Are recent 'high end' Mercedes cars poorly put together?

[cardigankid]

stickleback123 said:

I don't think this is new. I have a 2007 S600 and the invoices and warranty work it had between 0 and 6 years old were staggering, and my experience of the things that are dying now it's older strongly suggest that any myth about Mercedes quality is exactly that; a myth.

How does this strike you for the vaccum system on your one hundred thousand pound car:


When I saw this I thought "some bodging monkey has been at it" but no, that's standard.


A closer look so you can see one of the many cable ties used around the engine bay. The best or nothing, eh?

2007 is a long time ago, I am wondering how much of the stuff shown in your pictures was carried out in Sindelfingen.

[anonymous-user]

cardigankid said:

2007 is a long time ago, I am wondering how much of the stuff shown in your pictures was carried out in Sindelfingen.

I was thinking that I'd love to get a look at the V12 in a W222 S-Class and see if it's still got cable ties everywhere and a home made looking wiring loom and vacuum system. They're still too new (and surprisingly trouble free) for people to be delving into the engine bay like that, but bear in mind the M275 in mind had already been in production in the W220 since 2003 so they had ample opportunity to make it all a bit more professional even by 2007.

[Penguinracer]

Given the financial failure of the W140 ($US1bn in development costs sales at 432,000 v W126 at 818,000) & the 1993 board meeting at which it was decided to introduce cost reducing facelifts & broaden the model range into cross-overs so as to de-risk product launches, the 1996 water-based paints fiasco & the 1998 merger with Chrysler - I'd put "Peak Benz" at 1994 - 1995.

[KillerHERTZ]

stickleback123 said:

I don't think this is new. I have a 2007 S600 and the invoices and warranty work it had between 0 and 6 years old were staggering, and my experience of the things that are dying now it's older strongly suggest that any myth about Mercedes quality is exactly that; a myth.

How does this strike you for the vaccum system on your one hundred thousand pound car:


When I saw this I thought "some bodging monkey has been at it" but no, that's standard.


A closer look so you can see one of the many cable ties used around the engine bay. The best or nothing, eh?

I was doing this work because the ignition system on these dies every 80k, in no small part because they use consumer grade electrolytic capacitors in a component that sits in the valley of the engine, so they eventually explode.

Today I've been dealing with the 4 miles of hoses for the pneumatic seats that are poor quality so start fracturing and splitting at ten years old.

The Americans view all German cars (and most European cars generally) as fragile, overpriced crap and I can't disagree with them. I think they're generally fine for 6 years and two runs through the in-house finance mill, and beyond that they simply don't care. Great to drive when they're working though

That cable tie is not OEM, someone has been in there and done that.

[anonymous-user]

KillerHERTZ said:

That cable tie is not OEM, someone has been in there and done that.

I can see why you'd think (hope?) that, but if they have they've done it in exactly the same places on WorldBoss's pair of 600s too, and all the ones I have looked at photos on the net (to work out if it's meant to look that st). They've done it all over the engine wiring loom too, the little scamps! My favourite is how they've folded the surplus wiring to the SAI pump in half, cabled tied it into a bunch, and then cable tied it to the bracket.

I think these M275s are practically hand built, it's certainly not something you'd expect to see on any volume built engine.

ETA - you can see the excellence of that SAI cable install in the bottom middle/left of this image I found online, holding it to the bracket just where they were on mine.

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 23 February 17:41