Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: chrisri
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
If you expect the quality and reliability of a Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Subaru or Hyundai when you buy Mercedes you're going to be disappointed. What you get now with a Mercedes is a tarnished badge.
LOL, now you go out and rent the E class and compare that to ANYTHING Japanese. Don't get me wrong, I understand what you're saying: you have income that you have (as mine) and you simply do not wanna mess with higher (read more expensive) maintenance.
People with money SEE the DIFFERENCE.
Not sure what you're talking about as I drive an E class. It's fun to drive, there's lots of options and even some of the stuff that's standard is pretty nice. It's not made of of unicorn kisses, still made out of metal, plastics and glass so reliability isn't at the top of the list when they built it. Kinda annoying that pulleys and motor mounts go at relatively low mileage but all auto makers have their own set of quirks. Parts are probably a little bit more expensive, but it's not like you're buying parts every day, probably a few hundred more on an annual basis as long as it's not something like an engine or transmission. Then it's real expensive.
Gotta agree.
I still miss my E39 M5, I should never have parted with it. My annoyances were expense of replacement brakes and that you couldn't do U-joints, you needed a close to 3K driveshaft assembly, which is basically why I sold the car. In hindsight, I should have kept it, put it in the garage, skipped the Charger and bought the Jeep. Of course that wasn't my thought process at the time.
That car checked pretty much everything in the "right" boxes. It was a hoot to drive, the interior quality was phenomenal and all the "touch me" surfaces were extremely well thought out. Despite some quirks, BMW, and I assume Mercedes, really know how to build a car that feels "right". That fact I'm still lamenting about the bloody thing years and two vehicles later speaks volumes. It's the only car I regret getting rid of and I'll probably buy another one because of that.