When did it start going wrong for Mercedes?

[arrows180]

I'm always coming across threads or websites which indicate that the quality of Mercedes cars is'nt what it use to be. So when did it start to go wrong? and more importantly Why? Were they taken over by another company or did they close down certain factories and move production elsewhere, The latter seems more likely in this day and age. I've just recently bought a w202 (my 1st Mercedes) and so dont really no alot about the cars or the company's recent history. I'm really impressed will the build quality and condition of my car considering it's 12 years old, If i was to buy a new c-class would it not be the same? I'll look forward to reading some interesting theories and replies. atb. Brian.

 

[David Nock]

It went wrong from about the late 90's to about 2004. After that date I believe it's the general consensus on this forum and others that Mercedes have largely pulled the quality back to where it should be. The new C Class in particular seems to have very few faults.
Having said all that, I had a South African Built C class new in 2001 and over 4 years it was an excellent car. Also my present 2004 CLK has been largely fault free.

 

[dragon]

If you look carefully where the bonnet meets the frame in the W204, it a hastily assembled car. Reliable? give it another year when JD Power result comes out after 2 years in production. It not made in S. Africa alright that why I stayed away from W203.

Your W202 was made in Bremens but not the W203 except the estate.

I had the W202 for 12 years the problems were the waterpump, steering stability bar(changed twice) and the brake pads otherwise OK. The emission control was noisy was difficult to diagnose, I thought it was the ABS lucky it was not else it would have cost me thousand. The ABS and ESP not made by Bosch but Teves??.

 

[paul c]

Wrong some saloons were also made in Germany my 2001 w203 was and after five years ownership has been fairly good but exspensive to run but it is a 6cyl model

 

[madf]

WHere did it go wrong?

Well MB took over Chrysler - a car company known for its poor models, appalling engineering and failed international strategy. And that took management effort as Chrysler was and is a basket case..

MB was under severe price and quality competition from the Japanese: remember the Lexus was launched in 1989 and from almost every aspect was superior to MB's S class in every way.. (except price).
And BMW's 7 and 5 series in the early 1990s made MB's C and E class look stodgy and conservative and out of date: which they were.( I refer to the mid 1990s models),

So MB decided to cut costs by making some models in South AFrica and exporting them.. and to design cost out. And hastily introduced new models with many new electronics - an area where they were a decade behind vs MBW and 2 decades behind Lexus..(Reemmber Lexus had everything standard in the car and if you specced a MB to Lexus - impossible I know- the MB would cost twice as much..).

And they took short cuts..
And meanwhile Audi new diesel technolgy in the A4 and A6 made MB's look 10 years out of date - which it was.

So they rushed and cost cut and produced new models withOUT adequate testing and development and SAfrica could not handle the quality requirements and produce at volume and
water based paint was new and MB had not mastered it.
and the management used lots of Chrysler engineers.. (Chrysler had a history of product development and quality second to none - not.. ).

So basically they screwed everything up because they had rested on their laurels in the early 1990s and done nowt. so were seriously out of date .. and now they sold lots more cars.. and quality collapsed.

You could expand the above into several books..

People here may lament the passing of the W124 and the mid 1990s C class but any realism suggests they were out of date and underperformed post 1992--- but kept going for 3 years (124) and 6 years (C Class).

 

[arrows180]

WHere did it go wrong?

Well MB took over Chrysler - a car company known for its poor models, appalling engineering and failed international strategy. And that took management effort as Chrysler was and is a basket case..

MB was under severe price and quality competition from the Japanese: remember the Lexus was launched in 1989 and from almost every aspect was superior to MB's S class in every way.. (except price).
And BMW's 7 and 5 series in the early 1990s made MB's C and E class look stodgy and conservative and out of date: which they were.( I refer to the mid 1990s models),

So MB decided to cut costs by making some models in South AFrica and exporting them.. and to design cost out. And hastily introduced new models with many new electronics - an area where they were a decade behind vs MBW and 2 decades behind Lexus..(Reemmber Lexus had everything standard in the car and if you specced a MB to Lexus - impossible I know- the MB would cost twice as much..).

And they took short cuts..
And meanwhile Audi new diesel technolgy in the A4 and A6 made MB's look 10 years out of date - which it was.

So they rushed and cost cut and produced new models withOUT adequate testing and development and SAfrica could not handle the quality requirements and produce at volume and
water based paint was new and MB had not mastered it.
and the management used lots of Chrysler engineers.. (Chrysler had a history of product development and quality second to none - not.. ).

So basically they screwed everything up because they had rested on their laurels in the early 1990s and done nowt. so were seriously out of date .. and now they sold lots more cars.. and quality collapsed.

You could expand the above into several books..

People here may lament the passing of the W124 and the mid 1990s C class but any realism suggests they were out of date and underperformed post 1992--- but kept going for 3 years (124) and 6 years (C Class).

Thanks Madf. Well that pretty much answer's most of my question's. Have Mercedes got it sorted now and could today's buyers of new mercedes cars benefit from mercedes past mistakes. New c-class appears to be something special going on what reviews i've read.

 

[stumpy]

and I think they diluted the brand and the engineering quality by producing too many models. It used to be small, medium and large with a soft top for orange women. Now we have A, B , C, S, Sl, Cl etc etc

 

[dragon]

and Smarts.

 

[st4]

If you look carefully where the bonnet meets the frame in the W204, it a hastily assembled car. Reliable? give it another year when JD Power result comes out after 2 years in production. It not made in S. Africa alright that why I stayed away from W203.

Your W202 was made in Bremens but not the W203 except the estate.

I had the W202 for 12 years the problems were the waterpump, steering stability bar(changed twice) and the brake pads otherwise OK. The emission control was noisy was difficult to diagnose, I thought it was the ABS lucky it was not else it would have cost me thousand. The ABS and ESP not made by Bosch but Teves??.

You're right there, I would like to see how that car fares over a half decade period. Particularly when in fleet news BMW's 3 series was voted britains most reliable car, above Hondas and Toyota's. Fleet news is better as its not just grouchy owners with bad things to say about their cars, but reports from fleet managers who's cars do big miles.

BMW made a good un with the E90 3 series, and you can get them for under £10k. IMHO a sterling buy.

 

[stumpy]

was smart part of Chrysler? Can't remember now. Anyway, I'm talking about cars built by MB. I think our smart shares alot with the colt. Mb aren't the only ones guilty of 'a niche too far'. They're all at it these days.

 

[PeterCLK]

Didn't they further dilute management focus by getting (sort of) into bed with Mitsubishi?

 

[madf]

Smart

Swatch CEO Nicolas Hayek sought an established car maker to produce his Swatch car. After General Motors reviewed and rejected the project as potentially unprofitable, Hayek found a partner in Volkswagen. Due to VW's own financial weakness at the time, plans never reached a final stage so Swatch teamed up with Daimler-Benz. The purpose-built factory complex Smartville in Hambach, France, was established in 1994 as a joint-venture of Daimler-Benz and Swatch.

An Australian dealer web site provides the following summary of the beginnings of the product:

"How everything began: In 1993 Mercedes-Benz started a feasibility study on a subcompact car. Together with the Swatch Group Ltd. they founded the Micro Compact Car AG in 1994. The Smart city-coupé celebrates its world première at the IAA in Frankfurt (Germany) in 1997 and is one year successfully launched in nine European countries. By now, the Smart is available in 25 countries all over the world and was sold over 750,000 times."[2]

The final car design proved to be far from Hayek's expectations: its engine eco-technology was outside of Mercedes' goal. The joint venture experienced heavy losses and dispute then Swatch pulled out.

In 2005, DaimlerChrysler decided against purchasing a 50% share in the Dutch NedCar plant used to manufacture the Forfour supermini. DC also halted development on the Formore and decided to discontinue production of the Roadster.

In 2006, after dwindling sales, Smart GmbH was liquidated and its operations were absorbed within the Mercedes-Benz automobile group. It was later revealed that Smart GmbH lost nearly 4 billion euros from 2003 to 2006. [1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile)

Sounds like a management ego trip.

And remember the A clas elk test fiasco?

All the signs of a company whose management were out of touch with reality...

 

[dragon]

was smart part of Chrysler? Can't remember now. Anyway, I'm talking about cars built by MB. I think our smart shares alot with the colt. Mb aren't the only ones guilty of 'a niche too far'. They're all at it these days.

Smart cars are paraded at MB dealer here in East Anglia. It part of MB as far as I know, it a good cushion if the big engines don't shift.

Saw my neighbour just changed her car from Hunydai People carrier to a Getz.:mrgreen:

 

[jberks]

Smart have a decent following still and the new fortwo is allegedly a vast improvement over the previous model. Its wholly MB owned and in the current climate may do better.
As far as quality is concerned I tend to agree with most of what has been said. The current models don't have the same feel as older ones such as the 202 and 124 but having had my 211 for 3 years now I can say it's wearing very well indeed and should give me a good few years service yet. The longevity is certainly still there.

 

[television]

I know that I drive a top end car the 230, in spite of the problems that have led me to dismantle so much of the car, the build quality is outstanding and a work of art. If I run such a car then I expect to have some things go wrong, and in the total 2½ years that I have had the car, had it been a Ferrari, just one service would have cost more than what I have spent in that 2½ years, its a joy to drive and own.

 

[hairyg]

My 1994 SL 320 with a few options cost the original buyer £63,000.

The current SL 350 is £64,500 or thereabouts.

That's an awful lot of "value engineering" in the last 14 years to wipe out inflation. £63k in 1994 is now £91k allowing for UK inflation.

The SL is probably not the best model to pick for this comparison but it does illustrate my idea.

 

[GseRacing]

Interesting, i read somewhere a while back that MB reliability issues came through the C and ML and coincidently they were both built in a plant in america. Whereas most other models seemed to be fine on reliability and built else where.

Any truth at all or totally wrong?

 

[andrewh1973]

was smart part of Chrysler? Can't remember now. Anyway, I'm talking about cars built by MB. I think our smart shares alot with the colt. Mb aren't the only ones guilty of 'a niche too far'. They're all at it these days.

The forfour was based on the same underpinnings as the Colt with Mitsubishi petrol engines and manual gearboxes being the same as for the colt, while diesel engines were from Mercedes and "automatic" gearboxes were a greatly enhanced/improved version of the Getrag 'box used in the fortwo.

It was made at Mitsubishi's NedCar plant alongside the Colt but the two cars looked so different they can be considered "half brothers" at best - I think less than 60% of mechanicals were shared and certainly things that the customer would notice, the forfour's dashboard, steering wheel, radio etc were Mercedes designed items and not used in the Colt. If you ask the smart community (of which I'm a part - on my 2nd smart fortwo now, a second generation fortwo aka a 451) what was it's downfall the universal answer is cost - the forfour was horribly overpriced (esp. compared to the Colt!) and poor advertised/marketed (i.e. not really advertised at all) - it seemed clear that Mercedes just had no idea how to push the car at - classic problem we think, a Mercedes car tends to sell itself to a degree, but smarts are aimed at a different market entirely and have vastly more competition (esp. the forfour) so needs a different strategy. That strategy was missing at the time IMHO.

As for the roadster, it was the only smart that Jeremy Clarkson actually liked in any way (though he hated the gearbox, mostly because as with the fortwo - it is an automated manual and needs to be driven differently to a true automatic to achieve smoother and quicker changes, and he hated the fact that it was up to £5000 dearer here than in mainland Europe, on the plus side he noted it did handle excellently and was truly fun to drive). Sadly the major failing - apart from price - was that the roof leaked. Average warranty claims for the roadster/roadster coupe were around £3000 per car, this is what really did the damage to smart and forced Mercedes to absorb its operations.

The second generation fortwo is an evolution of the first generation model (the 450) but with significant "under the hood" changes to fix the major gripes of the original - automated gearbox is now 5 speed not 6, handling is sharper/steering more precise, track is 2 inches wider, wheel base 5cm longer, overall length 19.5cm longer all in order to reduce the choppy/unstable ride and improve pedestrian crash performance (i.e. to meet US regs). Most importantly the previous fortwo's 0.7litre Mercedes turbo petrol engine was dumped in favour of a range of 1.0litre Mitsubishi units (some with turbos, some without) while the diesel engine is a descendant of the 0.8litre Mercedes unit used in the European fortwo for years (just never offered in the UK until now). The old petrol Mercedes engines were not known for their reliability or longevity hence they were dropped. (some were packing up and needed rebuilding or turbo manifold replacement at 40k miles!)

The 451 is overall a success and has sold extremely well since launch in 2007, so much so that Mercedes are now planning a new four seater based on a stretched fortwo platform as part of the third generation. All the third generation smarts are all expected to be developed jointly with Renault and launched around 2013...

 

[grober]

A few misconceptions here possibly. Mercedes kept Smart in the fold and incorporated them back into Mercedes showrooms [ rather then a separate brand with their own showroom etc. ] as a possible fall back position to future European legislation which may demand an average of lower emissions over their range of vehicles. In future if you want a mercedes gas-guzzler you might get a free Smart just to average things out?? Why do you think Aston Martin are Aston-ing the Toyota iQ at the moment?

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Growing pains I'm afraid, during which MB has transformed into a volume manufacturer. It was either continue to place yourself in the low volume/high cost niche market or become a manufacturer that provides a complete model range with volume to match. I think the marketing strategy of the MB has worked well, but don't expect any better quality than the top Jap makes and you pay a premium for the creature comforts, innovation and brand. I often wonder whether the OEMs have a MB production line seperate from their other customers to ensure MB quality control, its the only way to enhance the brand. The only real gripes I have owning a 2000 X plate car is stopping the rust and Bosch injector tips that appear to only last 60K miles.

MBs american experiment was a about as successful as BMWs English experiment. Although it made more sense in that America is one of MBs biggest markets, or they want it too be.