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Another local Motorcycle firm has closed - Pidcocks (BMW dealer).
McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
Interesting video Dave, also his take on what has lead to some Honda build quality issues when they build bikes outside Japan. He likes the Yamaha XJ900!
When I worked for Inchcape Mercedes 2004-2018 there were a lot of issues with build quality & reliability on the C & E class variants. If you read the Mercedes brochures they never say where the car is actually assembled/built - they talk about German Engineering etc.
Pretty much all of the popular C class vehicles were built in South Africa and elswhere. When Lexus started to threaten the dominance of the Merc S Class a financial decision was made by accountants in Germany that it was too expensive to maintain the build quality and compete on price. MB dumbed down on quality in the rush for volume sales.
Mercedes had several episodes of injector failings resulting in the main injector manufacturer eventually going bankrupt as they had used cheaper internal components contrary to the MB specification agreement - quality reduced due to pressure on prices from MB. It was so bad for many months with new cars breaking down on the owners on the journey home.
If you talk to owners of the old W124 Mercedes (1984-1997) they were built to last, they were over engineered everywhere, they are still trading on that now expired reputation.
SteveD CB500K0:
My wife had a 2001 SLK230. Lovely car to look at and not bad to drive either as long as you ignore the snide “hairdresser’s car†remarks.
At 5 years old the rust was coming through on almost every body panel. A bit of internet research advised to not touch the 99-03 models with a barge pole due to the accountants dictating the build quality.
They eventually agreed to a full respray under warranty. It was never the same though. Sold it soon after.
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McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
That reminded me of an E class estate that had the following replaced under the long (20 year?) bodywork warranty, the parts had to be retained for inspection by MB Milton Keynes Warranty Clims inspectors..
Bonett, Boot, 4 doors, Tailgate, front wings, both rear quarter panels, front panel.
Only the roof & body shell were not repaced.
Laverda Dave:
I had a MK1 SLK, beautiful car and so well built. The MK1 was built by humans and not robots as the later cars were. When they were new there was a two year waiting list for one. You could sell a new one for a few grand more than you paid for it. I bought mine in 2015 with a genuine 19k on it from new. It was owned by a surgeon who bought it for his wife. The problem it had was that it was a manual and it had a badly worn syncomesh between 1st & 2nd. When I went for a test drive with the owner I understood why. Throughout the test drive she kept her left hand on top of the gear stick and being in central London she was only going from 1st to 2nd gear. I still bought it, I paid £3,500 as it was unmarked with a fsh and immaculate, it drove so well apart from the stiffness when changing from 1st to 2nd but I could live with that glitch. The worst thing about it was the horrible two tone leather seats that were yellow and black along with the door panels and console! I sold it after a couple of years after getting an offer I couldn't refuse. I bought a Triumph Spitfire 1500 to replace it, what was I thinking of😱
McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
One of the issues that caused Mercedes corrosion was linked to the robotic production line in the bodyshop section where the body was fully dipped in a special primer.
There were entry/drain holes in the panel work that allowed the full body to be submerged in primer, holes allowed the primer to fill the cavities then as it was lifted out of the bath drain holes let excess primer run out.
When production was increased for popular models the drain holes sizes were changed to speed up the filling & draining but it was several years later when rust started appearing that the cause was identified.
It was established that the corossion was due to the special primer not having reached all the corners as the drain and fill holes sizes were not calculated correctly to match the changes in production line speed. At least that what I told at Dealer level.
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