We Still Aren't Guilty, Your Honor.
Deny everything. Isn't that was a good attorney always tells you?
Automotive News this Monday reported that the Mercedes-Benz VP for Electrical, Electronics and Chassis Development, Stephan Wolfsried, was now not in favor of overloading vehicles with electronic functions that are useless to customers. It's really news to me that M-B removed 600 electronic functions from its vehicles last year! Just how many problems were never made public or the subject of a recall? It's pretty scary, if you ask me. Suddenly, a Chrysler product using last-generation Mercedes junk parts sounds like a better machine.
The quoted example used by Mr. Wolfsried is as needlessly complicated as the electronics and software needed to create it: There will no longer be an "individual memory setting on a key fob for seat adjustment".
Ok, so why did M-B have even more buttons on its key fob in the first place? My Pontiac Aztek just had two keys that each recognized the driver as "Driver 1" or "Driver 2" without any separate button. My 1996 S320 had only one button - it's pretty simple and works well. A car maker should be worried about making a slim, easy to carry key that can fit comfortably in the pocket (not the purse) of the driver. The remote entry fob and key should be integrated, slim and easy to operate from any angle of approach. Work on that one, you idiots!
Naturally, there were no apologies and lots of finger pointing. Here is Mercedes' 4-point strategy to "fix" its problems:
- Require suppliers to certify products before they are added
- Check for glitches caused when electronic components interact
- Adopt zero-tolerance policy for hardware problems
- Reject gadgets that offer marginal benefits
I must have really had too high expectations for Mercedes-Benz. Aren't those actions something that they should have been doing in the first place? Also, as I interpret the unspoken message, Mercedes is placing heavy a heavy burden on its Tier 1 suppliers, like Bosch, to deliver a perfect product every time, on time, and make sure the hardware, software and engineering work perfectly immediately with all other systems on the car. In short, suppliers are being set up for failure, blame and liability. Nice move, M-B. It sure must be nice to want better engineering now when the company is in trouble after being mismanaged and handed over to the cost accounts over a decade ago. The three-pointed star was further tarnished in 1998 by the botched and ill-timed acquisition of a very troubled Chrysler. I've often lamented the fact that Mercedes is no longer the best engineered car in the world.
Now, let's ask the big question. What 600 (six hundred??) items/changes were made to M-B products last year that simplified (read: fixed) the systems? I'd love to see that list. How many things are really wrong with these cars? How many are safety issues? Hell, I'd bet that some are considered "nothing important" but I'd call them safety issues.
My friend Paul V. has a C240 sedan with unfixable problems in its electrical systems. It comes off lease in a few months and he can't wait to get rid of it. He has learned to drive with the problems, but I wouldn't put up with them. He just doesn't have time to have the car in the shop for extended periods only to have the same electrical gremlins return in a few days, weeks or months. For example, sometimes, when you open the door and the driver's seat moves forward. He's a tall guy and has to press the seat memory button to get it back in place. The sunroof doesn't always work. The windows don't always roll up or down. So what happens if the seat suddenly moves forward while he's driving and causes an accident? I call that a safety defect. What happens if a large bee flies in the car but he can't roll his window down to get rid of the bee which is attacking him? The bee stings him or in trying to get away from the bee, there is an accident. Again, a safety defect in my book.
BMW and Porsche aren't save here either. BMW relentlessly insists that iDrive is the best thing since the power window or FM radio. It isn't. The system is far to complex to use while driving and most drivers simply set the thing once and hope to never change it again. I wonder how many accidents have been caused by people fiddling with their iDrive system. I'm sure BMW has heard plenty of anecdotal evidence and many internal statistics, but those aren't being made public. BMW is also arrogant enough to believe that it isn't having problems either with all the high technology electronic systems in its cars. BMW relies on many of the same suppliers as Mercedes and BMW matches Mercedes with all the fun electronic gizmos that can fail. To BMW's credit, its cars do seem to be better engineered these days, so maybe it has fewer than 600 items that need to be simplified or eliminated; but it's hard to put a straight face on and declare that iDrive is a success. But BMW's problems are also electrical and mechanical. I wonder if the press knows how many M3 engines BMW had to replace before they figured out and fixed the problem? Alan can attest to the electrical and mechanical problems he's had with his most recent BMW.
Porsche grabbed the cash with the Cayenne, but it also has sunk to the bottom when it comes to new car defects. Almost all of Porsche's fall to the bottom can be attributed to the high-volume, huge profit Cayenne, joint developed with VW, another German car company with quality/electrical problems.
All this isn't really news. The problems have been out there for years and all the companies are struggling to both fix and deny problems as they occur. It's sort of German car schizophrenia, I think. The Germans aren't used to being wrong about anything. They sit in their smug post as king of all that is good in Auto Land. They still don't have much competition in the lofty areas where they play, but Toyota, Nissan, Honda and even a couple GM cars are nipping at their heels with reliable cars that consumers continue to buy more of.
The fix will be painful and not as fast as anyone would like. What these companies need is a real engineer at the helm -- a car guy, not a cost accountant. Shareholders will feel pain. Sales may go down, not up. It may cost more to make a quality car again. Hey, here in LA, we still want everything German, but residual values are going to fall and most people won't want to own any of these latest generation BMWs or Mercedes unless they are still in warranty. Good for dealers and CPO sales. It's bad for the car companies that have to back up these rolling warranty liabilities. It's also bad news for anyone who keeps their car past its warranty period and even worse if you want to sell your prize German road machine on the private market because the price will have to be very, very low to sell it to a private party with no warranty.
Hey, here in the United States of lawsuits, it may be very costly and very painful if a hungry class action attorney gets a hold of those internal documents showing just all the problems that these manufacturers know about and are hiding from the public. Deny, deny, deny.
