kindafast

lol, at first I thought you were kidding.
the taxi versions are not the typical Mercedes Benz you see at the dealer. In fact I doubt you will find any E200 Diesels in US at all, except for maybe a few imports. Besides, it's good for business... Would a tourist get into a Mercedes taxi or a town car? Hmmm. Mercedes trucks have always been good. Unimog is the truck. I don't know what you are talking about, but it has excellent off-road capabilities and is capable in any type of terrain, from Tundra to the Desert, you will find it highly practical.

A guy I know (drives a Sentra SE-R) makes fun of my car because he saw Mercedes Taxis in Germany... jealous ricers lol.

What car do you drive tuscanraider?

Improviz

My guess would be a Huffy.

Yellow R1

Yes, but I bet it has streamers on the handlebars making it faster.

Come'on...the guy's avitar is from some Star Wars movie. His profile says he drives a "Bantha"

RedG

There is no 'one' person that could afford all of GM's assets, which is well in excess of $100,000,000,000.

RedG

And for reference this is actually the fastest caddiy: http://www.carforums.net/reviews/mak...Cadillac12.jpg

Yellow R1

A firm's asset value is not a function of market capitalization. Market cap is a value assigned by the open market to the NET worth of the company...considering all assets ($110B), liabilities ($170B), & what the market's prospects are for GM to turn a future profit. GM is saddled with extremely high laibilities (ie $10B/Qtr in pension plan overhead cost is an example) which offsets its assets.

There are MANY firms & people who not only could buy out the majority of outstanding shares to become the largest GM shareholder (thereby controlling the company) but could buy ALL outstanding shares (# of shares outstanding X share price on agiven day). A $2B market cap is, well salted peanuts.....correction, GM's market cap has declined another 15% ($300M) since my last posting putting it at $1.7B (now worth peanuts minus the salt).

In short, a firm's assets don't mean much if/when its liabilities exceed them.

tuscanraider

Nah i owned a MB, but it was a POS so i upgraded to Cadillac....

C280 Sport

Take care of it. They wont be around much longer.

C280 Sport

What gets me about this is why does this person waste so much time posting about Mercedes on a Mercedes site no less if they hate them and they currently dont even drive or own one.

Improviz

He's a tool and a troll, but for some reason the mods let him stay around. I wasn't exaggerating when I wrote that all he "contributes" here is juvenile garbage and flamebait; check his posts. I'm guessing mid teens at best. I mean, what adult would take the name of a Star Wars character as a posting handle?

If he owns a Caddy, rest assured it's a model.

Improviz

Exactly! I don't know why this place is such a magnet for teens with chips on their shoulders; maybe daddy got cut off in traffic by a Benz driver or something.

C280 Sport

Well the thing that gets me on many forum sites is when people go out buy a Mercedes and its the only one they have ever owned and they go "Its crap, it break" and so on. I asked one guy who was nocking Mercedes for about 20 post what did he buy. He goes to me a "1994 C280 with 200,000 miles" Well at age and miles something mayjor is bound to go wrong.

Improviz

True...and it's not as if Cadillac is one of the most stellar brands wrt reliability: according to the latest Consumer Reports data, the brand is ranked 31st out of 34, trailed only by Chrysler, Saturn, and Land Rover.

In the "Upscale Cars" category, the next-to-last and last-place finish honors went to the CTS (awd and rwd respectively), at 20% and 30% below average...and in the "Luxury Cars" category, the STS comes in dead last, with reliability more than 80% below average. And of course, the Escalade and SRX models are right there in the netherlands in their respective categories.

So not only is our teenaged friend a troll, he's a woefully ignorant troll.

C280 Sport

Its not only here. Its on other sites also. Another reason could be that maybe they where promised a Mercedes as a first car and got a Ford or something else and now they are enious of everyone else. Who knows?

Air Marshall Eldritch

What does that say about my avatar?

tuscanraider

Why would anyone envy a Mercedes?? Its not a Rolls... Anyone could own one!

C280 Sport

Any one could own a Rolls Royce. Its called lease or loans. How do you think we got into this current economic situation?

Improviz

I suspect that you're far more capable of answering that question than we are, son.

RedG

They are perfectly fine vehicles when cared for like any other, have you actually ever owned a domestic product from GM?

JG26_Irish

A valid question for the uninitiated. Its an AMG thing. If we have to explain it, your not going to understand anyway, lol

Go home, work hard, succeed and then go pay cash for an AMG, no lease, no finance and spend a few years catching up. Then come back and compare it to your caddy.

Until you have owned a car that was designed with few if any compromises and then built like an aircraft with every system designed and planned to be serviceable, rebuildable and maintainable, long term using only the best componentry that not only lasts longer but performs better, until that has set in it is really hard to talk about any MB, Porsche, etc. They are different. They are also tough as a tank. I once was T-boned in my Porsche by a Toyota on a major US highway. The impact spun me across the centerline crashing head-on into the side of an 18 wheeler. In most lesser cars, I would be dead. But in the light weight, small German supercar, I walked away with a tiny scratch across the top of my right thumb. We hit so hard that my radar detector broke thru the right window and was tossed 40 yards down the highway. Try that manuver in a CTS, lol.

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RedG

The thankfulness that your car was well engineered what makes you think GMs aren't safe or don't include the safety engineering that is included and very well regarded in every Saab (read: GM) vehicle on the road?

The 2008 CTS has (for references) very respectable crash worthiness.

http://www.automotive.com/2008/12/ca...sts/index.html

It should be noted that 1) crash test data could not be verified for the Porsche and 2) the test data speaks for itself.

Here is the closest Mercedes C-class for reference.
http://www.automotive.com/2008/12/ca...sts/index.html

Here is a video crash test of the 2008+ CTS
http://www.automotive.com/2008/12/ca...sts/index.html

Improviz

Yes. My first car was a Camaro, also had a Trans Am (shaker scoop, 6.6L motor, nice car) a Corvette, and a Grand Prix in my pre-German phase.

I also test drove a new CTS last year, and was very impressed. But it isn't in the same league as my CLS (nor should it be, at less than half the price point).

But neither of these change the fact that in consumer surveys, Cadillac is at or near the bottom in reliability. Nor does it change the fact that tuscanraider is an ignorant troll, who made a false, ignorant argument about Mercedes engineering, which is why I raised the point in the first place.

RedG

They all have their flaws and it is disingenuous not to acknowledge that they all do. Germans have great difficulty in electronics, and many commonly have electrical gremlins that elude even top level technicians. I've know many a diagnostic technician that cringes when a benz (bmw, or audi) enters the shop just simply because they are so electrically convoluted.

In any case, for the comparable price point the C-Class definitely has a run for its money, I'd say (being that I've been in both) the CTS interior is top notch in comparison to a C-class. The STS and E-class switch places. The CLS, S, SL, CL are just too far polished for the current breed of Cadillacs. Though like you already state, for the many thousands more that those Mercedes command it is obvious where the quality is able to go.

That being said, the all-new 2010 Buick Lacrosse is fantastic all around vehicle and will give all competitors a very stiff competitor in the next year.

tuscanraider

I guess it depends on where you live. Maybe where he's from people look twice at his car. Here in NJ they're all over the place, AMG, ///M, etc....nobody cares....high-school kids are driving M3's....if the car makes him feel special or privileged, that's cool....

Improviz

Excuse me? I don't recall arguing that they don't, so please don't put words in my typewriter. In fact, I have raised Mercedes' reliability issues before, repeatedly, in these forums. But that hardly disproves that Cadillac's is worse.

Fine, but irrelavent to the point being made. Again: I was responding to a ridiculous claim by a specific troll, namely that Benz engineers suck, and Cadillac's are better. The quality of Benz cars across the model line has made leaps and bounds of improvement over the last few years, while Cadillac's has not (although other GM products have, but we are talking about Caddy specifically here).

I agree that the CTS interior is far better (imo) than the new C Class, but this has nothing to do with my point, namely reliability. Please stop debating me about points I haven't raised.

The CTS is a fantastic car for the money, and the proof is in the sales figures: I've seen more Caddies on the road the last few years than ever...but they need keep these customers, and that's where reliability, which leads to higher resale, which along with the lower hassle of fewer repairs, is what keeps customers loyal and returning. Hopefully, they (and others) have gotten the message and are addressing this, but come on: they've had 20-30 years now to address these issues while Toyota et al were whittling away at their market share. Good QC isn't that difficult; you've just got to commit, and fully commit.

GM has definitely (albeit very possibly too late, but hopefully not) finally come to the brilliant conclusion that interiors and exteriors matter, and are producing some fantastic cars (CTS being one, except unfortunately for the repair rate), but again, my point of contention with the star wars kid is his fanciful claim about engineering. Given a few years, Caddy may get there in terms of quality, and when they do I'll definitely be giving them a serious look (as mentioned, I did test drive a CTS, and was quite impressed, before getting the CLS) but they ain't there yet.