AshleyAlissa

Owners of the Mercedes S-Class now have yet another to reason to bask in the superiority of their premium luxury sedan. That's because the model took the highest honor in the latest J.D. Power APEAL study, earning the position of top-performing model by beating out both the Lexus LS and Porsche 911.

In short, Great Taste all of you S-Class owners.

http://www.emercedesbenz.com/Jun08/2...EAL_Study.html

JRAMGV8

Nice...

WSH

Agree that S-Class is world's best-engineered car today

But any of these JDPowers (or any other) surveys are statistically meaningless....and useless for any intelligent consumer or marketer

Reality of high-end marketing: most owners never bother wasting their time filling out surveys

In a Net era, savvy consumers can easily gain anecdotal, real-time sense of reliability/quality/driving impressions of any car from Boards like these, which tend to actively engage more sophisticated consumers than those who actually complete moronic surveys

Mfrs know exactly how well-built/reliable are their cars based upon their warranty repair costs/lemon buyback costs

Any semi-competent, tech-savvy marketer can evaluate repeat buying rates and review comments on relevant Boards to gain a sense of how owners view their cars, to better inform engineering teams in Germany about specific buyer preferences....would argue AMG's Private Lounge, esp the mthly Q&A sessions, is a more innovative, effective approach to understanding buyer preferences than any marketing effort of any other auto mfr today....

trumpet1

Thanks for posting Ashley. It's good to read that . It's a shame that all of this great news about the Sclass doesn't translate into less depreciation of our cars. Somehow Lexus and all of the Jap cars don't lose value as bad as the better engineered German makes.

pmb600

This is because the German brands have a very high percentage of sales as leases. The Japanese are consistently lower with much more purchases than leases. Having so many vehicles constantly coming off lease floods the market with pre-owned Mercedes, BMWs etc which lowers their values.

WSH

Trumpet, am not convinced any new luxury car has particularly good/differentiated trade-in value.....why would it?

Any car is a mass-produced, rapidly obsolescent tech commodity; and anyone who can afford a (discretionary) $100K+ car generally prefers a new car, unless given a rather substantial disct to take a used/decayed/obsolete car instead...and most buyers of used luxury cars tend to run out of buying power well below $100K (esp in today's economy and credit environment), thus the even more dismal trade-in values for $150K+ commuter cars....

I suspect many erroneously estimate trade-in values of various cars based upon meaningless anecdotes/poorly derived comparative data....

trumpet1

Yes, that's been a fact for many years.

Remind me, when are you getting your next car? I forgot. Aren't you waiting for a 2009 CL65 or 63? You passed on the SL didn't you?

WSH

Yeah, I've been astonished over yrs that there are guys who actually buy $100K+ used cars.....if I were short on funds, would rather earn/save more to get best new car I could afford, as opposed to any used car....but divergent views are what makes a mkt

After much debate/indecisiveness, I decided to get '09 CL65....apparently, soonest build I can get is Sept, so Oct deliv....there are a couple of car nuts (these guys actually make my car habit seem rather modest) ahead of me at my usual dealer, thus the delay.....I'm told some 20 '09 CL65s are being built for US in June-Aug, all to confirmed buyers, so my dealer can't obtain a sooner build for me......

Yes, passed on SL....so glad I did, esp after some extensive test drives....no doubt, SL63 030 is a great car, but I enjoy driving any S/CL600/63/65 far more than any SL.....one truly appreciates the level of tech, precision, safety and refinement in a S/CL after driving lesser cars like SLs.....

Needless to say, will be an agonizing wait for my CL65; like others on this Board, have had dozens of new MB/F/P, but a new CL still excites me more than any other car....but I still enjoy driving my current CL63 030 immensely, so the wait is a little less tortuous than if I were stuck driving any other car...

trumpet1

What color are you considering? That's going to be an awesome car.

WSH

Trumpet, I'm a curmudgeon....my 65's going to be silver/blk/cf (like my current CL)....

My usual spec for yrs was blk/blk, but in last 2-3 yrs, I've migrated to silver/blk/cf....I appreciate that blk/blk is an amazingly elegant, intimidating look, whether clean/dirty.....but my OCD nature has issues w/micro-swirls, which can even be seen on close inspection in MB's superb nanotech clearcoat...despite using high-end hand car washes to detail my cars....

Have seen a lot of interesting color combos (esp interesting plays of exterior color/interior color/deviated stitching/cf/color of CCM brake calipers), esp on cars of colleagues who get new, bespoke-spec F's every 6mos....but, to me, for a car (I'm a minimalist w/one car which I drive daily), clever color schemes make little sense....

Back when I "did my time" in Manhattan...when I'd actually wear ties to office every day (no one who matters wears a tie in CA/Greenwich), it would be fun on occasion to wear a green (or whatever) Charvet/Hermes tie, as opposed to the conventional red/blue, etc C/H ties which are part of the "working man's" uniform in Manhattan....problem w/daily commuter cars is that whimsical color schemes become boring/silly-looking rather quickly....I prefer more classic, tech-ethos colors for serious cars like S/CLs.....but to each his own....

trumpet1

GREAT DECISION!!! That is my favorite color combo. You are doing great. Can't wait to see pix when you get it. My first CL500 was silver/blk. Loved it!!!!!