Devh

The automotive journalists judgment is clouded by short term reliability and predicted long term reliability on a very subjective criteria which is to say it's better then the worst. It takes at least one or two cycles for a manufacture to gain a reputation. To equal Lexus reliability it will take a decade.
The Journalists have said something similar about the Audi and now look where they.

Lexus1998

I can tell you I have an early 2010 E350 and really didn't have any real issues. I mean it wasn't my daily beater like my GS that got 20K a year on it, but we still manged to put about 10K a year on it. That was mostly my wife who doesn't care about pot holes etc and nothing really major had occurred. We just changed the oil as scheduled and had to change 2 tires, we had one instance with Pano roof when it got locked up but I think it was because of the cold weather and water stuck in it from car wash. It was a solid car thought that had no rattles and I say compared to GS it was a bit more refined of a drive. However long term I don't know if it will hold up like a Lexus and if anything goes wrong I can only imagine the cost, they would even charge me to pick up the car for service were Lexus even though I didn't buy it from Lexus of Manhattan would pick up my car for service for free. I can tell you the service is not like Lexus that is for sure.

1WILLY1

iTrader: (9)

Most of the known troubled brands are good for the first 3-5 years, its the next phase where they crumble.

roadfrog

Exactly. 3 year leases are the norm for a BMW consumer. After that, they get CPO'd for another 2 or 3 and then they are someone else's SIGNIFICANT problem. No delaers in my area want a 5 year old BMW on their lot and will wholesale them to other suckers.

Devh

The Journalists only seem to focus on an owners nuisances when the car is under warranty.
They never seem to care about the long hull for the practically minded owner because they could care less about the reliability aspects and are only interested in the technology. Their readership is geared for the suckers that justify throwing money away.
There is also an obvious cultural bias since the time of marketing European cars by using celebrities after WW2 even though America built the best cars of that era.
If Asian cars were less then stellar on the reliability front would the journalists give them a free pass, I think not but they always seem to accommodate European cars for their misfortunes.

abracc

Sorry to resurrect an old thread...but I just moved from a 2011 E550 4Matic loaded to a 2012 LS460 AWD. Loved the feeling of power and responsiveness in the engine of the E550 compared to the LS. But when you have a check engine light appear once a month, the warning of "Airmatic Suspension Malfunction", an intermittent burning smell that can't be located, and the complete lack of feeling of control on 1/2 inch snow covered roads with new tires...led me to the LS.

Benz was a great running and driving car...the V8 in that car is magic. Not as many 'gizmos' as the LS...but more chance of them breaking and causing cascading failure then thousands of $$ of repair bills.

Anyway...just my two cents....questions, let me know

tbilisi79

MB and word value should not be in a same sentence. Ad Bmw to that as well.

Sister has a 14 e350 sport. But she leases it, and her company pays for it.

By design those cars are not meant to last long. That was the main reason I didn't get a s550 sport that I wanted so much.