Thanks for offering your opinion. While I want to respect the GP's personal experience, your comments echo my feelings. My favorite part of a Mercedes (and this is surely true for other premier makes) is that everything seems to have been thought out and engineered ^1. And with my own personal experience of the cars TCS, I felt it very hard to believe that the Mercedes TCS would be so simplistic.
^1 Not to say I don't have my issues with the cars -- stuff like a crappy Chinese made iPod interface.
Edit: That video is stunning. Thanks for the share.
Great drive UX as opposed to what? Have you driven a modern Mercedes of the higher price tiers? They're pretty damn great to drive or be driven in (comfort and fun wise), but they don't have gimmicks like the door thing and such. If you're talking about those gimmicks I disagree, and if you're talking about "motor/battery/esc technology" I also disagree, they didn't innovate anywhere, they just hit the right market with their product in my amateur opinion.
Mercedes has been disappointing me over and over again. Their car body designs are becoming difficult to look at, especially the electric range (the EQS is one ugly car). Their software is HORRENDOUSLY buggy. Their 2007 S-Class is a smoother ride than their 2022 model.
I love what Mercedes used to stand for, but right now they are pretty much selling cars on brand value, not because they're actually great cars.
The new S-class even feels like a step back from the previous model in terms of basic aesthetics. Plus, loaded up with cheap electronics, ready to break before your next service.
Recent Mercedes C class electronics are junk, software ditto. The interior has been 'upgraded', as a result of which everything feels flimsy and weak. You'd expect stuff like that on consumer electronics from the 90's, not on an A brand car. Usability is down, bling factor is up.
Sigh. This is why we can't have good things. Thank you for saving me some research time on the heads up of the overall Mercedes quality.
It gels with my experience with Mercedes sedans. Until I got to the very top of the line S-series like the 5xx/6xx, the owner experience on recent models was still a step down from what it was like leading up to 2000, mostly with fiddly bit details and robustness/conscientiousness overlooked in those details, and this quality corruption seems to have infected the other product offerings from your description. The core vehicle itself was fine, but I'm not paying the Mercedes premium just to overlook those details.
Maybe I'll stick with my original plan of getting a Toyota Hi-Lux and convert + tow what I want instead of lumping it into an all-in-one large commercial/trade van.
I don't get the Mercedes hype. My other half's £30k (company car) Merc does have fancy stuff like auto parallel parking, lane control, auto braking etc. but apart from that it feels just as plasticky as any other new car.
You're wildly delusional or have never actually been in a Mercedes, Audi, or BMW. Maybe the pre-reworked G-wagons - those were basically tarted up army trucks - but definitely not the new ones.
Listen to the noises the interior components make when opened/closed and how they look. It's all super cheap, hard, undampened plastic.
Another video - listen to the noise the door makes when it closes. There isn't a lick of sound deadening material in there and the door is probably made of thin-as-paper metal. https://youtu.be/t0vM3B9oJqs?t=74
Keep watching and you'll see how bad the stitching is on the back of the front passenger seat.
Here you can see the dome light plastic is painted silver and it's already been scratched up badly, and you can hear the lack of dampening and sound deadening when he actuates the switches (and note there's no soft on/off): https://youtu.be/t0vM3B9oJqs?t=86
...then you can hear the entire back seat rattle as he squeezes the headrest.
Here he slaps the rear passenger seat and it sounds like the sort of noise I'd expect out of a 1990's Chevy: https://youtu.be/t0vM3B9oJqs?t=92
Guaranteed that when driving that thing on any sort of road that isn't perfectly smooth, it'll be a veritable din of rattling.
I really don't think the cars are that nice... this is a side from the main issue here but the build quality is poor and the design is bland - both internally and externally (That massive big iPad like screen - yuck!).
It is crazy innovative. Not to mention Mercedes rear suspension geometry - but they don't provide a visual spectacle, just raw speed. If we removed the design restrictions, we'd see fairly similar cars anyway.
It's not the trim and details. It's the experience. Luxury car dashboard software lacks intelligence.
But I spent less than an hour with it. And am generally more of a Subaru Outback or Ford F150 person, though I still appreciate fine German engineering. Can't quite put my finger on it, but it just felt lighter than the MB 4-door sedans I have driven in the past. Despite the EV battery and distribution ;)
The lap was 6:43. Not 6:58. Might wanna do some research there.
Also, the new C8 looks like crap with those massive side pods and enormous trunk/rear. It's been panned widely for that. Front looks okay, though.
Your argument is frankly stupid because the 911 in higher trims is consistently an extremely sought after vehicle, year after year. It's good looking, and it's not broken, and they won't 'fix' it. There's nothing to fix. Stop with your inane attempt to pass off 'neat', or debatably good looking bodywork, as what makes a supercar a supercar. It betrays your lack of knowledge.
No number of additional premium features can compensate for an overall worse driving and ownership experience. It’s basically a new class of car. I was very skeptical but that’s the truth.
Of course, some won’t value what it can do, but the hate over minor details is not justified.
Terrible. No analog buttons, and not using the phone ecosystem, but their own...
> Company executives envision the car as an entertainment center, with gaming, social media, video conferencing, music, and other third-party apps.
So you'll have to subscribe to Netflix, Disney, and Mercedes Benz? Great.
> Schäfer touted partnerships with Universal Music as well as myNFT, the latter of which will allow customers to create and display their own private art galleries inside their vehicles.
They are beautiful well engineered cars but the company just seems incredibly poorly run.
I actually went through the experience as a potential customer and bought a similarly priced competitor from a German legacy maker because there was no BS.
Cool vehicle, but comparing it to a Mercedes G-Class platform that has been refined and optimized over 45 years and entrusted by militaries around the world is one hell of a stretch.
This looks more like a cheap Jeep alternative with an attempt at a luxury interior (that looks ultra tacky and cheap to me, but to each their own).
I’m always surprised at how HN will rant about cheap Chinese products on Amazon all day, but the moment a press release for a Chinese G-Class knockoff comes out we’re supposed to believe it’s the superior vehicle.
I absolutely agree on the ugly fonts in Mercedes. New Porsche replaced a multi button interface with a dual touchscreen, which I am not a fan of. I really like the Bmw iDrive system. It gives you an option to use either a touchscreen or a rotary wheel, it’s super convenient.
^1 Not to say I don't have my issues with the cars -- stuff like a crappy Chinese made iPod interface.
Edit: That video is stunning. Thanks for the share.
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