Like I said months ago, Mercedes is truly aware that the most important thing for them is quality. I can't believe that they gambled on previous S-Classes, like the W220. That is your flagship car and you heaved a clunker on the road. They now know better hence the W221's complete turn around in quality. I have no fear in buying a used S550 or CL550 now. I wouldn't touch a 220 S500 or CL500, as good as they look.
Lexus had better come up with something else because as you see in surveys, companies like Jaguar can master customer satisfaction and their cars are full of bugs by comparison.
The problem Mercedes now has is that there are millions of W220, W210, and first generation MLs on the road and those cars will continue to piss off owners all over the world and that group may or may not come back to Mercedes when the time comes.
This is where having Consumer Reports recommend the current group of Mercedes cars is most vital, so an owner of a W220 S550 will at least consider a new S550. Such an S500 owner may give Mercedes another chance when he sees that Mercedes' worst critic has come around to now actually recommending Mercedes cars.
Take my car (2003 CLK430 Cabriolet - C208 chassis) - has a lot of little issues here and there, nothing to strand me, but things like the parking brake handle breaking, headlamp washers covers popping off, radio antenna cracking/splitting etc. Those things just should be happening on a car that was over 60K when new. Now I did buy mine with about 30K on the clock in 2006, but the car had all the service records and it was well maintained. The workmanship is just poor. Its a Shremp era car and it and all the rest will continue to haunt Mercedes for years to come. Hopefully Mercedes will never, ever make the mistakes they made from 1998-2007 again.
M
