Mercedes watering down their brand image too much?

samsemtex

12 years ago Mercedes offered 6 different vehicles of which you could spec to what ever you wanted. This year they off 19 different types of vehicle. Anyone else think they are watering down what is supposed to be an exclusive brand. Like i for one dont think Mercedes should ever touch cars like the A, B or R class. Leave cars like that to the Hyundais and Renaults of the world.

mike65

I've been saying this for years - Mercedes Benz used mean you have made it and now it means anything you want it to. van, people carrier, pretend mud plugger. I dunno how sales are or if the bottom line is up or down.

Mike.

E92

samsemtex wrote: »

12 years ago Mercedes offered 6 different vehicles of which you could spec to what ever you wanted. This year they off 19 different types of vehicle. Anyone else think they are watering down what is supposed to be an exclusive brand. Like i for one dont think Mercedes should ever touch cars like the A, B or R class. Leave cars like that to the Hyundais and Renaults of the world.

+1.

11 years ago with Merc there was a C-class, E-class, S-class, CL-class, V-class, SL-class, SLK-class and if you were living in the continent you could still buy the Gelaendwagen(or the G-wagon). Now you have the wait for it...., A,B,C,CL, CLC, CLK, CLS, E, GL, GLK(continent only), ML, R, S, SL, SLK and last but not least, the Viano.

BMW and Audi are guilty of the same crime to a much lesser extent though. 10 years ago BMW had a 3 series, 5 series, 7 series, 8 series and a Z3 and that was it.

Now you have a 1 series, 3 series, 5 series, 6 series, 7 series, X3, X5, X6 and Z4. Soon you will also have an X1 too and a "Progressive Activity Sedan"(read Audi A7/CLS rival). Fortunately they've binned the MPVs cause it detracts from the "sporting image" of the brand(and you mean to say 4X4s somehow don't:rolleyes:?).

Similarly with Audi there was the A3,A4, A6 and A8, while now you have the Q7, Q5, R8 and A5 as well. Shortly you will also have the A7.

It's rather co-incidental IMO:rolleyes: that German engineering and quality was at it's best when the Germans used to only build a few different models. Quality above quantity, now that certainly is reversed.

I wish Germany would go back to doing what it did best, building upmarket executive cars that were a touch exclusive and were quality engineering. Most modern German cars are simply no match for those in the late 80s/early 90s when the choice was much smaller but the standards of quality and reliability were much higher.

I wish that they'd stop building 4X4s and cars like the 1 series/A class/B class that dilute both brands.

mike65

The curse of niche marketing.

Mike.

bigpinkelephant

samsemtex wrote: »

12 years ago Mercedes offered 6 different vehicles of which you could spec to what ever you wanted. This year they off 19 different types of vehicle. Anyone else think they are watering down what is supposed to be an exclusive brand. Like i for one dont think Mercedes should ever touch cars like the A, B or R class. Leave cars like that to the Hyundais and Renaults of the world.

Exactly!!!!!!!! Mercs just aren't Mercs anymore. That A-series thing is hideous. If you wanted a car like that you'd get a Toyota. Also Merc vans are awful- since when are vans glamorous or exclusive??? You may as well get a Transit. In my mind a Merc is not a Merc unless it has a leather interior with wooden trim, all the bells and whistles youc ould want, and is a saloon (and I hate saloons but I wouldn't have a Merc any other way).

peasant

Just to be pernickety ...vans and trucks is something Merceds have always built, small vans since the seventies when they bought out Hanomag and "created" the 206. On the continent you could get passenger versions of their Transit size vans since forever, basically.

But yes, I agree, in the car sector they're building something for everyone in the audience, very little of that would pass as a typical Merc.

However I don't think that these days they'd be able to survive with the 3-car-lineup that they had in the 80's / early nineties. The competition came very close to Merc standards for less money or even out-Merced them (Lexus).

So they sought rescue in diversifying ...sadly at a great loss in quality and engineering effort.

At least they got rid of Chrysler

mike65

The rot set in with this car



Mike.

DMC

LOL, mike, you thought you'd "made it" when you got yer big ol' barge!

I blame mike. mike65 is the cause of Mercedes woes.

Agree with OP and other posts.

bazz26

peasant wrote: »

Just to be penrickety ...vans and trucks is something Merceds have always built, small vans since the seventies when they bought out Hanomag and "created" the 206. On the continent you could get passenger versions of their Transit size vans since forever, basically.

I don't know about that these days, the Viano and Sprinter vans haven't great reputations among van drivers I know nowadays.

The old 206 was a great vehicle in their days. There were so many different versions of it, vans, trucks, buses, etc. I remember if you had a MB commercial back then the line of business you were in was considered very successful.

Unfortunately like their passenger vehicles these days their quality has diluted in order to stay competitive.

unkel

You guys leave me little left to rant about

peasant wrote: »

At least they got rid of Chrysler

QFT

The US focus on short term "bottom line" can be detrimental to longer term sustainable profit. We're not talking shampoo or cereals here, but prestige cars.

peasant

One of the problems that Mercedes faces is the fast paced market of today.
Customers want something "new" all the time.

Traditionally Mercedes engineered (over-engineered) a car down to the last screw and back up again and then they kept producing that car (with minor changes) for some 10 - 15 years while engineering the next one.

That's what made them so bloody good.

But the customers ran away in droves to other marques that had something new to offer every five minutes, making it harder and harder for Mercedes to recoup the huge engineering costs on ever dwindling sales to old, conservative fuddy-duddies.

But now that the attention to detail (that wonderfully excentric windscreen wiper on the old E-class springs to mind) has disappeared in favour of ever more models, quality has slipped and the old customer base is wandering off as well.

RedorDead

All to do with who can sell the most cars.

More car lines and niches filled = more potential customers, but at what cost. By 2015 Audi will have 46 different variations compared to the 27 they have now.

All 3 brands are in a volumes race with each other and figure that this is the way to sell the most cars. They will eventually fill every niche. Will be interesting to see how long it takes Lexus to catch up with them.

Oilrig

Mercedes f*cked up.

They bought Chrysler (?!) screwed suppliers at the cost of reliability (corporate manslaughter) and generally lost direction.

Tends to happen when you have shareholders who are interested in short term gains… CEO responsible for these decisions has been dumped, hopefully they will eventually get back to where they were, ie regain focus. The “brand” has been seriously battered.

As for having models in all segments, why not? If you do it properly it can be very profitable, ie BMW & Mini etc. (not getting into the get them young issue…)

BTW, BMW are a private company, ie owned primarily by a family – hence no short term gain shareholder pressures.

Rowley Birkin QC

peasant wrote: »

(that wonderfully excentric windscreen wiper on the old E-class springs to mind)

Go on tell me about that. The mind boggles as to how a windscreen wiper can be eccentric:D:D. I presume it was a single wiper all the same.

astraboy

The image is indeed diluted. When I was a kid not too long ago, Mercs were a class act, anyone that drove one had made it. With the economic boom we saw more on the roads(along with more BMW's and Audis too), no bad thing IMO, it showed Ireland was moving up the ladder. However everytime I read about them over the last few years quality was an issue, not something you would expect with a brand like Merc. The A class, the R class, whats the point?

Merc also made the Unimog right? And I think even those that hate SUV's will admire the sheer brutality and image the G-Wagen has, they are a proper 4x4! But lower models in the range like the A class only ruin the brand Merc has and its like they are going for EVERY possible market(BMW are hugely guilty of this too) instead of sticking to a decent strategy and going for a core set of customers. Being all things to all men will not work.

BTW, I think BMW should stop making the x3. The x5 I can handle, but good grief the x3, and the 1 series hatch, are ugly ugly cars. They are designed like running shoes! Look at the side profile of an x3, it looks like a nike air.:p

stratos

I have a clk a few years now, Very fast in a straight line, corners like a shopping trolley.

The blue paint looks beautifull chips if you look at it.

The electronics aren't too bad the srs light is up of course.
The car when polished and in the right light looks stunning. the clearcoat is peeling off the alloys.

It eats front tyres yet if you get it just right just right it WILL hunker down and press on out of a corner. I have no idea either to sell it keep it or shoot it.

peasant

bigkev49 wrote: »

Go on tell me about that. The mind boggles as to how a windscreen wiper can be eccentric:D:D. I presume it was a single wiper all the same.

If you insist

Somebody upstairs at Merc had set the guideline for the then new E-Class that it mustn't exceed a drag co-efficient of such and such.

So when they sent the first models into the wind tunnel, they noticed that they were still a bit away from the target.

The engineering team suggested a slightly slanted front with a smaller grille and possibly loose the star ?

The message from the top was ...no way. A Merc has to look like a Merc, find another way to do it.


That's how the E-class ended up with a small passenger side side mirror and a totally over engineered single wiper that moves up and down as it wipes in order to reach the corners better (and make the offering of the second wiper to the gods of aerodynamics less noticeable)

True story, have it first hand from somebody who (together with 20 other colleagues ) developed that wiper

niceirishfella

Ok, i'm going to just say this and no more about Mercs -

A MERC IS A TAXI...........!

and they are cheap too in some cases........infact i was only looking at a 2002 E200CDi in the uk last week with 99k,in black,auto for £10k. Its got me thinking.

Max_Damage

Where there is money to be made, car company's will build anything in order to squeeze every last cent out of the population. That and the fact Mercedes cars now are considered rubbish compared to what they were 25 years ago, thanks to the greedy accountants that run these car firms.

Not only BMW, Mercedes, and the like are doing this, but Ford and Volkswagen are the same, bringing out completely unnecessary vehicles like the S-MAX and Golf Plus and so on.

It's all a gimmick really.

mike65

The eccentric wiper design was introduced on the w201 model first I think, the very early models had two wipers - a big one and a mini-arm which worked in concert sweeping the area at the bottom on the screen!

Mike.

peasant

mike65 wrote: »

The eccentric wiper design was introduced on the w201 model first I think, the very early models had two wipers - a big one and a mini-arm which worked in concert sweeping the area at the bottom on the screen!

Mike.

Im talking about the single "butterfly" wiper on the W124, of course .
(which was put on the W201 as well later on)

And excentric not as in off centre but as in whacky

johnf2020

I dont agree that the rot started with the 190 W201.
Ok--it had plastic bumpers,,but it was/is a great car. I have had 4 and have had very few problems. The first C-class was a better looking car,but just didn't have a sturdy feel. The real rot started with the W211 E-CLASS. RUBBISH.
People say that the W123 was the best Mercedes ever,and mechanically it probably was,though rust can be a huge problem. Now the w124 is a great car,,no rust, though electrics starting to make them selves known.

So the best car Mercedes Never made would be a W124 WITH CHROME BUMPERS AND W123 ENGINES.:)

tc20

niceirishfella wrote: »

Ok, i'm going to just say this and no more about Mercs -

A MERC IS A TAXI...........!

quite true of their saloons, but with very good reason - longevity, accomodation, and over engineering. In fact in the days of the W114/W115 and the subsequent W123, (quite possibly even earlier Fintail models too) Mercedes provided practically the whole German taxi industry, and cars could be ordered taxi-spec ie tighter turning circle, uprated springs and seats.
You cant deny their racing & sporting heritage tho, from the 20s thru to the 50s they were at the forefront of race technology (WW2 aside). Likewise their commercial vehicles as peasant says.

I'm with the OP on this one, they are making far too many cars which aren't true Mercs these days, but as already stated here, thats to fill every niche in the market.
There was a time when if you wanted a car to literally last your lifetime (and your childrens lifetime) you bought a Merc. Big is what they did best.
just my 2c

mike65

I was joshing slightly about the w201, when it went into production some purists were shocked at the idea of a "cheap" "small" Mercedes. Obviously cheap is relative as you could buy a small bungalow for the price of the base model here.

Mike.

E92

If you go to Germany today you will see that most recent taxis are no longer Mercs. They've even started using Toyota as taxis over there:eek:!

Same goes anywhere in the continent.

What are all the old taxis? And what are all the new ones?

Exactly. Taxi drivers know better than most what lasts and what doesn't. The fact that all the old taxis in the continent are Mercs and most new ones are NOT Mercs is rather telling really. And I'd rather a spin in any of the old taxis that feel like tanks than the new ones any day of the week.

In my experience, there are very few W203s(recently retired C-class) and W211s(current E-class) while the older taxis are almost always a W124(what a great car), W202 or even the W210.

The rot started with the A-class, then continued with the W220 S-class(though technically superb it is rather cheap feeling inside and has shown itself to be nowhere near as good as it's predecessor, the W140) and of course don't forget the ML, wasn't it voted last or second last in a JD Power survey more than once?, and really sped up with the W203, probably the worst proper Merc ever made(I don't consider the A or B class to be worthy of a Merc badge, so they're certainly not proper Mercs), and the C-class "Sport Coupé" rubbed a lot of salt into the wounds.

They've continued down this slippery slope with the W211(a much nicer car than the E60 5 series but the 5 series actually works apart from the iDrive while the W211 just doesn't work at all), and the GL-class, R-class, B-class etc, well all I can say is what were they thinking?

There was a time when I thought a Merc was a far classier car than a BMW, suffice to say that day has long since passed.

The modern rubbish they make doesn't even slightly interest me.

The only hope is that the W204 C-class is showing signs of going back towards that over engineered feel Mercs had in the good old days. It's supposed to be doing better on the reliability front than the W203 as well(not that that would be difficult to achieve). The current ML is allegedly a big improvement on the old one too for quality and reliability(not that that was hard to achieve either, because the only way they could go was up).