[merve_extreme]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

It would be nice if the Merc fans who don't own Mercs would answer this: would you rather have a car whose maker invents the latest technologies, and have it break down ever so often, or sometimes? Or would you rather have a car which is just as technologically advanced, utterly reliable, and cheaper?

Why can u guys simple understand this,
Mercedes was going through a bad patch from 1998 to 2005.i accept that.with the latest cars they have come back,but people are still trying to put them down.

this is what i tried to prove,by posting that result from the UK,but according to people that is not valid since US and UK are different?How may i ask?All cars to US except the ML and GL are sent from Germany.

also i tried to reason that since they make more inovations they are likely to suffer more issues because of unknown technology,is that wrong?

this is all i meant,if u understand take it or else leave it.i'm not going to respond futher.

[Mayavi]

Dude, you are contradicting yourself in the same post. Your arguement all along has been that innovations result in low reliability because its... well, innovation**. Now you say that Merc went through a bad patch and hence their reliability was low and now they are bouncing back. In other words, innovation has nothing to do with reliability. Low reliability is a result of bad build quality. Why is it so hard to accept for you? Even Merc executives agree that they have quality issues and they worked on improving their procedures.

** whatever happened to QC? There are gazillion futuristic products in laboratories and they dont see the light of day because of production issues aka reliability problems.

PS: I would like to know how many Mercs you owned, those built between 1995 and 2005.

[vasudeva]

This thread is about reliability not innovation. For that matter, what is meant by innovation. From wikipedia, the classic definitions of innovation include:

1. the process of making improvements by introducing something new
2. the act of introducing something new: something newly introduced (The American Heritage Dictionary).
3. the introduction of something new. (Merriam-Webster Online)
4. a new idea, method or device. (Merriam-Webster Online)
5. the successful exploitation of new ideas (Department of Trade and Industry, UK).
6. change that creates a new dimension of performance Peter Drucker (Hesselbein, 2002)
7. A creative idea that is realized [(Frans Johansson)] (Harvard Business School Press, 2004)
8. "The capability of continuously realizing a desired future state" ([John Kao, The Innovation Manifesto, 2005])
9. "The staging of value and/or the conservation of value." (Daniel Montano 2006.)[1]

How far does Toyota succeed in this authoritative definition of innovation espect can be attested by the fact that their production system (which added the word lean and bettered the original mass production of Ford) is now the bedrock of not just auto manufacturing but all manufacturing. For someone to realise this, one has to read management and manufacturing textbooks and actual case studies to get the picture. Their lean manufacturing methods is now SOP for manufacturing that minimises waste, optimises productivity and profits. Harbour reports point out that productivity at all US plants has doubled over the last decade, and the gap between the most productive and least has narrowed down (13 hrs/car and 30 hrs/car). In fact,many GM/Ford plants are the most productive in terms of hrs/car. But productive is one thing, being reliable at the same time another. Harbour/JD Power/Consumer Reports/Global Insights other reputed auto consultants always note that quality of all cars incl. US/European is improving, but they also note that the Japs are on a higher scale and widening the quality gap. Perhaps the gap may never be bridged.

Of course, nothing is perfect in this world including cars, and that is Toyota and others constantly improve (as can be seen by comparing products of a decade old). All cars give problems including Toyota, but Japs give lesser problems and lower costs per mile than others. Toyota and honda are more likely to make a better and more reliable car at the same cost than others. What else could most rational consumers want. Of course, buying a more unreliable but great looking European cars is also rational, because many customers have made tradeoffs. Consumers buying Japs consider reliability, FE, and feature essentiality more important than `looks'. Now who is in the majority (looks vs. reliability) can be gauged from sales, and no point repeating the sales figures again to prove that reliability at acceptably lower cost (which is innovation if not what) wins hands down.