or rather, mb's with lemons?

The drivers door of my '88 300e was t-boned by an old lady, and her insurance paid for a new door. While it was being worked on, the insurance gave me a renter: a brand new Jeep Cherokee Laredo. After a few days, i got the 300e back.

Hence I can compare an SUV with a sedan cruiser. As they are from two different categories and about 13 years apart, it makes for an interestingly ridiculous and pointless comparison.

First, the acceleration: the SUV was a hair trigger, just touching the pedal goosed the engine, where with the sublime MB the acceleration was at a gentleman's pace - sure, one can floor it, manually shift and tear ass but the MB seemed to have a balance between the power of the engine, the weight and acceleration. The jeep lacked this, like an engine designed in one factory is dropped into a body made by another with little thought to how they blended.
I suspect the extreme weight of the MB has something to do with it, I mean you really feel how heavy the car is, yet its cornering, turning and maneuverability matched or exceeded the Jeep.

The jeep seemed very light and in high winds and at high speed it didnt hug the road. The acceleration of the jeep at 50 mph and up sucked, like it had to downshift and work to get speed, where with the MB it had scads of power once it gets going.

Naturally, I wont be taking the MB off-road but many SUV owners are suburb-lubbers anyway. However, it was interesting riding so high in the Jeep, towering over everyone on the road.

glad to be back in the MB! Jeeps are great things to rent, but I wouldnt want to live there.

That's so true - and Jeep quality sucks anyway, just like Jetta's electrical problem, Jeep has engine problems after 20K miles.
They gotta ban that thing!
Sesh

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2002 SLK 32 /////AMG
K4
040
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It's a good thing to use a non-MB vehicle for a few days or a week once a year, just to remind us why we are so devoted, not to say obsessive, about this brand. Many of the pleasures of MBs are subtle and only appreciated when you don't have them.

I get the same feeling when I test drive new MBs. I looked hard at an ML, enjoyed it overall, but realized I'd miss the handling and road manners of my W124. But what really convinced me to stay the course was that I didn't want to give up the rotary headlight switch! Think about it for a moment. It was designed by Bela Barenyi (according to the STAR) years ago with safety foremost in mind. It is large, easy to find in the dark, with VERY firm detents so there is absolutely no doubt what position it's in! Also, I think it's damn clever that one switch very intuitively controls headlights, parking lights, and front + rear fog lights.

Little things, but the sum of all the little things is sometimes greater than the whole.

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Steve
'93 400E

Half a day in a Pontiac Grand POS rental from the dealer reminds me!!!!!

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2006 E350 w/ 155k miles (Daily Driver)

Previous:
1993 300E 3.2L Sedan w/ close to about 300k miles
2003 E500 Brilliant Silver (Had 217k miles when totalled!)
1989 300E with 289,000 miles (had for <1 yr while in HI)
03 CLK 500 cabrio (Mom's)
2006 C230k (Dad's)
1999 S420 (Mom's/Dad's)
2000 C230k Sport sedans
2001 CLK320 Cabrio (Mom's)
1995 C280 My First Mercedes-Benz... (155k miles. EXCEPTIONAL AUTOMOBILE. Was Very hard to let go of!)