I wasn't getting defensive, I was just clearing up the facts. Like you and Fox were misunderstanding each other. From the agressive tone in your posts I would say you are the one getting defensive.
Actually the Daimler-Chrysler thing wasn't a buy out but a merger. Now it seems MB should've waited a while and bought out Chrysler cause Chrysler is causing them mayor losses.
One of the main reasons for the merger was for MB to get a foothold in the US market and for Crysler to get a foothold in the EU market.
The ML class is the only class that's not being buildt on EU soil, it's completely buildt in the US. The ML class is also the car which has had the most recalls of a MB car ever. From simple things to plastic parts breaking of to mayor things like parts of the powersteering breaking off, the ML class has seen it all.
The MBUSA division is entirely supervised by the former Chrysler managment.
The S & CL classes are still being buildt and assembeld in Germany because Daimler wanted their own quality checks on these lines. The rest are not. Well actually the parts are being buildt in germany and then shipped over to the US where the cars are assembeld and painted. Logistic and tax wise this is the smartest thing todo.
What we are seeing is that in the US people are complaining about body panels not fitting correctly and stuff like that. I haven't seen anybody in the EU complain about things like that and it came as a shock to me when I first saw it.
Also MB has allowed Chrysler to contaminate their cars. Just look at the interiour of the all the MB's. They're all the same and they're all butt ugly. Plastic cupholder, plastic door handles, plastic this, plastic that. When you buy a expensive classy car like the S class you would expect to be seperated from a C class buyer, get something more and better. But you get the exact goddamn same interiour. The exact same options that are on the S class are on the C class aswell, except on the S class they're standard and on the C they're optional.
That isn't the MB way. When I was growing up my father had several MB's and all of them had awesome interiours. Everything was nice, beatifull, smooth and most of all strong. Those cars were cut out of a solid block. There was nothing those cars couldn't handle.
These days everything has been compromised for production sake. If it's cheap and fast to produce (which is the American way of producing) then it's in there.
Don't get me wrong. I still love MB the cars they build are still among the luxurious and relaxing cars to drive. Something most people won't understand untill they drive on one. their engine's might not have the natural aspiration BMW has but who in their right mind would want to race with a 2 ton monster? For the weight they have those engine do perform impresively. Most people don't understand that the reason why AMG uses superchargers is because those cars are so damn heavy. They need more lowend torque to get them off the ground, it's just simple physics. But for a car that heavy they still do handle very very well and are a pleasure to drive in heavy city traffic.
First thing they need todo, and we've already gotten a sneak preview of this on the CLS, is change their interiour to something more MB. When I ordered my S i wanted this interiour:
But for that I had to pay 24k euro extra for the designo people and wait an aditional 6 weeks. Something hardly worth it so I ordered everything in antracite black. But you should see some of the other cars.. damn they had ugly interiours.
The current line of MB engines is over 12 years old and MB hasn't shown much interest in redesigning them. BMW does constantly redesign and reevaluate their engines. MB will be putting out a new line of engines somewhere in 2005/2006 which I guess is going to last another 15 years.
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