ORK1

So what?
There always are some exeptions. Gates doesn't have to care about his reputation anymore
I've seen picture of reachest man in Russia (mr. Abramovich, owner of Chelsea (London) btw), on that pic he was wearing chinese quarz watch. Does it make it equal to Rolex?

pmb600

OMG THANK YOU!!!! I thought I was the only person who thought that. I was like f-Bangle, Maybach had it first.

pmb600

Why do people always start quoting what some ultra-rich person or celeb drives? Leonard Di Caprio drives only Toyota Priuises because he is very environmentally conscience. Does that mean we should all run out and buy one? I don't care what Bill Gates, Leonardo, rieger, or anyone drives. I love MB, and I love my MB. The engine could fall out tomorrow I would still love it.

Don't even get me started on the hybrid discussion...

Yacht Master

I checked your claim and sure enough you are right. Now show me a pic of him in that car. You may never find it. And I don't say Lexus sucks. They started out with the best copy of a Mercedes S class in the world. The Ls 400 and raised the bar down form there. Cheaper knock off, is it better? yes. Will it last as long? I am sure it will. The Lexus marque appeals to people that don't understand how they can produce a car like that so cheap. I personally try to avoid buying Japanese products, as I view Japans fishing fleet to be raping the worlds oceans. I won't go in to it.
Congrats on the 430 I have on too, a 99 26k mi and never had any problems.
If you ever get the chance to drive a E55 do so you may sell all your cars for one.

AsianML

LMAO!!!! If there are 1.3 million recalled, then doesn't that mean 1.3 million sold from 2003 and now? Why don't you ask those 1.3 million why they bought an E-Class?

Also, did you even bother to read the links I provided? Toyota recalled the mechanism that allows seat belts to be pulled so people can buckle up. Wouldn't you say that's a pretty important thing? They also recalled the CPS, and in the RX/Highlander some clips in the floor could cause the accelerator to become stuck in the floor.

AsianML

I absolutely hope to God rieger is not a lawyer.

For someone who likes to talk about facts, and showing them, he doesn't do much to look over what he gives us and look into it further to be an informed basher/disgruntled former owner.

Losiho

The point was raised because someone questioned if anyone famous drives a Lexus. And some time ago here in Oz, there was a doco on Gates, and yes, they did show him driving to work in his ES300

I'm not sure why people are using the "It's only a Toyota" line either - as a 5 time Benz owner, I could very easily bring out the "It''s only an overpriced German taxi cab" line for MB. Similarly, I could easily say Audis are only overpriced Volkswagens Does it really matter if people like the end result ? Anything else is just pointless snobbery.

And your damn right the first LS400 raised the bar for other lluxury vehicles.
And as I said, I'm rapt with my E430, but I can tell you right now with certainty that the quality of the interior plastics and leather, and general interior ambience, is nowhere near my Jag, or my other Lexus.

Regardless of who came up with the current S Class rear end (Bangle or Merc), the similarities remain, and both are butt ugly (pardon the pun).

Losiho

That's a crazy argument You're right, Japanese tuna fishing in the Pacific is a concern.....yet you and I both drive cars made in a country that had a well known and shocking reputation during the 1930s and 1940s. Are you going to sell you German car because of it ?

Yacht Master

Not really, The economy of japan is subsidized by their fishing fleet, that knows no bounds. And it is happening NOW, so the only thing I can do as a responsible world citizen is avoid sending them my money. As far as Germany in the 1930-1940 a little before my time, but again Japan was right there with the Germans, mute point. Germany in the last hundred years has tried to take over the world twice. Had to rebuild from ashes twice, and have recovered to become a member of the G-8. all this with out taking advantage of any other country or natural resource(oceans). Japan on the other hand continues to operate the largest fleet in the world that takes 18% of the global catch. And has no regard for fisheries management, AKA laws.
So the guy that put your Lexus together is eating YOUR fish from YOUR Great Barrier Reef.
Worth a quick look
http://www.smh.com.au/news/whale-wat...266591669.html

You will love the last line in the link above:
2007 the whalers will start hunting humpbacks which migrate along the Australian coast in winter, with a self-allocated quota of 50.

http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~pjbryant/.../archipel.html

02S430

i agree

rieger

Asian ML you should read your own **** that doesn't make any sense before you shoot your ignoramus mouth off. You admit MB has problems then you say that MB is not a POS because you have one that has no problems. So if you think when I say MB is a POS that I meant that every single car that MB makes is a lemon than you are a total idiot and don't understand the argument at all.
You tell me in what industry is there a person that has the very last say. Your arguments are ridiculous.
Never said Toyota doesn't have recalls moron but if you looked at the number of vehicles Toyota sells compared to MB then the ratio is significantly lower than MB's.

rieger

When a recall is issued, it means the company is admitting it's mistakes, and is trying to solve the problem. MB isn't giving us the cold shoulder or anything.

If you think MB was trying to solve the problem hence the recall then you are more naive then I thought. Usually it is caused by government agency investigating the problem and then pushing or telling the manufacturer to do so, or the threat of future lawsuits. They probably did the math on it and was cheaper for them to do the recall than to pay out class action lawsuits. They say that they came about this problem when they were checking high mileage taxicabs but there has been incidents with low mileage E-class and S-class W220 brakes failing due to all types of failures. So I don't believe for one minute that they never came across the problem earlier. So when this is brought to light they are forced to deal with it and not because they want to solve the problem. To solve the problem would to be put a whole new system in really. The SBC was not a well thought out product. Not only does it not work as well as the hydraulic systems it is also noisy.

AsianML

What, you mean having en early-2000 M-Class, of all the MB models, an M-Class that's been trouble free means nothing? There's always the exception to the rule, but having what is the most unreliable Mercedes model to date not break down is a pretty significant thing.

Could have fooled me. You came off pretty strongly here:
"That said the Benz's that have been produced after 2000 are total garbage."

What are you trying to say? Are you saying that I said the industry has an independent adjudicator? Please clarify if you wish.



Ouch! You know a once civil debate is going downhill when it resorts to name calling. Remember this?

I'll give the recalled cars : manufactured cars ratio thing. But hear this, there were that big a number recalled for SBC, etc. because during the production period of that particular model, they were using the same parts, for the same system. If they to recall one part, then they'd have to recall that one part on every single car they built and sold. Make sense?

Oh yeah, you can't blame Mercedes as a company and manufacturer entirely. You have to blame the companies that produce the parts too.

AsianML

Which is why it is discontinued.

I am not naive. The threat of lawsuits is something we go over every single day of the week in my Business Law class...you can thank the threat of lawsuits for most, if not all, of the decisions companies (and perhaps the government) make. Especially in sue happy America. If there's one thing Canada has that the U.S. doesn't, it's a better legal system in regards to civil law. The way I understand it, if you sue, and you lose, you pay the other party's legal fees.

AsianML

I've read some of your previous posts and found that your S430 was a 2001 and your E320 was a 2003.

First year vehicles...Well, except the S-Class which was sold in 1998.

rieger

" Ouch! You know a once civil debate is going downhill when it resorts to name calling. Remember this? "

Then do you remember this " Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. "
Abraham Lincoln
So basically you called me a fool here. And don't try to tell me this was not directed at me since I was the only one arguing at the time being before others joined on.
I did say I will defend myself and be happy to play along with name calling if others do so first. You went first I retaliate.

rieger

That is not what you initially insinuated. As a lawyer you are trying to take both sides of the argument. Is it recalled because you believe that MB is doing it because of them wanting to take care of their mistake or because they are being forced to take care of their mistake? I say the latter reason while you initially said the former now you believe in which one?

rieger

Yes those were first year cars but they were still having the problems up until the last update i believe which was 2005 or 2006 not sure which year was the update. And still not sure if it is really fixed or a band aid solution.

AsianML

I didn't call you a fool. Abe did, and he never lies.

AsianML

Facelift was 2003 and end of production for W220 was 2006.

AsianML

Why not both? There are certainly some issues where they are forced into correcting (recalls), but there are also minor things that they choose to voluntary correct (most often a TSB).

rieger

Could have fooled me. You came off pretty strongly here:
"That said the Benz's that have been produced after 2000 are total garbage."

I guess you need to get a handle on the english language. This is a figure of speech saying that in general MB's are not reliable and does not mean every single car produced is a lemon.

I mean if you want to take it that I mean every single car produced is a lemon than you go right ahead and argue on with yourself because that is not what I mean. If you want me to put it more accurately then here it is :
" MB has reliability problems "
See it is not me who wants to harp back at this point it is people like asianml who brings me back to defending this point. buy taking it out of context.

rieger

I agree that the TSB are MB initiated but we were talking about recalls which more often than not are not manufacturer initiated even though they say it is because when it comes to be Nhtsa initiated and stated as such it is very embarrassing to the manufacturer so usually the manufacturer is given a chance to initiate the recall first.

AsianML

Try improving your own English before you start preaching to me about it.

rieger

Neither do I dumbass.