John Laidlaw
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2013
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- Your Mercedes
- Land Rover Discovery 4
Well said and written Craig- wholeheartedly agree with this.Just need to unpick this.
What is your definition of quality? Build quality? Vehicle longevity? Corrosion performance? Perceived quality? Touch and feel response? All of those are massively improved over what they were 20 or 30 years ago. We can measure it empirically and those measures show significantly reduced failures over time as the designs have progressed. Any claims to the contrary are pipe dreams combined with rose tinted specs.
The big issue isn’t that MB have become worse. They haven’t. They’ve become a lot better. However they sit at the very top end of the market. Their aspiring competition- Lexus, Infiniti, Genesis etc. have all massively improved from where their models were 20-30 years back; the aspiring end of the market has improved more at a greater rate across all metrics than the top end of the market has. That’s a result of the state of industrial technology allowing the cost of technology content within the vehicles to be reduced hugely over time. As an example, now 80% of the cost of a car’s satnav unit is the map data license fee; in 2000 it was 25% (the license fee hasn’t changed...)
The same with very many other things. The cost of NVH isolation now dramatically reduced after VAG spread their in-metal tech across the development of A, B and C segment lineup from 1998 to 2005.
I’ll let you into a secret. There are about 4 automotive electronics manufacturers. Valeo, Bosch, Alps and Koito. That’s literally IT- there are a few subcontractors mainly on the lighting side for pick and place/ SCEM work. They design and manufacture the electronics for the whole industry with the exception of the domestic Chinese cars.
Where is your data and fact on rusting bodies or collapsing engines? Not anecdotal evidence. Actual data.
MB, BMW, JLR, & Audi form the top end of the main volume European car market. Due to that they still maintain a committed base of devotees. As to whether or not they deserve it, why not and who does over them?
I seriously think there are very few BAD cars these days- thinking of the rubbish I was forced to drive in my early driving days I would swop none of those for probably even the lowest of the market stuff we have now....