Originally posted by ezsvt: I prefer my svt -- if I was buying a NEW car now, it would not be a mazda 6 -- for a little more I can get a wrx (turbo and all wheel drive -- important around here) for example.
If I were buying a new car now, I'd stay away from all FoMoCo products, due to the huge quality control problems they've had over the last few years. They may be coming out of it now, but for a while there they were making even Chrysler look good, quality-wise.
True. But it's getting difficult to find a safe-bet these days at any price.
In a recent issue of TIME magazine (which, having just looked, I discovered I no longer have), there was a comparison of "out of every 100" late-model Buicks vs the number of late-model Mercedes that come into dealership service depts for "non-scheduled maintenence". The Buick number was somewhere in the mid-20's; Mercedes was in the mid-40's.
Not only is this is in-line with other items/murmurs I've seen/heard about persistent QC/QA problems in the Mercedes line over the last 2-3 years, it's also in-line with the experience of friends of mine who bought a 430-series (or whatever the biggest-displacement 8-cyl MB drop-top coupe was about two years ago). Over the 10-11 months they had the car, it was in the shop nearly 20 times. Problems ranged from the (really crappy -- I drove it) Triptronic transmission to the onboard navigation. Finally, after hammering on the dealership long and hard, they renegotiated the deal, gave them back the 430, and drove off with a newly-traded, same-year Lexus SC400 ... Which turned out to be a far better car -- plenty of power and everything worked ... and still does.
