Re: MB reliability




As regards niches, I remember reading that the successful automobile company
of the future would be one with a large number of smaller (niche?) model
runs, not with just a few huge selling models (which was the business model
at the time). DC is a major proponent of this philosophy and does turn a
profit, even if at the top (Maybach) and bottom ends (Smart, a special
story, however) it has made big mistakes.

What I believe you are referring to is an extremely in depth study done
in the early 1990s for the industry as a whole trying to give them some
sense of where the industry was going in the future, and the resultant
advice to the entire industry was that brand loyalties were going to
break down and older brands who relied on their past brand identity
would be competed into oblivion. The result was the fragmentation of
the industry by not just Mercedes but pretty much every car company
with Toyota attacking Buick, VW trying to be Mercedes with the Phaeton,
Hyundai moving into the mid-level price range. It isn't just Mercedes,
and the result of this strategy by all who followed it was the over
production of products that no one wanted from the manufacturers who
made them. Smart was the attempt to reopen a closed class once
dominated by the FIAT 500/600 and the Mini. Personally, I think that it
was a good idea, but the margins are thin, and they disn't pursue the
niche with new designs fast enough. It was a design driven model.


In my opiniont the Maybach is nothing but an ego trip for the then
management.

Agreed. Mercedes couldn't let BMW [Rolls] and VW [Bentley] have a
super-luxe if they didn't have one. The problem with the Maybach over
the Roller is that it didn't have the brand loyalty, and Bentley was a
driver's car so not a direct competitor with Rolls. The Maybach also
looked far too much like an S Class Mercedes which was damaging to both
brands.




And... I have had my CLK for 5 years -- admittedly only for 21 000 miles --
but has performed pretty well. No major issues. Started first time every
time even after long breaks (e.g. two weeks+).

I am happy that your CLK has worked well for you. My mother-in-law's
CLK 55 AMG needed an entirely new block within 2,000 miles of
ownership, a new infrared key start system at 5,000 or so, the electric
brakes are constantly scewing up and sending messages to the message
board, it has eaten half a dozen ignition coils and the car just turned
30K.

But this is the thing. She went out and bought a new Mercedes C Class
as a spare car last week. No matter how much I have tried to convince
her that just about anything would be a better car icluding and
especially a Cadillac, she bought another Mercedes anyway, and that is
the thing about Branding. People still key on "German Engineered" which
as a phrase is about as influential as "A diamond is forever". It is
complete BS today to aggrandize German engineering because the German
car companies universally are building the worste product in the world
particularly if you think of value for money.

The entire point of a brand, and the reason you bother to brand a
product ahs changed in the last twenty years. 80 years ago brands were
created to make sure that a factory could consistently sell its output
and build market share against other factories whose products weren't
as good. The point of brand today is to capitalize on the locked in
value of that 80 years of good will, unlock it for short term profit
and leave the brand in the dust as the current officers retire to
Majorca. The failure of course is with the boards of these companies
who have failed to hire officers who will not destroy the company and
the boards also fail to manage the officers whom they have hired.

Of course there is one other major driving force behind the funneling
down of the German auto industry, and that is the insanely high cost of
labor in that country. Entry level assemblers to the most highly
compensated machinists are all paid multiples on the scale of similar
positions in other industrialized nations such as the United States,
but that isn't really the problem. Germans now get standardly over
month's vacation a year, and the cost of socialized medecine and
education, creating a class of permanent students, have placed burdens
on the German economy that burdens the car industry as a part of it.
That fact made necessary Robot manufacture, which has not been nearly
as successful for the German as they would have liked.

I met a couple recently who are in their late sixties and who have
many hundreds of millions of dollars. Five years ago they bought their
first Mercedes to replace and aging Oldsmobile. They had always bought
and been happy with GM cars, but their children convinced them to buy a
Mercedes S Class. They loved how it drove, but it was towed to the
dealer multiple times in the 5 years 60,000 miles they had it, and at
60,000 the air ride suspension went, a major brake failure, and the
fuel injection or computer system ate itself (the dealer was unable to
determine what the actual problem was). They traded it on a lexus. It
isn't surprising that they traded in on a lexus. What surprised me was
that if Oldsmobile was still in business, they would have bought
another one, but their children again convinced them to buy Lexus
instead of Cadillac.

I think what I am trying to get at is that brand loyalty is a very
powerful thing because it means that people don't have to think about
the products that they buy, and they can concetrate on those thihgs
which actually interest them like their jobs or families. How damaged
Mercedes will be by the time that it is able to stabilize its
tremendous manufacturing and engineering issues can only be known once
they have solved those issues which will be many, many years from now.
Mercedeses problems are driven by fundemental economic and social
problems in Germany and in their corporate structure. Those sorts of
issues are not resolved by simply the Chairman simply willing them
away.


My 190 is from 1993, so it does not count as being from the 'new' times, I
suppose. It had some major repairs but is still running nicely. Its low
mileage (75 000) and running rate is against it (short journeys mostly) but,
so far, so good...

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---

"Rob" <rdg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2qidnY6e4JmlMWrZnZ2dnUVZ_tudnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the 1990s, Mercedes-Benz had a classic car commercial.

A husband arrives home late and tells his wife, "My car broke down." The
wife slaps him in the face. She does not believe her husband's Mercedes
could break down.
[...]

Mercedes has wasted its energy on new vehicles such as the A-, B-, R- and
GL-class models and the SLR McLaren.

No one really knows what the brand stands for anymore.

Chasing niches

The Maybach ultraluxury sedan highlighted the misguided trend of chasing
niches.
[...]



And they've got a l-o-o-o-o-o-ng way to go!

.

Relevant Pages

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