I read a press report a few weeks ago that even some German taxi-drivers (for whom Mercedes are designed, surely) are defecting to Japanese cars on grounds of unreliability.
Sadly, it's yet another example of the short-termism in parts of industry (largely US-inspired, I suspect) where they cut down on the quality, make more profit per car for now, but eventually lose sales through a worsening reputation.
At the prices they charge in the UK (for the price of my A4 I could only have got a very basic 2.0-litre C-classs estate) they may find it takes some time to recover the good name tnat those splendid old W123s gained in the 1980s.
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Sadly, it's yet another example of the short-termism in parts of industry (largely US-inspired, I suspect) where they cut down on the quality, make more profit per car for now, but eventually lose sales through a worsening reputation.
Having spent my the whole of my working life in automotive engineering development I can assure you that NO company deliberately cuts down on quality in the interests of greater profit. Sometimes a reduction in quality has to be accepted to meet the price that the market will stand, but that is a different matter entirely. If people are prepared to pay for high quality then that is what they will get. If they're not, then.....
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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When I read this story in the news on the right, my first reaction was to mock the german "quality car" manufacturer.
However, after thinking about it for a few seconds I have to say all credit to them for a gutsy move that will cost them loads, give them plenty of bad press but puts their customers first.
As a disgruntled previous owner, this has not come soon enough.
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1.3 MILION? I don't ever remember any other manufacturer having to recall that many cars.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Oops sorry!
100 lines
I must pay attention
I must pay attention
A mus.......
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"Having spent my the whole of my working life in automotive engineering development I can assure you that NO company deliberately cuts down on quality in the interests of greater profit"
I stand to be corrected by Jaguar experts, but I am sure I read that William Lyons the now deceased Jaguar founder was notorious for choosing cheapo items to keep the cost of his cars down.
Also what about Lexus not painting the insides of Ashtrays to save money and Toyota replacing independent rear suspension with a fixed beam on one car to save cash? Also, loads of manufacturers used to come unstuck by skimping on rustproofing.
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I stand to be corrected by Jaguar experts, but I am sure I read that William Lyons the now deceased Jaguar founder was notorious for choosing cheapo items to keep the cost of his cars down.
I doubt very much that Sir William Lyons would have concerned himself with the details of Jaguar design, except for in his very early days. CEOs' time is almost totally taken up with the control and running of the company. Styling and engineering are the preserves of the respective departmental directors, and even they have to rely to a great extent on their immediate underlings making the right decisions.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Not sure about the Jaguar point. Hopefully a Jag expert will clear it up.
I think I was off-beam (sorry about the pun) in my last paragraph, as the examples I give are conscious rational decisions and not foisting rubbish on people.
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Also what about Lexus not painting the insides of Ashtrays to save money..........Also, loads of manufacturers used to come unstuck by skimping on rustproofing.
I'm surprised to hear that Lexus has an ashtray that would benefit from being painted inside. Wouldn't hot cigarettes damage the paint anyway?
Regarding rustproofing, most manufacturers seem to have got this right now. A lot of the problems of cars rusting was down to thoughtless design, i.e. water and mud traps.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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>> Sadly, it's yet another example of the short-termism in parts of >> industry (largely US-inspired, I suspect) where they cut down on the >> quality, make more profit per car for now, but eventually lose >> sales through a worsening reputation. Having spent my the whole of my working life in automotive engineering development I can assure you that NO company deliberately cuts down on quality in the interests of greater profit. Sometimes a reduction in quality has to be accepted to meet the price that the market will stand, but that is a different matter entirely. If people are prepared to pay for high quality then that is what they will get. If they're not, then..... -- L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
I suppose no one can be certain of what Manufacturers do or dont do to keep their costs down.
I can assure you that the paintwork on a 1990 Mercedes 230E I owned was far superior to that of my current 1999 C180.
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"I doubt very much that Sir William Lyons would have concerned himself with the details of Jaguar design, except for in his very early days"
I understand Sir William took a detailed interest in the styling of ALL the cars Jaguar produced and he had to personally sign them off before it went into production.
He WAS also notorious for skimping on product quality where it did not show: shock absorbers and rubber bushes were classic I believe.
And if anyone wants to know about cost cutting ruining cars, the Mark 4 Ford Escort was heavily criticised when launched for its poor ride: the suspension mounting points were unchanged from the prior modelfor cost reasons. They were revised soon after launch and the ride improved. Ford then screwed thing up by launching the Mark6 Fiesta about 3 years too late - saving development costs - and lost their dominant position for a while as a result.
I use Ford solely as an example: there are lots of others:
madf
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Sorry, L'es, but I think your claim needs some qualification at the very least.
Car companies and their supply chain partners clearly don't intend to produce vehicles that fall apart the moment they hit the road, but cost/benefit analyses are a central part of the design process. Most mass market manufacturers have built down to a price for decades, and there's an element of risk in that which the manufacturers are well aware of. Will people moan if major components fail after 80,000 miles? May be, but we'll have made our money by then.
Quality is a very subjective concept in some ways, but phrases like 'decontenting' and 'materials downgrading' are hardly unheard of in the industry.
Yes, the engineers do their best to achieve the same rsult on a restricted budget, but they don't have the final say.
Mercedes made a mistake a few years back, thinking it could throttle back on its reputation for almost over-engineered vehicles. It also took some risks with brand new designs produced by brand new plants, which usually ramps up the failure rate.
It's now paying the price.
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Mercedes made a mistake a few years back, thinking it could throttle back on its reputation for almost over-engineered vehicles. It also took some risks with brand new designs produced by brand new plants, which usually ramps up the failure rate. It's now paying the price.
It's position was not helped by the determined work of the Japanese companies (Lexus and to some extent Acura in the US) to launch vehicles aimed directly at the buyer of Mercedez Benz vehicles.
These products raised vehicle quality especially in their electronic components which Mercedes admit themselves they need to improve.
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I have worked on MB vehicles on-and-off for 25 years or more.
Up until about 1993 they were a great company - run by engineers along traditional German lines. Then the accountants got their hands on the company and they got some US-trained wizz-kids with 'Anglo-Saxon' notions about how the company should be run.
Up until about '93 it was a question of the engineers designing the car and then the accountantss figuring out how it could be made at a realistic price. Now the accountants and marketing guys decide the selling price and the profit margin and the engineers have to figure out how to make it.
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Very well said Aprilia, and I think that sums the problem up perfectly. I don't think L'escargot's point and mine are all thst far apart: whether you call it cutting down on quality in the interest of profit or accepting a reduction in quality because of market forces, the end result is much the same.
All trading businesses make their decisions with a view to profit: what engineers are aware of, and head office types (more main board directors than just accountants) too often overlook, is that the long-term future of a business is just as important as this year's bottom line.
I don't want to go on at length (as a training manager I give lectures on 'finance for managers' and could send you to sleep), but much of the problem comes from large companies' institutional shareholders who want their dividends NOW. Imagine, say, 11 of them holding 5 % of the voting shares each - they can (and do) get together and can remove the directors if they don't do what they are told.
There are now far more institutions (insurance companies, pension funds, building societies etc.) holding shares in large corporations than there were 50 years ago when most shareholders were private individuals and more easily guided by a company's directors.
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Up until about '93 it was a question of the engineers designing the car and then the accountantss figuring out how it could be made at a realistic price. Now the accountants and marketing guys decide the selling price and the profit margin and the engineers have to figure out how to make it.
Yes. In the 80/90s I used to live near a Jaguar dealer near me who would take in W123s and even SLs as part exchange for Jags. The build quality of the older, traded-in Daimler-Benz cars was far superior to the brand-new XJS and XJ6s, even the paint was better.
Vowed then to buy Mercedes when I had the money, but then the C-class had replaced the 190e in 92/93 and it was never the same.
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