W210's have been tanks in my experience, what has been so negative about yours exactly? I would say quality did not decrease until after the Chrysler merger and introduction of the W211 and W220.
The V6 engines were nowhere near the indestructible lumps of iron that the I6 engines were, and the W210 in general was not built with the same sense of "we expect the customer to own this car for 20 years" that the earlier models had been.
I've never owned a W210 Merc. I've had too many friends who had nothing but problems with theirs after 60,000 to 70,000 miles for me to make that mistake.
Before the W210, a Mercedes was generally considered to be a car that, with basic maintenance and care, would run 250,000 miles or more without issue. That simply cannot be said about the W210 models. At least, not the models that came to the US.
Another thing to consider is, cars in the mid 90's did not have anywhere near the amount of electronics/gadgets to potentially fail.
People who bash Mercedes' quality usually 1) Never owned one, 2) Purchased a used model several years old with sketchy history 3) do not maintain their cars properly.
Things like window regulators should never fail. Period. That's not a hugely complicated gadget.
Mercedes are far from "crap." But the W210 was not even close to the tank that the W124 and earlier models were. It's the same thing with Volvo. The Amazon, 140 and 240 series were absolute tanks. The 850 slightly less so, and then the P2 platform cars were vastly less reliable.
That's not to say that new models are junk; there are less reliable cars out there for sure. But when you compare newer models to the older ones it's just not a competition. The older models were built with longevity in mind. The newer models are built with much more of an eye towards swift replacement. Most people don't keep a car for even 100,000 miles, let alone any real mileage, so it doesn't make much sense for manufacturers to design vehicles with a service life too far beyond that.
And if the lack of reliability is all down to used models with "sketchy history" or improper maintenance, then the W124 cars should be that much worse (since they've had time to go through more owners and more time to endure bad maintenance). But they're not. The W124 cars are much better bets on the used market despite being at a significant age disadvantage to the W210 models.
Also, Mercedes have historically been known to be innovators in the car industry. Basically, they were the test dummies for the auto industry, bringing new technology forward, and then having everyone else follow after some of the kinks were worked out.
Mercedes is know to the Mercedes Marketing Department to have historically been "test dummies for the industry." To those of us who pay attention to cars, not so much.
They were magnificent in the '50s and '60s, yes, but then they stopped racing and started making rather boring cars.
If you want to talk about the big innovations of today, well, Airbags were used by Ford and GM before Mercedes tried them. Side airbags were pioneered by Volvo, and side
curtain airbags were first brought to market by BMW. Lap belts were offered first by Ford and Nash, made standard first by Saab, and 3-point belts were first made standard by Volvo. Antilock brakes were made reliable by British firm Dunlop, and fully electronic 4-wheel ABS was first developed by Chrysler and put into production in 1971. Even electronic traction control was first put into production by Buick (also in 1971).
Mercedes has certainly come up with some nifty gadgets, but to characterize that as being "test dummies for the industry" is disingenuous. It was definitely true 50 years ago. It's much less true today.
ZV