Today, my son pointed out how the last model of E55s had the body assembled in the main assembly plant for E class vehicles, but then that body was shipped to AMG for installation of the chassis and final inspection. Consequently, each vehicle got the careful AMG oversight.

With the W211s, all that is done at AMG at Afalterbach is the manufacturing of the engine. The rest of the car is assembled on the regular line in Sindelfingen, just like the standard 320's and 500's.

Is it possible that the E55 requires more care in manufacturing than Mercedes Benz's current assembly strategy allows in order to maintain the quality (which had become extremely high) that the W210s enjoyed?

 

I wouldn't exactly cal the 210's high quality. Just about every 210 will have a cracked dash and a bad MAF sooner or later. The window switches/relays are also screwy.....so I wouldn't exactly call them stellar in quality. Mercedes will also not back you up when the warranty expires. My dash is cracked on my E430 as well as my E55 in the exact same spots. I have never seen a dash look this bad in anything other than a 20 year old car left in the deserts of Arizona or California. Both have also needed new MAF sensors and they both failed within 5,000 miles of each other. Now, tell me that is a coincidence.

Mercedes has fallen to the back half of the pack with quality. They are not far from Hundai in quality right now. How does it feel to have a new Mercedes ranked below the likes of GM, Ford, and Subaru? Here is the JD Powers survey for 2003:

Porsche 193
Toyota 196
Honda 215
Nissan 258
BMW 262
General Motors 264
Subaru 266
Average 273
Ford 287
DaimlerChrysler 311
Mitsubishi 339
Hyundai 342
Isuzu 368
Volkswagen 378
Suzuki 403
Daewoo 421
Kia 509

 

Keep in mind that the ratings for DaimlerChrysler include Chrysler, so it's not a very meaningful comparison in my view.

 

Well said

 

If you look at the survey with the brands/nameplates broken out from the manufacturers, MB is still way down on the list, even worse (27th out of 37).

 

Yes it's true that the W210 E55 was the last of the AMGs to be hand built the old fashion way at the AMG factory. While I do believe some extra TLC is given in that process, I doubt it affects the overall vehicle to a huge degree. The problems that BlownV8 pointed out on the W210 E55 were common to the entire W210 line, and have nothing to do with the AMG mods. As a side note, I believe the cracked dash issue was mostly seen on pre-2000 E & CLK vehicles. MB changed the dash material for the 2000 year.

As AMG used to be an individual tuner, but has since been aquired by MB, it was only a matter of time before MB pushed them into a more cost effective process. A similar analogy existed at BMW. The old original E30 M3 was hand crafted at BMW Motorsport. But since then, the E36 and E46 M3s were built right on the normal BMW assembly lines.

 

I actually feel better that its built on the MB line. That way, there is less chance of it getting messed up being trasfered from the line, then to AMG then back.