The merger was definitely an error on Mercedes' part, and building
(perhaps designing as well) cars in the US for the European market was
a gross error in my view. The first M-Class had appalling fascia,
cheap and plastic-looking; it improved with the first "face-lift" and
the move of production to Graz in Austria, but my (face-lift) M-Class
had all sorts of niggling problems for the first 2 years of its life.
I needed the warranty for 20-odd visits to various garages in the
Netherlands and England ... for almost the full 3 years. I sold it
because I could see that repairs on top of a £300 annual service were
going to be prohibitively expensive (plus £200 every 2 years for
replacing front or back pads. If I felt that I could not rely on a
Merc, that meant to me that quality had really dropped. I also wanted
to get rid of my image as an SUV driver ... ;-)
But I believe that Mercedes has managed to drop its quality itself, it
did not need Chrysler's help.
Chris
On 12 Nov 2004, at 2:01, Larry wrote:
>
> It is possible that Mercedes has gone down in quality, but it would
> still be far
> better than Chrysler was. Maybe the Chrysler affinity has dragged
> Mercedes down.
> That would be sad.
>
> Larry
>
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
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