Mercedes Quality Slipping
Wall Street Journal reports problems
The Wall Street Journal is reporting Mercedes-Benz and other luxury car manufacturers quality is suffering...
Here are the highlights (full text version is available to subscribers of WSJ.com: www.wsj.com)
Mercedes Sees Rankings Slip In Satisfaction, Quality Tests
• New Car Buyer Survey (February 2002): Mercedes quality rating is below that of GMÕs Opel unit
• J.D. Power (October): In German customer satisfaction survey, Japanese brands win every category; Mercedes ranked just above average
• Consumer Reports (November): No Mercedes model makes magazineÕs recommended listBy NEAL E. BOUDETTE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Mercedes has stumbled in recent studies on customer satisfaction and quality. The latest blow: A reliability study by Consumer Reports magazine. Not a single 2003 model from Mercedes made it to the Consumer Reports recommended list.
Mercedes isn't alone. Other big names in Europe are also cutting increasingly smaller profiles in quality studies. In the Consumer Reports survey, BMW's 5-Series sedan was the only one from Bayerische Motoren Werke AG to achieve average reliability. BMW's company's X5 sport-utility vehicle was ranked among the least reliable in its class, a status shared by Jaguar's X-Type and S-Type and VW's Golf and Jetta.
In the U.S., J.D. Power & Associates surveys are finding that the quality of nonluxury brands are improving "much more rapidly than luxury quality," says Brian Walters, Power's director of product research. "If you look at the European luxury brands, five of the eight lost ground" between 1998 and 2002 on J.D. Power's rankings of cars by initial quality in the U.S., Mr. Walters says.
The five brands that slipped in rank: BMW, Jaguar, Porsche, Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz. Power's U.S. surveys show that Mercedes is suffering from complaints about features and controls, fit and finish, and sound systems, Mr. Walters said. On J.D. Power's 2002 survey of new-vehicle quality, Mercedes finished 13th among all brands, tied with Chevrolet, Mr. Walters says.
Earlier this year, in a European survey that is prepared for car makers themselves and is normally kept secret, Mercedes's rating fell below that of Opel, the German unit of General Motors Corp., a brand with one of the worst images in Europe.
--Joseph White contributed to this article.
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