[ghostrider]

Firstly, I have to commend you on your honesty; no one likes admitting that their's anything wrong with their car.

More importantly though, your woes with your ML while unfortunate, are not altogether surprising. The days when Mercs used to be the last word in quality are far behind us, unfortunately.
A close friend bought an E-class and within 2 years some serious issues with the car including brake pads that needed to be changed at 9000 km (despite driving sedately in the city at all times) and a crankshaft that broke.
C-class owners seem to have the best reliability of the lot, but on the other hand M-class owners seem to suffer the most.

Consumer Reports actually rated the M-class as the least reliable SUV in it's segment and one of the least reliable Mercs overall. Their exact words were:
"Among mid-sized SUVs, the M-class, a quality disaster when it first came out, still ranks as the least reliable in its grouping."

I do agree with a couple of other posters that perhaps you should have taken a harder stance with the dealer instead of accepting their claims at face value - perhaps some stronger escalations to MBIL would have helped in this regard. It's not too late... you seem to have a detailed history of everything that's gone wrong with the car... maybe a strongly worded letter to MBIL would help.

[manveet]

Originally Posted by ghostrider

Firstly, I have to commend you on your honesty; no one likes admitting that their's anything wrong with their car.

Especially after spending this kind of money, yes. Which is what probably took me so long.

Originally Posted by ghostrider

A close friend bought an E-class and within 2 years some serious issues with the car including brake pads that needed to be changed at 9000 km (despite driving sedately in the city at all times) and a crankshaft that broke.
C-class owners seem to have the best reliability of the lot, but on the other hand M-class owners seem to suffer the most.

Consumer Reports actually rated the M-class as the least reliable SUV in it's segment and one of the least reliable Mercs overall. Their exact words were:
"Among mid-sized SUVs, the M-class, a quality disaster when it first came out, still ranks as the least reliable in its grouping."

Seriously, I didn't know all of this. Could you please provide a link to the source of these Research.

Originally Posted by ghostrider

I do agree with a couple of other posters that perhaps you should have taken a harder stance with the dealer instead of accepting their claims at face value - perhaps some stronger escalations to MBIL would have helped in this regard. It's not too late... you seem to have a detailed history of everything that's gone wrong with the car... maybe a strongly worded letter to MBIL would help.

Honestly, I am quite disappointed with T&T's Service guys - I have a whole lot of email communication with the Service Head in the T&T dealership, but have not made an issue of that on the forum or elsewhere because end of the day they are the ONLY dealers.

And intention was always there to escalate it to folks at MB Chakan - will be sending an email out to them on Monday.

Before we do that, there are a few blanks to be filled at my end on this thread (image of the camber bolt, quoting some email communication with T&T, etc.) Will be updating this thread over the weekend and then take it forward from there.

[ghostrider]

Originally Posted by manveet

Seriously, I didn't know all of this. Could you please provide a link to the source of these Research.

Here you go:

Businessweek reports as follows:

We all know Mercedes-Benz had had some quality “issues.” But whenever J.D. Power and Associates come out with their Initial Quality Study, or some other ranking that shows Mercedes falling, we get the Mercedes spin machine bad mouthing the methodology.
But then Consumer Reports comes out. And it’s ugly if you are a Mercedes fan. You know how many Mercedes-Benz vehicles the magazine recommends? Zip. Zero. Nada. Zilch. CR went out of its way to indicate that a used 1998 LS400 would be a better buy than a 2006 Mercedes ML500. Actually, it says that the 1998 Lexus had fewer problems than last year’s ML, but you get the idea.
Among the least reliable used cars ranked by CR: The Mercedes SL, SLK, CLK, CLS, E Class sedan, R-Class, M Class.

The link to the Business Week article is here.


I trawled the web a little bit to find the actual Consumer Report for you which says that the M Class was the worst. Here's the link to a CNN article on the said Consumer Reports study.

[ajmat]

From what I observe, the current C class, E class (except for a batch of dodgy injectors), the previous E class faclift are now quite reliable but it will take years to shift the poor image of the past.

If you think the current M class is bad, the previous one was horrific. Fit and finish was appalling.

Will be interesting to see how the new ML performs

[manveet]

You guys quoted below have hit the nail right on the head. This is exactly where my disappointment stems from.

Originally Posted by noopster

Mercedes Benzes are frighteningly unreliable in India- I doubt I would ever buy one. In your case at least they replaced the defective parts without question, most of the time. But the question is: with your kind of usage, should you have had to face those problems in the first place?

Originally Posted by GTO

I'm extremely concerned about so many manufacturing defects in a 1 year old car. If you've had to change so many components in the first year itself, what's to tell after owning the car for 2 / 3 / 4 / 5+ years? Sure, right now you have the warranty, what after?
....
If Mercedes can't build a reliable car, well, even a Maruti Alto completely owns them.

Originally Posted by Zappo

See the problem here that people are referring to is that Merc vis a vis most others (read humble manufacturers whose cars at times cost even 1/10th that of a Merc) shows us that others do not see such a huge failure rate. Huge here refers to the regular reporting of critical issues in comparatively newer cars by different buyers. While service costs being high for such high end cars is one thing the frequent rate of failure is definitely not acceptable on such cars.

Originally Posted by RS_DEL

A digression maybe, but in my view relevant to context. Advanced technology per se DOES NOT translate to high failure rate. This is NOT debatable.

You are paying top dollar for the product. If after paying that, as GTO says it can not enable movement from A to B without hiccups on an ongoing basis barring routine scheduled maintenance then something is very very wrong here.

[manveet]

Originally Posted by Neil.Bhujbal

Mercedes has got nothing to do with the problems you have faced except the windshield crack (hard luck) & airmatic strut (common) problem.

Let me indulge you with something interesting about the "hard luck" and "common" problems you have mentioned

Part Cost of 1 front Airmatic suspension = 1,25,000/- +12.5% Tax (in our case, both were replaced)
Part Cost of 1 Windshield = 55,000/- + 12.5% Tax
Labor cost of replacing both above = approx 7000/-

Therefore, had above items NOT been in warranty, I would have had to pay Mercedes approx. Rs. 3,60,000/-.

This is in addition to the approx. 40,000/- that I have just paid for the first service.

And all of the above on a car that cost us about 55-60L (on road) of hard-earned money.

Originally Posted by Neil.Bhujbal

Rest all problems you faced are because of the dealership. They camber bolt I am sure was damaged by the dealership guys. The early flash of service interval isn't early but on exact time i.e 365 days and 15K kms may be you were delivered the vehicle late.

The camber bolts cost 2,500/- bucks. And I have an email from T&T telling me that the car has just been delivered to them and is ready for delivery. Maybe they lied or maybe they didn't and Mercedes can let me know where my car was for 2 months.

I would rather look at the big picture and take this up with Mercedes rather than waste my time on T&T. Have done plenty of that already.

Originally Posted by Neil.Bhujbal

If possible I will request the mods to change the thread name from Unreliable Mercedes ML350 to something else.

[Yeldo]

Originally Posted by Y@SH

I own a 2005 Merc E270 CDI that has clocked over 42k but till now surprisingly haven't faced any major problems.

Good Lord, you are the first person to say a good word about a W211 E270CDI! Honestly, Sir.

I had a W211 E220CDI, and when one of my friends offered me to exchange it with a new 270CDI which he got as a wedding gift from his father- in- law, know what the Trans engineer (of course very familiar with me) told me? "Sir, please don't do it for God's sake!"

Originally Posted by Y@SH

When you buy expensive cars you shouldn't expect it not to have any problems (at least i dont), the more technologically advanced a car is the more chances of developing a problem!

I'm sorry, but I admit that I fail to see your point. Then what is the whole point in "technological advance"?

Originally Posted by GTO

I'm a pre-worshipped kinda guy and would just buy a Landcruiser LC200 for 40 - 45 lakhs. All the space, power & refinement I need with Corolla-like reliability. And hey, it can offroad rather well too.

Rightly said. Buy a Land Cruiser 100, which came in as unofficial imports, with probably no verifiable service record, but still you shall be >90% happy. I've kept LC's, both Series 100s & 90s, and the only major issue I had was with a LC100 bought from Mumbai, that had faulty front wishbones (or something similar, I ain't a techno guy).

[ContiMental]

This is true hard luck manveet.
Really feel sorry for you.
Your ML 350 might be a manufacturing defect, but the showroom you mentioned must own up and give you a replacement.
You can try emailing the Mercedes MD, and probably he might help you out on giving one.

[ksandeepk]

Mercedes, BMW or any other foreign brand, they are just fooling us giving old technology saying its a latest technology. Even though they are claiming that they offer same quality of their product in their own country and other country, its not true. So don't fall pray to their glossy advertisements and just buy a proven vehicle in India.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by ksandeepk

Mercedes, BMW or any other foreign brand, they are just fooling us giving old technology saying its a latest technology. Even though they are claiming that they offer same quality of their product in their own country and other country, its not true. So don't fall pray to their glossy advertisements and just buy a proven vehicle in India.

What is the basis of this statement? It will be ideal if you can provide some examples when making a blanket statement like this. The discussion here is on the Merc ML – which had similar reliability issues reported in other markets as well.

[ksandeepk]

Mr. Vb-San, I welcome your views, but as I am a citizen of city of vehicles of India, i.e. Pune, I myself read news about two incidents of fire catching incidents of Mercs. As an auto enthusiast, you may also knew about it.

This is not only related to Merc ML, its quite often people buy foreign brands and then repent. Secondly, when Mercedes launched their passengers bus, there was hullaballoo in the media. There was not safety door on drivers side of the bus. The company officials were tight lipped. Why?

As people are investing their hard earned money in foreign vehicles, they have right to ask them about the vehicle, their own safety. If any small manufacturing defects leads to any fatality, who will be responsible. In their own country, if it is proved that the accident was happened due to manufacturing defect, they have to settle the issue out of the court paying millions of $s to the relatives of victim. What they offered in our own country in such cases...have you ever been heard of any news about compensation. you tell me Gentleman.

At last, this discussion is for brain twisting of car freaks, customers, enthusiasts. This is the common platform for everybody.

[sandeepmdas]

@manveet, take a look at this article, or contact fellow TBHPian Wildon. He's the expert in decoding VIN and date of manufacture:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/buying...re-vin-21.html

Originally Posted by ksandeepk

Mercedes, BMW or any other foreign brand, they are just fooling us giving old technology saying its a latest technology. Even though they are claiming that they offer same quality of their product in their own country and other country, its not true. So don't fall pray to their glossy advertisements and just buy a proven vehicle in India.

Such arguments are common in Kerala, where lot of "Gelf-returned" mallus argue with you that Nokia handsets/Dell laptops sold in Dubai are infinitely better than those available here.

But I am surprised to read this in TBHP.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by ksandeepk

At last, this discussion is for brain twisting of car freaks, customers, enthusiasts. This is the common platform for everybody.

What you mentioned is applicable for any brand / product, not just ‘foreign vehicles’. And even though this is a common platform, we normally stick to a topic of discussion, and hence I don’t want to go on any OT discussions. Thanks!

[GTO]

Originally Posted by ksandeepk

Mercedes, BMW or any other foreign brand, they are just fooling us giving old technology saying its a latest technology.

While I agree with the general tone of your post that most high-end German cars have shoddy reliability (and thus, quality), I won't agree that they are giving us "old" technology. The car in question on this thread has some pretty high-tech stuff, and is available in the same spec overseas. Remember, cars costing over 50 lakhs are usually CBUs and thus, there is no question of a differentiator in what's sold here and abroad (CBU = imported as-is from a foreign market).

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by manveet

Problem 1 : Front windshield cracks on its own while the car is parked in the drive.
This is sometime in the third month of ownership, around the last week of March 2011
Attachment 876293

I have seen an S class recently with the same type of front windshield cracks just in front of the driver. May be yours is not a single case.