truly artistic in design. But they felt like….I don’t know. A luxurious KIA maybe? I can’t put my finger on it, other than to say that not a single one of them made feel like “wow, so this the Mercedes Benz way”. And I think it is entirely the dash board’s fault and this cheap feeling of wood. You tap your fingernail on it and it just screams fake plastic. Now, I get it I get it - save trees, save cows, etc. I’m fine with all of that. But if your whole “brand” is to be the best of the best of the best, then maybe fake it a little better than that! Some dynamat on the back of the trim pieces for that “thud thud” feeling, instead of “ping ping” feeling…

guess I’m getting too old and too damn fat for the germans. For $130k, I expect to be able to scratch my giblets while I mansplane at 90mph.

I suspect my Mercedes experience may be confined to my 2014 E350 and this current GLS. I don’t see what I look for in a car with these new offerings anymore from them.

 

I really think it's primarily Tesla that's forcing this cheapness. The Germans already have a hard time competing and if their equivalent models would be significantly more expensive compared to a Tesla in order to pay for the higher quality and premium interiors, it would be a non-starter. What drives EV sales at the moment is software and gimmicks, because that's the only thing they can differentiate with. I somewhat liken it to consumer electronics in the past. Walkmans, stereos, TVs etc. used to be plastic boxes with electronics inside. Kinda ugly to look at. Then Apple came along prioritizing design and coming out with consumer electronics devices that people were willing to show off instead of hiding them in a cupboard. This put pressure on everybody in the industry to step up their game.

I think until EV and battery prices drop significantly, build quality and premium interiors will take a backseat. Once the market has matured the premium brands will come out to differentiate their offerings with higher quality materials etc. Currently many EV buyers want to be cutting edge as far as the powertrain technology is concerned and they want cool software like on a smartphone. Everything else is becoming secondary. Those of us who like cars for the car part and not the laptop on wheels part will find themselves disappointed moving forward.

I'm seriously considering going carless eventually, because I'm not spending this kind of money on an EV. My AMG is already mostly a toy as I don't really have a need to drive, so it has to offer emotion and a true driving experience. I have my smartphone to ding dong around. I do most of my weekly errands on foot as I live within 10-15 minutes of most of what I need on a daily basis and I work from home, so no wasting time commuting to an office. I could technically already go carless, because besides living in a walkable area, I also have public transportation for longer distances and there is always rideshare.

 

Yeah the techno stuff is too much for me. My E doesn't even have blind spot monitoring, and I love it. It’s just pure raw driving.

I’ll give a real world example of when all of these “assist” features can cause real problems, happened to me just today in this BMW X3 loaner while coming home from the dealership. Following a truck, about 60mph, 3 lane road, we’re in the middle lane. I can’t see around him. He swerves over to the left lane, revealing another truck in front of him that was stopped in the center lane for whatever reason. I am always aware of my surroundings. I immediately swerve to my right lane, and the car fights me, wanting to steer me back into my lane. I didn’t realize the BMW had lane keeping assist, and it was quite forceful in wanting to stay in it’s lane. I immediately thought I had sideswiped someone on my right and was being pushed back into my lane and heading right for the back of that stalled box truck about 200 feet ahead. But I quickly realized there wasn’t a car on my right and realized it was the car itself doing that. I forced that car over regardless and all of the fighting it made it quite unstable in the process, could have been very easy for an inexperienced driver to over correct against the car’s inputs. It was literally trying to steering itself into the back of that truck simply because I didn't have time to turn on the damn blinker.

all the way home, up a country road, it was bouncing between the lane markers. When I got home, I immediately asked my neighbors who have 3 BMW’s how in the hell do I turn off that lane keep assist because I could not figure it out. It nearly punched my ticket today!

I will NEVER buy that feature, nor will I buy the electronic distance keeping cruise control. I. Drive. That’s it. The day I need a computer to help me steer a car, or move a car, is the last day that I will be behind the wheel in general. I think they're dangerous features. Blind spot monitoring, ok, beep all you want. But try and take my control away from me, and I’m done.

 

That sounds like a pretty poor implementation on BMW's end. It should never fight you if you are doing an evasive maneuver. While I keep lane assist turned off, I do like other assistance systems quite a lot such as DISTRONIC w/ Adaptive Steering during long monotone highway cruising or let the car deal with stop&go traffic while I relax. I generally don't need assistance to stay in my lane, though, while I'm driving, so I've turned lane assist off because it occasionally mistakes other markings or cracks in the road for lane markers and annoyingly vibrates the steering wheel, and it intervenes if I'm deliberately straddling the lane marker, but it has never done anything like what you are describing. In fact at the beginning when I had it on, I was amazed at how on the canyon roads for example it recognized my spirited driving style and didn't intervene even if I occasionally crossed over the double yellow. So the implementation, at least in my AMG, is actually quite good at that it recognizes if the driver is dozing off and drifting out of the lane or deliberately crossing the lane. However, I would turn it back on temporarily if I find myself tired until I have a chance to pull over and get some rest.

Along those lines I'm gonna tell you a story as well. 5 years ago my wife and I vacationed in Iceland during the winter (November). As you may know, the days are quite short up there around that time, so our circadian rhythms were totally on the fritz. One day we were driving back to Reykjavik from visiting one of the spectacular National Parks. I had been driving all day, and if you've never been to Iceland there's a lot of wind. So much so that at times I had to steer to the left or right just so the car would drive straight. I had never experienced anything like it. So I was quite tired towards the end of the day and on top of that around 6pm it got pitch black. I felt my eyelids getting heavy and I knew I need to pull over somewhere, but in the pitch black it was nearly impossible to find anywhere to pull over (we were actually only 15 minutes from the next village as I found out later), so before I knew it, I fell asleep behind the wheel. My wife was already asleep as well. I woke up as we were going down an embankment. Luckily we ended up in a grassy area instead of a lava rock field, so we were both fine, but the car was toast. The front right steering arm snapped off and it needed to be towed. Long story short, lane keep assist could have kept me on the road. So there are times when these things actually are good to have. I had never fallen asleep previously and never since, but it taught me a lesson.

 

Yeah the BMW’s setup was a surprise for sure, cost me maybe a second of reaction time to figure out what was happening. Just my opinion, but I think if manufacturers are going to include this type of driving technology, then it should be the driver’s option to have the ability to set a default setting regardless. Once I knew what it was, I was able to anticipate it. But for the car to forcibly want to keep me in that lane instead of just vibrating the steering wheel or making a sound, is too much for me. Not to belittle your incident, but one could argue that going off the side of the road was the right thing for the car do to. Had it kept you on the road could have possibly put someone else in harms way too. But glad you’re ok after that incident!

Back to the topic, I am beginning to wonder if car manufacturers are skipping past my generation a bit. I’m 50 and coming into a segment that can start to afford higher end cars like the S and 7 series. But I’m also a segment that doesn't want to spend a lot of time interacting with advanced technology. My home is an Apple home for the simple reason that turning it off/on usually fixes the majority of issues. I’m also the generation that remembers when the S class was the tank with real wood, and a big ole’ seat to sit in. Starting to feel like MB is skipping me and going to the 30-somethings who love the tv screens and automation. I’d only have an iWatch to monitor my blood pressure.

 

Joe Biden. Picketing with the UAW, forcing manufacturers to shift before ifrastructure is even remotely available, is happening to each one of them, across the board, except for probably Range Rover, whose own quality issues make them a poor argument for an alternative,

 

I was shocked by how heavy-handed the steering was when I initially got my X3 but that is the default setting. I don't know if you still have your loaner but you can adjust it here (from manual):

Setting the intensity of the steering wheel vibration

"CAR"

"Settings"

"Driver Assistance"

"Steering Wheel Feedback"

"Vibration intensity"

Select the desired setting.

The setting is applied to all Intelligent Safety systems.

Switching steering intervention on/off

The steering intervention can be switched on and off separately for Active Blind Spot Detection and lane departure warning.

"CAR"

"Settings"

"Driver Assistance"

"Safety and Warnings"

"Lane Departure Warning"

"Steering intervention"

Depending on the national-market version, the steering intervention is automatically active after every driving off.


I agree that BMW really could use some form of "Attention Assist" to tell if the driver is really dozing off or just trying to avoid an obstruction in the road.
There must also be something lost in translation because there is definitely no "Steering Wheel Vibration" and more like car taking control of the wheel!

 

Your assessment seems to follow along with what I see. We own four MB's, currently. The best example of what you are describing is how I see our 2016 GL450, and a 2022 GLS450. If I'm going out and both are in the driveway I'll take the 2016 GL450 10 out of 10 times. It is a more comfortable ride, better performance, nicer looking interior and quality with the burl wood and leather. Literally everything in the 2022 GLS450 looks and feels cheaply made. It just doesn't feel solid when you drive it, has a lot of rattles, squeaks and annoying noises, even on smooth surfaces. We needed the second SUV with the space these afford you for a daily driver and would have opted for an older model if I could have found one with low mileage and the options we wanted. I really don't envision buying another MB in my lifetime. I've recognized I'm definitely not the demographic they are interested in attracting.

 

Cheap interiors are sadly becoming the norm also at Porsche. Cayenne facelift is getting bad feedback from increased plasticky-ness including leather that looks and feels like vinyl and increased exterior black plastic non-painted trim. Like a 2011 Subaru.

Taycan interior is EV-cheap.

911 will likely continue as a halo car with performance and luxury variants but the other cars will see cheapened interiors.

 

This was discussed in another thread. Looks like the luxury makes are going down and the premium makes are going up (and determined to meet in the middle)!

 

I'm not sure I would classify Mazda as a premium make by any stretch...

 

Not in the traditional sense of Honda->Acura and Nissan->Infiniti but the pricing and the features are in line w/their target market. Mazda's case is even stronger since they have rear-wheel drive biased cars.

Look for all hell to break loose once they release the CX70 w/their much vaunted i6!

 

Everyone is in a race to the bottom. But after looking at all the options I still always end up with MB.

 

Well, I would say speak for yourself. I turned 50 this year as well. We are Gen X. Our generation is unique in that we still learned how to do things w/o technology, but we experienced the birth of the modern Internet. I built my own microcontrollers when I was 16 and started programming when I was 12 and made a career in technology. I was on the Internet at the university before the general public even heard of the Internet. Yahoo had just come out back then. HTML was invented in 1993. I was 20 years old then. We were in the midst of it all.

 

"Latch-key kids" they called us! Now I won't even let my kids ride a bike w/o a helmet! LOL!

 

I'm an elder millennial (1982)... and reading the post you replied to made me feel like a sprightly Gen Zer.

My career is in technology as well, with a lot of early work in FPGA design and such. I couldn't be more opposite of NC211 in terms of adoption and desire to see tech grow, along with my personal usage of it. To each their own, but to say that these systems aren't preventing accidents and making roads safer just isn't true. We have to learn to adopt and trust.

 

I second this. My first MBish car was a Smart ForTwo without power steering. That was fun. I enjoy driving, too much so for my wife's liking (greatly to my tire shop's enjoyment, though), and I just bought an E350 Cabrio with very few fancy electronics (come on, no blind spot monitor???), but when I just go up I-95 to NYC, mostly at night, I quite enjoy letting the car do the work. Once you learn the quirks of the lane-keeping (if a new lane opens up while the car is following a bend in the road, it gets confused), it's very nice to let it do its thing. I once timed it and for the 300 mile trip along the fancier parts of the I-95 network (including NJTP) I touched the steering wheel for a grand total of just over 3 minutes, much of that on tighter/twistier parts around DC. The technology is great for that. And, I will say that it has greatly improved. The adaptive cruise for our 2015 GL is much slower to detect stopped traffic than our 2022 GLC, which seems to be looking further ahead (and, I think, has a higher threshold because of that).

 

Yeah to categorically dismiss this technology is somewhat ignorant. When I see sometimes what kind of stunts people pull out on the street these kinds of safety and assistance systems can be a boon. As human beings we have our limitations. Our reaction times for example are quite long compared to a computer and we only have two eyes pointing forward, so things like automatic emergency braking and side assist can give us additional eyes and precious reaction time that we may not otherwise have, and things like DISTRONIC and Active Steering can take over some of the driving tasks on long journeys to help with fatigue. Studies have actually shown that people using these systems are more aware of their surroundings because they don't have to concentrate on basic tasks.

My biggest issue with modern cars is that the software seems to have been written by inexperienced engineers in their 20s, so it's buggy, lacks attention to detail and implements features that don't really belong in a car. I mean when I see things like the fart app in Tesla, Netflix streaming or now Zoom in the latest E Class I have to wonder when did driving a car stop being about driving? Even rear entertainment systems. When did parents stop parenting and just keep their kids occupied with screens? I grew up without any rear entertainment system in my parent's cars and we were fine. We found other creative ways to entertain us and it has made us more resourceful human beings instead of expecting everything is gonna be fed to us on a spoon.

Technology as a tool to make us more efficient is good, but at some point in recent years we've jumped the shark when it comes to software in cars. Once we have fully self-driving cars then maybe all we gonna do is watch movies in our cars on the way to our destination like we do on planes now, but we are not there yet.

 

GIBLETS...thoses come with your Thanksgiving 🦃. 🤣🤣🤣

Why do you want to scratch them? Do they itch? 😳🤣

 

I personally think it started to really go downhill in 2014, and since then has gotten worse and worse in terms of build quality, style and above all else, interior design and materials. Of course they know exactly what they're doing. I'm sure that even the men and women on the assembly lines are thinking and wondering why everything has become so cheap, flimsy and not built to last.

 

My GLS63 was in the shop for extended period of time primarily for random OEM parts very hard to find and shipped slow boat to the States. I had a GL63 early first adopter back in '13 until my current '21 GLS63. Both custom ordered with all the bells. I got a little too comfortable and was disappointed with small things in the new GLS63 regarding some fit and finish and I HATE the slap on iPads across the dash. I would like at least a leather brow to frame and to look more finished and etc etc.

Over the last few months, I rented Range Rovers (best looking SUV in my opinion but the drive experience was average at best on the highway), Jeep Wagoneers (Looks bad but it drove very nicely), Teslas (cheap cheap fit and finish but bells and whistles fun to play with) , BMW X5 & X7 (X5 drove better than the X7 but BOTH very disappointing with fit and finish... cheap Merc but driving was more engaging as with most BMW's)

I FINALLY got back in to my 63 and it made me appreciate that it's a much better vehicle all around than the ones I rented. The drive, fit & finish, quiet, and the bells (still need to up their game in this regard but still pretty good). The drive is more isolated but that's Mercedes' signature.

Grass is not always greener over there.

 

And you can’t touch any 911 without facing significant ADM and a long wait, at least in the DC area.