My uncles owns a BMW 7 series, and swears to himself that he will never ever buy a Mercedes Benz S-class, because since the merger, Chrysler products have gone up, and MB products have gone down. What do you think? It is now obvious that BMW is the better German car. tiss tiss tiss MB.

Seems like a silly assumption. MB is a fine car. Chrysler and MB operate like separate entities and have little effect on each other. MB had some problems a few years ago but seem to have recovered. How could anyone buy a BMW after the 318ti attrocity or any mid 80s three series?

For the first 8 years Mercedes had to cut back on spending too much time & money on making durable cars because of the merger with Chrysler but Mercedes r still great .The 2009 models hall be made with the same build quality as the old Benzes.With over engineered parts that will last forever.The New 2008 C class has done thousands of durability tests & has covered the Earth is surface 6,000 times in all the tests in every imaginable condition.So l would say any Mercedes from 2000-2005 is not really a true Mercedes in a sense.

Personally, l think M-B was crap without Chrysler. For years, they have been living off of their reputation while putting out unreliable, over-engineered, over priced vehicles. However, European cars have never really enjoyed the reliability reputation that their Japanese counterparts have. Chrysler products to me never saw benefit from supposedly solid Mercedes reliability. However, Chrysler reliability did get better, but this was because every auto manufacturer had to step up their reliability if they wanted to stay in business.

I've never owned a M-B, but l have owned a BMW (2001 330i) & l loved it. However, a friend of mine at work had a 1999 C Class & it gave him absolute hell. In addition to a ton of other failures, his windshield wiper (that funky 1 blade system) was about to go out & a local European only garage gave him a price of $800 to fix it ($600 for the part). At that point, l realized that the best way to drive a German car is to lease it, & when the lease period is up, get rid of the car.

A service adviser at the local BMW dealership here told me that when a 7 Series comes in, the driver is going to fork over $1,000 minimum!

Buying Chrysler did nothing but hurt the reputation of Mercedes Benz. Chrysler has long been known for poor quality and reliability.