During 60k miles of ownership I took mine from 60k to 130k distance traveled over here in the Uk. This was in a 1998 A class had it dealer serviced as no local specialist was any good. That said for £130 per hour plus parts you do have expectations of the dealer. Mine made a number of basic quality errors nor picked up until I had the car back.
Reliability was not as good as the P38 IBought to replace it. Needed 4 springs and shocks, indicator control in steering column, sitcom compressor and later a pipe which leaked, rear wiper motor, head light bulbs each year. Have put 50k miles on the Rover with only needing 2 air bags as they had perished.
Worked for MB UK about 6 years ago. Problem was they had moved into volume rather than prestige Market. Quality was same what they found was the new customers expectation of perfection cultivated by MB when a prestige brand could not be met. While it was aspirational and a dream this did not matter in fact was good for the prestige image became a milstone when changed to volume. Prestige customers were prepared to buy into the expensive purchase and maintenance the new volume ones were not so keen. That said did not stop the A class becoming their best selling model of all time which took a lot of pressure off the C class. Until then the future of the company depended on this one model now had 2. People forget that the cost of developing the A class almost bankrupted MB. They had drawn down every bank facility they had and the banks would not give anymore. Then came Chrysler who had a mountain of cash as they knew the banks would not lend. Bought Chrysler for the cash which was removed as payment for technology transfer. This gave them enough funds to finish development of the new models.
