Over the past few years, I've owned 11 Mercedes and to be honest, they met all expectations. My favorites were my GLE63 and CL600. I've had them all from CLA's to S-classes.

Anyway, I bought my last Mercedes and by the end of this year, no more Mercedes will be in our garages. It's not because of the cars but the folks ruining the brand. It started with the outrageous market adjustments. Then the prescription services which makes zero sense as you paid for the options when you bought the car.

I can afford the market adjustments, inflated service department costs, and prescription services. It's just one of the most if not most profitable car companies sticking it to it's customers. Goodbye Mercedes. Maybe I'll be back after a new management crew comes to their senses.

 

What's in store for the future as a replacement in your garage?

 

um I honestly don't know what to say, you came to the new members check in sub-forum to say goodbye to Mercedes, that means you are saying goodbye to mbworld as well ?

I mean, this sub-forum is meant to be used for new members joining mbworld and/or Mercedes.

 

Yeah, a bit odd to make this post in the New Member section. Also, since when does Mercedes offer prescription services? They are not a pharmacy. I'm guessing you mean subscription services. Look, this has been discussed before. When you bought the car, you didn't pay for the operating costs of a server farm at a data center and the developer staff to maintain the infrastructure. These are ongoing costs. Just like the purchase of the car didn't include the fuel you need to pay for in order to drive the car. I know Google etc. offer many of the same online services for what seems free, however, none of them are free. You pay for them with your data and being targeted with ads. There is no free lunch, or do you prefer ads popping up in your instrument cluster while you are driving? Everything has a cost associated with it and you pay it one way or the other. The Mercedes me subscription services are free for 1 year, so that's what you pay for when buying the car. It used to be 3 years, which is what I got with my 2019, so that's what was included in the price of the car, but I didn't pay for continuing to use the services after three years. As said, there are operating costs involved with running online services. It's called the cloud, but that doesn't mean this stuff runs in heaven for free. Your mobile phone requires a monthly service plan as well in order to be useful. That wasn't included in the price of the phone, either.

I do get your general sentiment about Mercedes, though. The current management has embarked on a strategy that seems to be failing. Profits are cratering. Q3 profits declined by something like 61% year over year. Not as bad as Audi's 91% drop in profits. Make no mistake, these companies aren't as profitable anymore as they once were. They try to keep a straight face, but the entire car industry is panicking. Mercedes just announced that they need to cut billions of dollars to make up for the declining profits and their misjudged strategy of focusing on higher end models with higher margins mostly for the rich. Turns out the rich are also not that hot on Mercedes-Benz cars. Once you get into the price territories that MB and AMG seems to think they can charge with recent models, there are other options out there.

The other issue is that emissions regulations are increasingly leading to stupid cars that weigh a ton and have very complicated powertrains that nobody wants to really own outside of the factory warranty. I get that this is not necessarily what they want to build, but rather they are being forced into this stuff. But that's not to say that there aren't better approaches. The E Performance tech that AMG is now forcing down their customer's throats is just kinda insane. Adds way too much weight and it's super complicated with two transmissions. For comparison, Porsche's hybrid tech in the new 911 GTS T-Hybrid is actually awesome and only adds about 100 lbs while reducing the complexity of the engine instead of just adding even more complexity.

 

If you have refilled your Fukitol 1000 mg prescription you'd still be a happily driving a Mercedes. That's where you went wrong.

 

but a subscription to allow heated seats to work is NUTZ!.

Subscription for software maybe but hell normally the car's computers & Cell phone tech becomes obsolete every 5 years - And they like that since it is finally a way to get PLANNED OBSOLENSE of cars and get those who hold on to vehicles for long time to get back to dealer to buy new car since they lost their heated seats ?

Cars today are just large rolling laptops and they changed the color of the BLUE SCREEN of death to a check engine light.

Working on the latest cars crazy due to everything computer controlled and techs cannot keep up with the changes nor the technology.
You need a computer/controls networking engineers to fix cars problems but dealership service tech pay is just above a McDonold's fry cook in some states
hence the reason they push the "SIMPLE" A & B services.

I read yesterday the world throws out over 13,000,000 cell phones a day to the dump.
Same thing is happening to cars - they want them throw away so you buy more and more often

 

Ya thankfully that backfired and they no longer charge a subscription to heat seats.

There are things that shouldn't be a subscription in the first place, for example Toyota (from what I heard) used to have the remote start built in the key fob now it is only through an app or through a subscription.

Mercedes laughs when you mention remote start on the key fob so at least they didn't taken anything away. I understand Europe doesn't allow remote start so European makers will use that as an excuse to not offer it.

However, it is legal in USA and MB shouldn't have an excuse when competitors like bmw has it on the key fob, although bmw was also the one who charged a subscription for heated seats so there is that.

MB joined the bandwagon with charging acceleration increase for EVs and 10 degree steering enabled through software if it got 4.5

 

The thing about those smartphones is due to owner neglect and of course as you mentioned planned obsolesce. I guess the majority of the thrown smartphones could be those who have a cracked screen (again, owner's neglect or maybe we can blame the manufacturer for making the devices so delicate and it is cheaper to replace the phone than the screen, apparently). When it comes to consumer electronics, the most obvious example would be a printer cheaper than toner.

 

but... OP... what will you get if it wasn't MB? I mean, I don't see good options out there.

 

Mercedes needs to launch a Jaguar style marketing campaign.

 

Didn't people say they thought that ad meant something wrong with Jaguar?

 

Bill - with all due respect. The fact that you can afford the cars...and stay in the "Chicago Suburbs" causes me to question your mental and emotional state.......(Plus, if you have to deal with MotorWerks in Barrington, well, I feel for you.

 

I think you might be a bit hard pressed to find a car company that isn't doing something skeezy these days. Old products from companies that have gone astray don't bother me. I currently own a 2016 Miata and have been thinking for a while now that it might just be the newest car I ever own moving forward. Current bafoonery from Mercedes, Jaguar, BMW, et al does not really impact their legacy and certainly doesn't impact the cars that have long since been out of production.

 

Well, I've been thinking hard this holiday and I've finally come up with a solution to the problem of EVs depreciating so fast. Just buy an EV from a company whose ICE vehicles depreciate even faster. So I've decided to trade-in my Mercedes EQE SUV for a Maserati Grecale Folgore. Problem solved!

I didn't say it was a GOOD solution.

 

Now that is what I call acceleration... I mean accelerated depreciation.

 

The Grecale Folgore is a bad choice in many ways but everything else in EV land is just so fookin' boooooooring -- and I'm not paying Biden's 100% tariff on a Lotus Eletre -- so Maserati it is! Bye bye EQE 500 SUV! I'm going to miss the 10 degrees of rear steer though. Really helps with zigging and zagging maneuvers at Walmart.

 

Yes I understand, saw your comments on this vehicle in the other thread. Maserati is at least something different for sure and life is too short, might as well try different things : )

 

I dunno if life's too short but I'm sure I don't want to be caught dead in an ugly car. The Maserati's got manly good looks. I'm not driving a pansy mobile. or whatever Jaguar is calling their new gen EV.

 

For what it is worth, people compared the Grecale to a Ford Puma when it first came out... So there's that...https://cdn.snsimg.carview.co.jp/min...t=57174da35e3e

 

Yeah, the front is my least favorite viewing angle. I think they were trying to make it Posche-911-frog-eye-ish looking. It's grown on me a little anyways, which is usually a good sign. Just wish I could get one in a nice color without paying $16K extra. That's seems like way too much for a car that only costs 100K. So the free "bianco astro" (shown above) will be just fine I guess.

I'm really looking forward to the ship with the next batch of them from Italy showing up. Should be any day now according to the importer's sales guy. Then I'm afraid it'll be my time to say bye bye to Mercedes too. :cry:

 

I think the interior is pretty nice though, different to other FCA products.

The frog eye look also is from Mini-ish.

 

I never made an intro post so don't feel bad about hijacking this thread.

Looking at pics here of old MBs makes me wish I had gotten to know the brand sooner. Both the exterior styling and interior build quality seemed superior in the olden days. And I probably would have enjoyed wrenching on a V12. I have to admit though that I'm looking forward to getting rid of this EQE SUV almost as much as I'm looking forward to getting a new Maserati. The style just never grew on me and the interior creaks and rattles are getting worse. Love driving it but build quality sux.


Good bye Mercedes! Hello even more depreciation!!

 

Are you sure a FCA product will have better build quality?

 

I dunno about build quality but at least James Bond can still drive one without gender reassignment surgery.

Might as well completely derail this train:

 

Why don't y'all just...stick with ICE powered vehicles?