How good is the Superb III versus the rest you've owned/ driven

[eurotraveller]

I had a W210 estate that went rusty around the windscreen! but it drove very well would never have called it 'a real dog to drive'

 

btw, the Chrysler 300 only used a few suspension/steering plus sundry other parts from the W210, it's an urban myth that it was a rebodied E class, probably put about by Chrysler to sell more cars!

 

Well, whatever the commonality of parts, they were of course products of that unhappy Daimler-Chrysler marriage, which did spawn such real clones as the Dodge van (nee Sprinter) of the time.

 

As for the handling, I don’t know what the W210 weighed (with a diesel engine), but suspect it must have been quite heavy. That, at least, is how it felt to me, with weight being the worst enemy for good handling. Even the C350CDI feels that way; nothing the least bit ‘nimble’ about it, even though it’s a fairly small and of course powerful car.

 

Be that as it may, I wouldn’t go near a Mercedes dealership now if I had the choice: I have to grit my teeth every time I do. That's not, in the first instance at least, because of the price I am about to pay for the honour and privilege, but rather that new, oh so pretentious ‘reception system’ they have: where a receptionist beckons you to a waiting area while a service agent or salesperson considers in the background whether they are ready to see you. I'm not going to a doctors' surgery to get myself fixed, just to a bl**dy dealership to fix the car (again)! I bet “enhanced customer experience” or something like that is the related BS marketing speak. It feels like a sorry attempt to pull the wool.

[philsmith]

I've never been offered so many cups of coffee in such as short space of time as in a Mercedes Service waiting area!

Shame the quality of work was not as good (actually never had a coffee!)

 

On a keyless one I had I had to fix it myself as they could not find the fault for it not starting from the start button on the gearstick.

They concluded that it would need a whole new gear lever assembly, cost, something like £600 pounds plus labour.

The fault?

When I took the centre console out to see what was going on, a broken wire at the bottom of the gear stick! not quite apart though so the fault was intermitent,

The fix?

The wire could have been joined and a bit of tape put around it but I replaced the wire with some flexible silicone stuff and did a proper job so it would not happen again.

Edited 23 March, 2016 by philsmith

[old newbie2]

I firmly believe that the W124 Mercedes-Benz was the last Mercedes vehicle built to a standard and not a price, I had a 1994 E200 2.0 litre Petrol and the build quality was as if it was hewn from solid granite; everything about it was quality it was much better then the W201 190E LE that it replaced and in some ways I probably should never have sold it at just over 2-years old with 7,700 miles on the clock.

 

However we are talking about cars now that are of the modern era made from lightweight high strength steel, highly efficient engines and transmissions, technologically more advanced tyres and with a greater choice interior trim materials.

 

I'm pretty sure that the Superb still is value for money when you take into consideration the kit levels and space both for passengers and luggage compared to M-B and BMW alternatives and both of these have had to step up and offer more kit as standard as people don't want to pay extra for things these days.

 

If they could only get control over their ordering, building and shipping information it would resolve almost all of the issues that people have on here and remove the miss information from SUK and their Dealers (or at least some of them) yes they may have been caught out by the number of sales and have had supply issues, however they have now had time to recover from this surely!

 

I'm sure that it cannot be beyond the wit of man to be able to use your order number to access the log of events for your vehicle on-line so that you don't need to refer to either SUK or your dealer after all these things are bar coded so that the factory knows what country, what trim, what engine, what transmission, what colour, what wheels and what extras are required to complete the build of your vehicle or am I being too simplistic here?

 

As I've said previously hang on in there if you are waiting as I'm sure that you will not be disappointed.

 

I'm sure that the comparisons will keep on coming however 350-miles in I'm still very pleased with mine.

Oh, is it impossible to track a Skoda order online?

 

It is possible with VW, & i'd of thought that they would use similar systems.

 

DC

[Prykey]

Unfortunately no, that's what has caused so many issues with people who are waiting for their cars to be delivered. The current system is wait for your dealer to update you (some are much better than others at doing this) or you contact SUK with your SLI number and they update you.

The trouble appears to be the accuracy of these updates from either source; this leads to dissatisfaction and upset.