Turbineguy

Howdy all,

Here's a link to a review I did recently of the 2012 ML350 BlueTEC. I spent a week with the car courtesy of Mercedes' press fleet and absolutely loved it - I'd hoped for snow to evaluate the awd system but no such luck. (the upside to global warming in CT?) I'd like to hear from ML350 ownwer and others familiar with the breed.

Will

http://www.examiner.com/hartford-car...e-breed-review

YYZ-E55

From the first sentence of your article:
"Mercedes' ML350 has been redesigned for 2012, while the engines are carryovers from the previous year."

The 350 gas is all new, the diesel had significant changes and is up in power and torque from the outgoing model. I stopped reading at that point for obvious reasons.

Turbineguy

Mea culpa. I used the term carrryover in the respect that both gas and diesel continue to be available, but clearly both engines have been upgraded from the previous year. Have another look.

ML12NYC

To be honest that sentence could be misleading. The use of “carryovers from the previous year” to me sounded as if the engines were not upgraded in retrospect of the rest of the truck. I would have stopped reading also.

Other than that it was a good review….

YYZ-E55

By the author's definition, the entire truck is "carryover". It's still a 4 door, rear hatch, unibody SUV with four wheels and an engine.

Ignorance on the part of automotive journalists is infuriating, as it not only does a disservice to the brand, but it imparts ideas/beliefs on readers who are not fortunate enough to be close to the product. In this case, anyone reading that article would immediately infer that the petrol V6 has not changed from 2011. The author received a detailed vehicle overview/change listing/equipment listing/pricing/etc. from MBUSA PR at the time of delivery; there is no excuse for the lack of clarity!

ML12NYC

Ok so I re-read the review. It's really not a review. Just a re-write. Besides the poor opening sentence the author did not provide his experience with the vehicle. How can you write a review on a truck that you tested and not write how you feel about it. Everything that was written can be read on the marketing brochure or other more informative reviews. It seems that the publication did not have an editor to review this article. If this was a class essay I would give this a D grade.

Turbineguy

I've gone ahead and made changes to the text so as not to frazzle any more nerves. FYI, the last paragraph did mention the diesel receiving a power boost over the previous year, but I guess you quit reading after the first sentence and missed it? Additionally, how do you know what press materials came with the car? Your assumption of any equipment changes from the previous model year being highlighted by M-B is incorrect.

GregW / Oregon

Any automotive journalist worth his salt would access the full press releases at media.daimler.com, which gives comparison details ad naseum. I agree with ML12NYC that this is not a review. How could you have a car for a week and not even put forth your own opinions?

Turbineguy

Your comment did not make sense to me until I went back to the review and found half a paragraph missing. Yikes. I'm not sure how that happened but the missing element has been put back in. Hopefully this raises my grade to a C at least.

YYZ-E55

I'm virtually certain that MBUSA gave you all the details pertaining to the W166 and how it differs from the W164. If they did not provide this info, shame on their PR admin. To Greg's point, if you subsequently didn't take the time to source such readily available info, then shame on you!

I apologize for the harsh tone, but these are easy facts to validate and auto manufacturers employee teams of PR people to support journos like yourself. You should leverage them in the future.

YYZ-E55

The petrol engine is a 3.5L direct injection.

Turbineguy

Oddly enough, this information was not provided by MB. By comparison, Audi did provide the model year differences for my Q7 TDI review, as did BMW for the X5 35d previous to that. I appreciate the constructive criticisms and I'll keep this in mind when I review the new S350 BlueTEC in April. (base ML engine changed to 3.5L in text)