cino

iTrader: (1)

Germans normally engineer something very overly complicated than Japaneses (or Americans YES), that's why there are more stuff fail and break in German cars. As they begin to become multi cultural companies, the way they engineer stuff will be simpler. At least that's what I hope.

MikeFoxx

iTrader: (8)

That damnn voice... no way could I get stuck at a bar next to that guy lol.

Our Mercedes E-Class was great. Repairs were more but within reason till the air suspension when out on on corner. Next thing I new it was like the car knew my paydays and would literally have some kinda issue every 2 to 4 weeks for about 5 months. Got rid of it soon after. The look great and ride like a high end car should.... but I don't miss the last 6 months of ownership. I still think that Merc, Audi, BMW are sexy looking cars but if anyone is complaining about costs then realistically we may be shooting higher than we can truly afford. Some have it some dont. 5k in the last months of ownership on repairs... I didn't want it

My issues didn't start till about the 140k mark... prior to that no issues at all. Leasing new would be the best option if you don't drive a lot. Otherwise... Stay on track with your Lexus oil changes and keep smiling ^_^

Overall it wasn't much on repairs if you consider how long we had it... but I just had that uneasy feeling like the problems were just getting started.

MattyG

It's not only MB cars that are a hot mess.

My theory is that German manufacturers tend to use their customer base as quality control groups, especially during the first year or two of a car's introduction.

And they also know they have a very loyal group of fans and badge snobs who read car mags, online reviews etc. so they'll always have strong sales. And the auto press readily beats the drum for them at the drop of a hat.

For such expensive cars, their problems can often be mundane but yet very costly for off-warranty owners; things that other manufacturers solved a long time ago.

Plastic impellers on electrically-driven water pumps failing at relatively low mileages.

Biodegradeable radiators and coolant expansion reservoirs.

High pressure fuel pump failures, turbo wastegate issues due to poor design.

Sunroof and window motor failures.

Engine oil consumption/burning.

MB in particular seems to have a lot of problems with suspension/braking/hydraulic failures (but these are pretty advanced systems, so that's expected).

The Japanese and now the Koreans seem to take a longer view and assume you're going to keep the car for a decade or more. The Germans expect you to dump it and buy another one within the warranty period.

Over the years, whenever I've been tempted by the lure of buying a German car; I'll look at CR, JD Power and even some European articles along with Car Survey and Edmunds consumer reviews. The result each time is that German cars like MB simply do not fare well.

JiBBeL

iTrader: (2)

I drank the kool-aid for a long time. But at some point, our bullet-proof GS430 and RX300 had both traveled well north of 100k miles and over 10 years old.

Oh, the RX front window rolled down and wont roll back up... $600 in parts
Uh oh, GS is ready for its THIRD set of lower ball joints
Shoot, new LBJ's didn't fix it... guess we need new UCA's too!
Dang, now the backlighting in the radio LCD screen doesn't work... guess I'll live with that
RX has a clunk in the rear suspension... replaced everything. Still fubar. There's a grand down the drain
New door lock actuators all around! They're only $250 a pop, what a steal

This is all I can remember from just the last two months of ownership. The full list of crap that went wrong is about 4 times bigger from the last 2 years. Shocking, was that our local Lexus dealership had prices about 15% higher than MSRP. Sure, when Sewell was around I could just order from there... but they shut that down huh. I even did all the labor myself to save some bucks. Even still, our perfect little toyota's were both costing me THOUSANDS per year in parts alone. If I couldn't turn a wrench, you could easily expect to double that cost for dealership labor.

What really sucks is that these kinds of issues can be common across practically every model/year. But when yall get onto a German-bashing thread dump... is anybody bringing up the $250 door lock actuators to fix a $5 RC car motor?!

I get it, we're on ClubLexus, expect a little bias. But at least for me, I finally figured if I'm gonna be droppin big money on car parts anyway, I think I'd rather spend it on a German car instead of a Toyota. Parts/Labor aren't a penny cheaper on the Lexus. Reliability is exaggerated. And be honest, you dont get the same cache in a Lexus as you do in a German Lux, do ya?

/rant

MattyG

Yes the GS models are known for eating ball joints. Some of your ownership experiences, as anecdotal as they are, are also unusual (thousands? really?). The statistics favor Lexus overall in terms of the likelyhood of problems during ownership.

You want to see biased forums? Go and check out the BMW and Mercedes forums and what they sometimes say about Lexus: glorified Toyotas with extra wood and leather. Soul-less, boring appliances. Not a real luxury brand - something wannabes buy because they can't afford a German brand etc.

I criticize and knock my GS at times too for its styling and handling shortcomings and I've owned a Scirocco and two Rabbits back when VW was a pretty solid and reliable brand. Parts and labor on a Lexus may be just as much as a Merc but believe you me, it's the Merc that's gonna spend more time in the shop than the Lexus.

It looks like you favor cachet so obviously you have the bank balance to buy some of it. Different strokes for different folks.

Allen K

iTrader: (4)

Cleaned up this thread. Let's avoid the one liners. If you disagree with someone's post, state your reasons clearly

I8ABMR

my brother E550 is always having stupid air suspension issues. Thankfully its under warranty.......for now. I told him he better dump that POS before the warranty is up

nipponbird

Maybe a perception, but not really the case. They are ahead in the engineering field, therefore their products are a bit of a culture shock outside Germany. I've been a couple of times to the Stuttgart MB factory and it is from a another planet. To me it was their silence of their role in weapons manufacturing in WWii, that was rather a bit nauseating. They maintain they were forced to do it, which is a blatant lie.

Stormwind

I believe them. When a dictator tells you to do something you say no you be looking at a firing squad.

nipponbird

We're off-topic, but no, they submitted tenders for contracts quite feverishly and did their best to outbid BMW, Krupp and what not.
Back to the present and I would say all motoring manufacturers, BM included, biggest problem is that they don't test there cars as well as Toyota (and of course Lexus), before releasing it on the market.

I8ABMR

shouting aside its a god video.

cino

iTrader: (1)

They have so many holidays in Europe, I'm sure they don't have time for testing.

user420

Man, I couldn't have put it any better. My previous 02' E 320 really got expensive after the 150K miles mark. Really weird things like the headliner falling, window motors failing, instrument cluster misaligned, and repeated fog light failures. Those items were expensive to correct and coupled with some engine, sensor, and electrical issues it became too much to justify continued ownership.

natman

We used to say that German auto parts were made from melted Deutschmarks.

These days that's no longer true.

Now they're made from melted Euros.

T0ked

iTrader: (2)

More expensive cars are more expensive to maintain. It's not that surprising. My SC300 after 120k mark was going through parts pretty frequently. The whole brake rotor lip thing is not just a MB thing. I know of no car that has a pad that covers the entire rotor. It's safer to have a ridge on the rotor than the pad. Cheaper cars have the auto down windows now, too. Those recessed lugs.. really? Correct tool for the correct part, as a mechanic he should know that. Over all, the video comes across as someone who doesn't like European cars and is comfortable only with 1980s American and Japanese motors. The things he chooses to complain about don't make sense aside from all the computer controls. Guess he'll complain about Ferraris and why you should never get one cause maintenance and tuneups cost an arm and a leg...