Mercedes-Benz is the McDonald’s of luxury vehicles.

r/

They are cheaply made. They are everywhere. They are nothing special. They aren’t as good as the other smaller luxury brands. I’m not sure why people pay money for such a generic luxury vehicle. If you have some money, buy something more interesting that doesn’t fall apart.

Edit: I should add that it also incorporates how one feels when they see one in public. It is never impressive. It is just a Mercedes Benz. Another person who thinks their car is special. Na, McDonalds of luxury cars.

Edit: Just as many people throwing Maybach in my face as there are telling me it isn’t under the mb branding.

Everybody wants to know the others in the list. Shall I also tell you what’s in the briefcase in pulp fiction or what happened to Tony soprano?

Comments

  1. AutoModerator Avatar

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  2. RealUltrarealist Avatar

    And Lexus is the Costco of luxury vehicles.

    Edit: the Kirkland of luxury vehicles.

  3. clever-homosapien Avatar

    This is post Daimler-Chrysler Mercedes-Benz

  4. alstom_888m Avatar

    Mercedes buses are way better than Scania or Volvo.

  5. OnlyUnderstanding733 Avatar

    Eh. Add some nuance. S-klass is absolutely not what you describe. Neither is any of the AMGs or G wagon. CLA? Yeah, maybe. Anyway, enjoy your upvote.

  6. zaius2163 Avatar

    If that’s the case, BMW is burger king, and I much prefer McD’s

  7. Flaky_Answer_4561 Avatar

    Mercedes fall apart? Tell that the many Mercedes with 500.000 km driving around sinewhere in Albania

  8. blackswanlover Avatar

    Does McDonald’s sell itself as a luxury brand? Most definitely not. So, no, it’s neither unpopular nor really wrong, just the wrong comparison point.

  9. SDdude27 Avatar

    The entry levels are everywhere. The high end models are comparable, possibly even better depending on who you ask, to bentley and rolls royce.

  10. shifterdude647 Avatar

    The lower end models aren’t good. Mercedes used to have a standard, just like every other German car manufacturers. Once they started financing their lower models they started selling like hot cakes and the quality control deteriorated. The higher end models are still very good.

  11. Regret-Select Avatar

    Mercedes-Benz has L3 with no accidents in over 2 years

    How’s Tesla FSD doing wirh L2 driving?

  12. manfredmannclan Avatar

    Sure the cheap ones are. They started making cheaper cars many years ago, because they where basically pricing themselves out of the market. The expencive ones might still be great.

    Pre 2000 mercedes was GOAT

  13. TheOJer Avatar

    I drove my mercedes to the mcdonalds store and crashed into the side

  14. Kasern77 Avatar

    Then what make of car equates to a proper homemade meal in this analogy?

  15. Initial_Cellist9240 Avatar

    Bro thinks he’s too good for a fucking S class, I can’t even 

  16. ashyjay Avatar

    A and B class mercs yes as they are just cheap cars with a fancy badge, as other than a badge a VW or Toyota are better.

  17. tothgera Avatar

    can you give me some examples of these “other smaller luxury brands”?

  18. seanmonaghan1968 Avatar

    1960 300SL sweet

  19. SixtyNineFlavours Avatar

    All the Mercedes I’ve driven (4) have been quality drives. They may be mass produced and there are some low spec ones available for the every man, but the quality is there for me.

  20. TribalKeef Avatar

    I agree about them being ubiquitous, but not at all about them being cheaply made. Them not being as good as other smaller luxury brands is subjective.

    I think Mercs are everywhere by design. They have multiple vehicles in every segment/form-factor/price range. Not surprising at all that you see so many around.

    If people can buy iPhones on payment plans just because of the Apple logo on the back, I don’t see anything wrong with buying a car bearing the name of its inventor.

  21. ssmit102 Avatar

    Used to valet for a couple years and I’ve seen more S classes with over 300k than any other car.

  22. thetruelu Avatar

    I always thought Acura was the budget luxury brand

  23. grazfest96 Avatar

    OP is right in the sense that MB flooded the roads with cheap ass badges. That being said, G Wagons and the S Class are the kings of the road.

  24. electricrhino Avatar

    This won’t age well

  25. throwtheamiibosaway Avatar

    Dumb take and not true. It’s very luxurious and comfortable.

  26. FormalIllustrator5 Avatar

    Yeah, nice topic – i heard that from MANY car fans and “regular” owners.. I was shown in a car shop a Mercedes C class diesel engine that has failed, it was on 850 000 km and 4 owners later, engine (but not anything else) – flat lined. So i was like ” yeah you all here are serious or you are some kind of clowns?”

    Very few models can go to 850 000, that are build 2019 and 4 owners in total. (last one was not changing the oil on time so we had the engine in that condition)…

    So good luck with such shit posts..

  27. Square-Gap-2427 Avatar

    You were denied finance on your new Merc, weren’t you?

  28. MrYamaguchi Avatar

    On the lower end of the Mercedes range I agree. Most of the offerings there are beat in performance and features by other brands and not necessarily luxury brands, with better pricing. But they are going after the people that don’t care and just want the prestige of owning a Merc. On the higher end this take is trash.

  29. ChangingMonkfish Avatar

    Depends on the Mercedes. Something like the current A-Class, yes I get that – it’s a “conquest model”, designed to compete with things like the Golf, so it’s targeting a particular segment of the market (people who would normally buy a Focus/Golf/Astra/Leon etc. but like the idea of the brand cachet that Mercedes has). It’s priced (and manufactured) accordingly, decent and premium feeling for the most part, but with some compromises if you look closely. So they’re using the “luxury” or “premium” brand perception to push into other markets (I say this as someone who’s had two A-Classes in the past and liked them both).

    An S-Class, or G Wagon, or something is an entirely different thing aimed at a different market segment and built to a different standard. So you can’t really look at just Mercedes as a whole and ask that question, you have to look at what segment each car is targeting.

  30. Unlucky-Hair-6165 Avatar

    I think a lot of the problem is people want to demonize a specific brand as a whole. Vehicles are a lot more nuanced from model to model and even engine to engine of the same brand.

    Chevy and ford have great trucks, but stay the hell away from their cars and crossovers. Also a lot of the bad reputation for some brands came from a specific era of cars. Like BMW in the mid 2000s had a bad run of powertrains. Now their most popular engines are nearly bulletproof.

    Do your research on specific models and engines and don’t cast a blanket assumption on a brand as a whole. Unless it’s Dodge, or any subsidiary of Stellantis/FCA like Jeep, RAM, etc. fuck those.

  31. SuspicousBananas Avatar

    Man, if Mercedes is McDonald’s I would hate to know what Cadillac and Lincoln are

  32. detailingWizardLvl5 Avatar

    As a former detailer, what the fukc.

  33. LukeSkyWalrus Avatar

    I feel that way about bmw. Some of them literally look like Honda civics with fancy lights..

  34. Sgt_major_dodgy Avatar

    Maybe it’s because they offer no thrills versions and they’re leased by people with shite credit however I can recall a comment made by Jeremy Clarkson that if you want to see what will be standard in cars in 15yrs look at what Mercedes are putting in their cars now.

    They have a history of implementing features that became standards further down the lines, these include:

    • crumple zones
    • airbags
    • ABS
    • ESP
    • Pre SAFE system
    • Distornic (radar based cruise control)
    • Lane keeping and steering assist

    They’re not bad cars but they’re just driven by arseholes and most of the ones I see day to day are between 8-12yrs old

  35. ForneauCosmique Avatar

    You clearly don’t work on cars

  36. Practical_Move_9631 Avatar

    What does that make Infiniti?

  37. RedRightReady Avatar

    Spoken like someone who’s never drove a Mercedes-Benz

  38. Soren_Camus1905 Avatar

    Nah, you can get cheap Mercs, but you can also get very fucking nice Mercs.

    And this is true for several luxury car companies.

  39. bb0110 Avatar

    I can see someone has never driven an s class.

  40. Dodoz44 Avatar

    It’s okay, buddy. Your Altima is truly special.