New Car

[PanzerJaeger]

Maybe you should check your facts.Last years most relaible cars:

Honda Civic BMW 3 Series Honda Jazz Honda Accord BMW 5 Series Audi A4 Mercedes Benz C-Class Mini Toyota Avensis Volkswagen Golf

Most reliable car manufacturer

BMW Honda Audi Toyota Volkswagen Mercedes-Benz Ford Mazda Nissan Skoda

The reliability problems of 90´s are old news.Source: http://www.gizmag.com/most-reliable-...s-in-uk/13298/

I guess that depends on your definition of reliability and old news.

Mercedes-Benz, despite being one of the most well-known and highly respected European car makers, only managed to take 9th place. Still, it was a very big leap from its position last year which was 19th overall. Mercedes-Benz’ fellow German car marquee, Porsche, meanwhile took the survey’s top spot.

The problems were certainly not limited to the 90s.

From 2006:

The difference between the best and worst models is striking. For example, the least-reliable vehicle in our survey, the redesigned for 2006 Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV, is likely to have 10 times as many problems as the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, which debuted the same year. Here are some highlights from our survey:

Of the 45 least reliable models, 19 were European, 20 were from U.S. manufacturers, 5 were Japanese, and 1 was South Korean. General Motors had 12, Mercedes-Benz had 8, Ford and Nissan each had 5, Chrysler and Volkswagen each had 3, BMW and Jaguar each had 2, while Kia, Land Rover, Porsche, Saab, and Volvo each had 1.

And 2007:

Mercedes-Benz, in particular, has seen its reliability ranking decline sharply — this year, the German luxury brand placed last in the reliability list of 36 automobile brands, its reliability level 123 percent below the average for the whole industry, said Paul.

“We have seen lows in recent years for European carmakers, but this was a particularly bad year for Mercedes-Benz — it surprised a lot of people,” said Paul.

Consumer Reports placed the Mercedes-Benz CLS, M-Class and R-Class on its “Not Recommended” list because of declining reliability. A third of survey respondents who owned the 2001 Mercedes-Benz C-Class V6 owners “griped about serious electrical problems,” the magazine report said.

The problem was that market realities forced Mercedes to shift from building excellent cars and then pricing them accordingly to building cars to a specific price point. It would be as if suddenly BMW tasked the people managing Rolls Royce with building a $16,000 compact car. Chances are it would be awful compared to their more experienced Japanese competitor's models.

As I said, Dr. Z and the company are adapting, but reliability is only just now improving. Considering cars are on around 6 year product design cycles, I'd be very wary of Mercedes. The new C-class was a big step forward.