Quote:
Originally Posted by alester young
Not all German cars were quality -does anyone else recall the Mercedes build quality problems of the early to mid 2000s? $120,000 cars that rusted in 3 years. There was then the truly dreadful original A-Class, many of which were beyond economic repair after 4 years (if they hadn't hit an elk beforehand). UK scrapyards were full of them, junk well before their time. VW also had a torrid time around 2000 with Golf and Passat -the contemporary/ comparable blue oval offerings were much more reliable.
The elegance is very often uber bland. It makes me want to go out and buy a late 1950s Imperial or 1970s Lincoln just to have something that isn't conformist and in "ghastly good taste". Lipstick edition? I don't know if I would go quite that far....
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I worked for German car manufacturer's research & development department for years and I remember the mentioned Mercedes -saga quite well.
Mercedes merged with Chrysler around 2000. Mercedes needed a partner at that time and they believed that their American partner will bring in business know-how, better knowledge of North American market etc.
But Chrysler wanted to make cars with components with calculated lifespan and their "money making" idea was to sell mainly "lease & dump" vehicles.
Test drivers told me that the quality went down the day when the first Mercedes/Chrysler cars came out of assembly line. Everything was suddenly cheap, plastic and the vehicles felt disposable and unreliable. Dashboard knobs came off, sunroofs got jammed, previously metallic internal transmission parts were now plastic; the list was long. This was a dark period for Mercedes and the consumers who had their first experiences with MB got scarred for life.
Chrysler's ideology and work ethics didn't match Mercedes', which was that making reliable vehicles with long lifespan will create a loyal customer base, and it will pay off in long term.
Mercedes got rid of Chrysler around 04', but since many of the vehicle components are pre-ordered from suppliers sometimes months or even years before, some of the crappy Chrysler parts were installed in vehicles manufactured after the partnership ended.
Mercedes has solved their quality issues but they still share Sprinter project with Chrysler and probably something else too. (Sprinter does have a decent reputation.) Also, in my personal opinion, the current low-priced, entry-level Mercedes CLA reminds me too much of those early 2000 Chrysler/MB products.