I been hearing that there is a difference between a Pure German Made Benz vs. a Daimler-Chrysler made Benz. Can someone elaborate on this? Is there anything to be aware of?[;)]
After model year '98, Mercedes no longer offered 5 16" alloy wheels standard with the car. Instead, they gave you a temporary spare good for limited highway speeds. Mercedes started using the Smart key which can fail at times and prevent you from running the car(the infrared lens gets scratched or battery goes dead). Have to go to the dealer for that one where it could cost up to 200$!
Build quality has dropped off immensely, and parts sharing between Chrysler and Mercedes is happening.
One good example is the Crossfire. IT HAS MB'S OWN V6 IN IT AS WELL AS TRANSMISSION and MODIFIED dash and console equivalent to the SLK roadster! One of many Chrysler MB's to follow. I'll never forgive Mercedes for that. I'm sorry, but the old world Benz is gone.
It’s sad, really. I would think all the former Daimler-Benz (boy, I miss that!) executives are privately regretting their Faustian deal with Chrysler. Schrempp, when accused of trying to sell Chrysler, said:
"I will not rest until this company, this American paragon, has been restored to its rightful place - at the head of the industry."
He must have smoked a bad piece of crack that day![:0]
I don’t know how Chrysler is/was viewed outside of the US but here the company’s a joke: they made mini-vans, k cars and other front wheel drive crap.
I long for the day when Daimler gets rid of Chrysler and brings back Benz. It’s almost as if we own cars which are no longer made.
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1991 300 SE (w126.024/M103.981) 140,000 miles
Do you own a '98 or newer? My key is scratched to heck and it still works. And as for the battery going dead I REMOVED it and put a new one in for both the car AND the key! Car started up just fine???
As for "german" cars I thnk people forget the ML is assembled in Alabama and sedans are assembled in places like South Africa. And since Mercedes is **ONLY** a final assembly point for a bunch of supplier parts whose factory are you looking at anyway? Mercedes, Bosch, Behr, VDO, FrigidAire (older compressors) Sanden/Sankyo (newer ones), Glasurit, Continental.....
Pop quiz: It's late night and your key battery decides to go flat. Your outta town and not familiar where you are. Where do you go for a replacement battery? Will they be open?? Will they stock the battery size it needs?? Is there a workaround? Will you need to wait for roadside recovery?
Sounds like how MB has a fuel door activated by a vacumn hose in our 126s. Vacumn hose goes bad - how do u gas up to get back home?? Luckly, MB has the fuel door mechanism in the trunk - a good workaround unless your driving with the "spare"(read valet) key!!
These kind of MB overengineering of simplistic devices, I can EASILY do without. Hopefully some good ol *Chrysler* simplicity can filter into MB R&D!!
Hopefully some good ol *Chrysler* simplicity can filter into MB R&D!!
Let’s hope simplicity, not stupidity – and please none of those god-awful Chrysler designs like the LH platform [:0][xx(](which is a piece of junk, BTW) - Those guys at what was Chrysler weren’t the brightest people on earth. [:(]
seems to me that a good car is borne of 1) thoughtful design, 2) high-quality components, and 3) meticulous assembly. on a 1-10 scale, i'd say our w126 is probably a 10/8/10, which is why it's one of the (if not *the*) best all-around cars ever made. american cars from the same era have a reputation for being 5/5/5, though they were probably more like 6/7/4 (the "4" dragging down public perception along the way), and currently american cars are probably more like 8/7/7 though i'm sure many still think of them as 5/5/5.
bear with me here....
so, while american cars (i.e. dodge) have gone from around 6/7/4 in 1990 to 8/7/7 in 2000, mercedes seems to have gone from around 10/8/10 to 8/7/8, and the biggest difference now separating a dodge from a benz is the public's memory of the ways things were 10 years ago. that, plus fit-and-finish problems that are still more noticeable in most american cars and that (perhaps) unfairly drive down their perceived quality.
this closing of the gap between dodge and mercedes in the past 10 years has made it possible (not just on paper or in corporate theory, but actually, physically, and in a financially viable way) to make cars like the crossfire and 300C, which have a huge amount of mercedes parts in them as we all know.
so while it would have been impossible to stuff a 300E's engine and tranny inside a K-car (though it sure would have been funny), it's not impossible to build the crossfire. but i don't think mercedes has declined *because* it has partnered with dodge. or that dodge is better *because* of mercedes. i think the decline and improvement, respectively, happened before the merger, and the merger itself came along because the two companies were an okay match for each other. we'll see what the future holds. if daimlerchrysler is smart, it'll stratify its products intelligently, like toyota has. if it's not so smart, we'll get a lot more brand-confused cars with no clear identity or particular consumer appeal.
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