damtachoa

Your car, C450 AMG, is new. Wait for the 5th year, you'll see what happen. Two honda accords in your neighbor, what year are they?

autopal

Put on your glasses and re-read my post, I said my neighbour have a 2 year old Accord. I've also said I have had German cars for 15 years without any problems. I just sold my 2009 E90 335i with 90,000 miles and never had any problems with it. You guys make it seems as if every Mercedes or BMW will have problems after 4, 5 or 6 years, and every Japanese cars will be trouble free during the same period, and that is far from being a correct assumption. There's nothing wrong with a Lexus, or any Japanese car for that matter, even though I wouldn't buy one until they are available with a modern 6 cylinder turbo engine (personal preference) my post is aimed at those people who is yearning for a Mercedes or BMW, and wont buy because they think the car will breakdown

EyeSF

then you certainly are lucky.
I definitely would like an AMG or M car but read so many stories on forums where these cars are unreliable. If the AMG/M is the weekend car, I would not hesitate.
It is quite rare when you read about Honda/Lexus breaking down. Much rarer than AMG/M. Certainly Honda/Lexus can break down but frequency seems to be much lower.
As a DD, I don't have the time to deal with repairs if it breaks down. Reliability > fun as DD.

RXSF

Its going to be luck of the draw really. Not all MBs are going to be problem childs, and not all Lexus cars are going to be problem free. If you buy a MB that has been designed after 2007 (which all of them are now), chances are it will be pretty reliable. My 09 C class (second year into production) has been problem free 100%. Only now in its 7th year of ownership has it developed a rattle. My sister currently owns the new C class, 2015 model so first year in production, and it has also been problem free. Hard to say down the line but I wouldn't worry about it too much.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

i will just quickly chime in as well and say that i think germans has upped their quality quite a bit over the years. now if i were to own a car for long time (7 years and more), i would probably still leaning towards japanese, but otherwise, personally i won't have a problem with german. truth is my 08 m3 and 07 s550 gave me less problems than my lexus at the same period of time. and given how the the big part of luxury market works, that's why mb and bmw are doing so well.

autopal

Agreed, and as I have been saying lately, reliability of these modern luxury cars are no longer a factor. If someone prefer a Japanese car, then by all means, buy it, and you don't have to defend your purchase, but it doesn't make sense for one to say the only reason you are not buying a Mercedes is because it is not reliability, because that is just not true. If you don't like the styling, driving dynamics and price, then off course that is a totally different matter, but to hear people say they like the Benz but would not buy it solely because it is unreliable just plain stupid. When I was in the market recently, I test drove a Lexus IS, and I didn't buy it because in my mind, the performance and power was not on par with the C450 I eventually bought, even though I wasn't a big fan of the tame exterior styling on the Benz.
I am not trying to defend Mercedes, but people also need to understand the reliability ratings from places like JD Power (by the way, Mercedes is in the top 10), take a company like Ford, for example, who is at the lower end, the vast majority of complaints have to do with peoples frustration with Ford's My Ford Touch sync systems, is has very little to do with any safety or powertrain issues.

Toys4RJill

Just my experience.

My 4Runner that I bought from my parents has 91k on it. 2004 model and has had the following issues.
-rims are all chipped (all four happened out of warranty)
-driver side seatbelt/SRS issue cost $1000 to repair
-steering system needed a repair out of warranty ($500)
-driver side heated seat does not work
-rear window wiper broke in pivot, does not wipe

-Tacoma 4x4 2011, no issues.

-Matrix 2009.
-issue of ABS sensors needed replacing, covered under warranty.

-Corolla 2014, no issues

Parents had a 07 Camry, needed a $2000 engine repair to the 3.5 (covered under warranty)

Sister has a 2010 IS250
-air compressor seized on hwy left her stranded (only Toyota product in family to ever break while moving). Out of warranty powertrain did not apply $2400
-6 months later something else went $2000 to repair.

Generally speaking, all of the Toyotas products I have owned have been pretty good.

I have always found MB products very appealing.

mmarshall

Given the Corolla's reputation, unless abused, on a one or two year old model, there better not be any issues with it LOL.

They are improving somewhat, in the reliability area, from the low days of the late 1990s and 2000s, but still, in general, don't offer Toyota/Scion/Lexus reliability.

In fact, according to automotive historians, you can actually thank Toyota and Lexus for at least part of the low reliability of M-B products in that era. When the Lexus LS400 was introduced in 1990 for only 35K to start, M-B suddenly found themselves in an uncompetitive position. Not being able to offer the LS's quality at that price, they were forced to cut costs, using cheaper materials, and steadily more unreliable vehicles were the result for a number of years.

Incendiary

I've heard the Audis A4s were underpowered, so an S4 was comparable to a 335I. It seems like in general this Mercedes line is comparable to the S and M lines, while the traditional AMG models are meant to compete with the RS and true Ms?

Will the 63 engine series also be called Mercedes-AMG?

It looks like Mercedes is starting to drop Benz in certain models. They had the Mercedes-Maybach and now this.

TangoRed

The C63 was already a Mercedes-AMG. And yes, the C43 is comparable to S4/340i. This is no change from when it was called C450 AMG-Sport.

mmarshall

The original Mercedes company traces its name to Daimler-Benz, founded by Gottieb Daimler and Karl Benz....arguably the oldest production auto company in the world. The name Mercedes came from the designation they gave one of their early vehicles, from a mythological deity. The Maybach was a Mercedes offshoot (somewhat like a separate division) in the 1930s, and, at that time, was considered to be arguably the best car in the world mechanically....better than Rolls-Royce. Mercedes, of course, brought the Maybach name back in the late 1990s for the limited-production ultra-luxury sedans.

Incendiary

What I mean is it used to be called a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. Are you saying it is currently called a Mercedes-AMG? I didn't think it said that on the site, but I'll double check.

TangoRed

I know what you meant. It's currently called the Mercedes-AMG C63 and C63 S. If you type that into to google you can see car magazines have reflected this. Further, on the MBUSA site, you can see that the current C450 has the AMG title after the name, while the C63 and C63 S have it before.

Incendiary

When did they change this, and why?

TangoRed

This got kicked off with the Mercedes-AMG GT. Not only does this allow them to create AMG-only models like the GT, but it also allows them to strengthen the prominence of the AMG name from what I understand.