Talk about a "feeling", I'd like a more powerful engine too, but how would you really "feel" if you had some of the problems of the people on lemonmb.com. That stuff is really amazing to me. Brand new 60,70, 80 thousand dollar cars in the shop ! I would be PISSED, I would literally be ready to fight somebody. You have to take the pros with the cons on anything and overall, it's way better to have to mod your car than to have to have it constantly in the shop getting worked on. There is no way I would buy a Mercedes unless I could buy two of them and just didn't care about the money. It's too much of a risk.

 

Yes, we have the right to expect a much higher level of quality & reliability than what MB cars are offering now for $60K plus. But for a weekend toy that won't be relied upon for daily transport, I won't mind getting one of the powerful AMG's or V12's that Lexus are not offering now. We have no choice but to go to MB or BMW.

 

Mercedes used to be known for quality paint, but now, it's hard to find a MB without orange peel.

 

Reliability is only an issue if you don't have it. Merc reliability issues are not new and have been trending the wrong way. The only other issue I would make is to separate out the pricing issue. Both bimmer and merc are pushing pretty hard on the value side. Starting to hear people say merc/bimmer just are not worth it. When you combine bimmers bangles, well I guess that is why there are a lot of 5s to be had on the lots. Instead of just insulting Japanese cars both need to spend a bit more time trying to learn from Toyota who builds reliability in regardless of price point.

E55 has pretty good power but on the track it just doesn't come close to the responses of the M5. Had someone tell me that the E500 actually is a better handler than the E55. Last fall, I thought the M5 developed an electrical gremlin that put it on the trailer but a mechanic said it was more than that, probably in the fuel delivery system. The E55 earned its trailer ride after blowing up.

 

Mercedes and Volvo, in spite of poor quality control and an increasing defect rate, have led the industry in crash safety for years and still do by a good margin. I think Mercedes' main problem is that it is spending so much time and money putting tremendous amounts of horsepower in their cars (some of their upper level AMG products push 600-plus horsepower and upwards of 700 ft-lbs. of torque) and electronic wonder-wizards to control everything from brakes to cruise control distance that they are seriously neglecting other parts of the machine; so what you have are cars that are safety and drag-strip wonder machines but are plagued with numerous annoying things like glove box doors that fall off, gaskets that leak, trim that comes unglued, shift levers that don't work right, premature rattles and squeaks, etc.....

 

I must also admit mb quality has going down. But everytime I see a mbAMG my bottom lip drop. Those cars are insane.

 

yes, the AMG cars are amazing. Now if Toyota can get TRD off their butt or have a third party like Tom's come into the Lexus picture...

 

Mercedes-Benz used to stand for something 10,20,30 years ago. My father owned numerous Mercedes-Benz Vehicles from the late 70s to late 80s and still have his Porsche built 1992 500E, one of the finest peices of engineering every produced by Mercedes-Benz. Not only is this car reliable but well advanced for its time and has the quality to make it work right. Never had this car had 1 problem. It now has 200,000 miles. Perfect MB in my book.

Sad to say after the W220 S class was introduced in 2000, MB has an astoninishgly large amount of problems in there vehicles. I hate to say it but they are truely laughable pieces of crap. Trust me when I say that they are not worth your hard earned money anymore, Even AMGs. You just put yourself throught so much crap, and frankly it is not worth it. My collegue's SL55 AMG that he just bought has been in the shop 5 times, a few times on the highway the car just stopped and roadside had to come. Needless to say he is furious and livid about this. Its truly sad, such a beautiful car, reduced to below average standards.

 

my buddy who ones a local import shop recently bought an e500 for him and his family. now, he's a diehard import guy, but wanted some prestige. i went in one day for some mods to do to my ls, and inquired about his mb. much to my dismary, he hated the car, and was so glad he got an extended warranty. but even with it, he couldn't believe he spent 70k+ big ones on a car, to have his windows literally fall off the vehicle! he looked at my ls and blurted to the affect he shoulda got a lexus instead....but this will be his last time, and he's not sure how long his tenure with the car will be....

 

I can understand your fascination with the AMG horsepower figures, but I think you guys pushing Mercedes just aren't listening. You got a whole bunch of posts here on the forum (and others) warning about the perils of actually owning one. These guys aren't just posting this stuff just to be pushing buttons on a keyboard. They mean exactly what they say.....and they're doing you a favor. These cars have real problems, and a lot of guys "pushing" Mercedes end up doing just that.....PUSHING them....literally.

 

When one is in a financial position to purchase a high powered car like an AMG, M or a Ferrari not for practical purpose but as a toy, reliability is not the top priority, horse power & panache are more important. You probably will never buy a Ferrari even if you can easily afford it if reliability is a concern,since they are known to be very temperamental, and their interior is not nearly as well put together as a Lexus. But yet they are still very sought after despite their prohibitive prices.
Toyota's own market research has indicated that Lexus owners that can afford these cars went to MB & BMW because Lexus have nothing similar available for them, and thus they have recently announce they will build high performance versions to compete with the AMG's & M's.
Speaking for myself, my above post is not so much pushing Mercedes than to keep the pressure on Lexus to make sure they know that if they don't deliver on their promise, even loyal Lexus owners that are in the market for these cars will switch to other brands since they have no choice.

 

Well, OK...I guess that's what these forums are for....to dicuss car topics and sometimes disagree on them.

Good luck.

 

Could you point us to where this comes from? The last numbers I remember on worldwide sales volume for bimmer was that around 2.5% of their sales was M's and MB sold about 1% of AMGs (with about 40% of those going to NA). I doubt those sales volumes get Lexus particularly interested.

I have no doubt that a Lexus owner who was looking for M or AMG specs and had the money, bought one of those because, as you say, Lexus doesn't make anything that competes. Was this really a big surprise to anyone? But I think it is getting evident that Lexus is more interested in keeping the mainstream Lexus customer than going after M or AMG customer. It's the mainstream sales where Lexus has made its mark and while they play around with things like the IS430, it doesn't seem like it represents a concerted effort by Lexus to go after M and AMG.

 

See link : http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=03048241

 

It's a waste of reasources for an ordinary company to build these image cars. But they're impact cant be underestimated in the lux segment.

Even GM devotes tons of financial and engineering reasources to the Vette.