Ode to German Engineering!

I don't mean to turn this political, but has anyone considered, that it is damned near impossible to comply with all the regulations...emissions, mileage, 'safety' ad infinitum...and still build a reliable vehicle at a price point that consumers can tolerate. I would not be too hard on the auto makers...force your officials to eliminate or at least reduce the burden of opressive regulation...you will see better and more reliable cars, almost over night.

 

That's true today but wasn't 20 years ago. There was a day when Benz's were bank vaults and truly "over-engineered". Those days went bye-bye when MB merged with Chrysler, but profits soared, and even though they've now split, the bean counters aren't going back to the way things were.

 

WOW timing is everything. I came upon this thread this morning (post 25). My sister had a strange noise coming out of her leased X5-she brought it to the dealer today and they told her it needs a NEW DRIVETRAIN!!!???? Wow, this after they had to fix a series of oil leaks....BTW, she had an ML that was filled with problems. Her MDX and Lexus truck were bullet-proof when she leased them. To add insult to injury she needs the three rows for kids and dealer only gave her a 3-series sedan...f up the customer service in addition to the car....

EDIT-truck has 23K miles on it....

 

I guess the MB isn't trail rated??? j/k j/k j/k

I'd like to comment on the tilt wheel issue though. Many people (mainly large short people) tend to use the steering wheel to help them get in/out of the car. With time this breaks the steering column since it wasn't designed to be used as a leverage point to get into a car/suv/truck.

 

On my 2003 Audi RS6...

2x Total replacement of the DRC suspension
1x Torque converter
2x Front suspension control links

In 60k miles.

Frankly, the Ingolstadt engineers ought to be embarrassed.

That said, cars these days are so jam-packed with so many things, that it's virtually impossible for something to not go wrong.

But, going back to German reliability. Or is it durability. Or is it longevity. Everyone knows that their products were well-designed and well-built once. Now, pretty much everyone is building cars virtually the same way. Different grades and materials, but essentially everyone is doing the same stuff. Hard to be head and shoulders above anyone in that game.

CW

 

Ode to german engineering.

This must be it

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2rMEzVJPCM[/ame]

 

for the amount of headache i got from my merc ... and from the a**hole dealers, i will NEVER buy a 3-pointer again ...

just LOVE my m5 tho ... a no contest ...

 

Bad luck, my dad had a Lexus LS that was a lemon. Was in the shop over 12 times. Traded in on a S500 that has been bulletproof. My daily drivers are an SL500 and my wife drives a 5 series. All good so far...knock on wood

 

Engine cover at 1:51 looks very current, so my take away is you need to properly restore a late model Mercedes to get it to work properly...

 

i was looking to buy my mom and dad a newer merc,,but now i'm going to look at a normal cadillac

 

My new BMW E10 is doing great.

http://www.only02.com/1970-BMW-2002-Nevada-_df_40.html

 

Jürgen E. Schrempp und der shareholder value lassen grüßen!

We finally got rid of him!

I hope present C- and E-Class will show the same results as our old W124 260E in the long run. Almost 20 years and 250.000 km. No major problems.

 

Of course it looks current. The company throw new engines in old cars. That's the point of it

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEcPmgAUMp0[/ame]


http://www.mechatronik.de/

 

Not my cup of tee...

 

No worries about that

 

At ~ 25,000 miles, my 2010 Audi S5 Cabriolet is doing just fine so far