Mercedes-Benz: MB repeat owners?

I am very spoiled by my two Mercedes, but i wonder if anyone knows of
someone that has bought a Mercedes and then later sold it and not
replaced it with another Benz? I have heard of many buying a newer
Benz and keeping their older one instead of trading it in. Anyone ever
been turned off from Benz? If so, what did they go to?
thanks
Shannon
80 450SL 218k miles
86 300SDL 286k miles

I did not mean to post my message to hassle you Mercedes lovers. I had 7
Mercedes over the years and other family members have had 5 or 6 others. In
the end they were great cars to drive but the overall Mercedes ownership
experience was ALWAYS "love-hate". One particularly annoying problem here in
the steep hills of Pittsburgh was the constant brake pad wear. Yeah, yeah,
yeah...I heard all that dealer crap about soft pads blah blah blah blah. If
I can get 40,000 out of pads on my wife's Explorer, why not more than 10,000
on my (former) S320? In the end, if you review recent history, Lexus came
out with a better product 14 years ago. And while Mercedes did (in 1994 or
1995) finally realize they had to compete on price, they just have not
gotten anywhere NEAR the quality that Toyota/Lexus has. It's 14 years later
and nothing has changed. Nothing. I owned the very first Lexus LS400, 1990
Model. I sold it and started buying "S" Class Mercedes. After 12 years of
driving the "S", I realized that that darn Lexus was the best overall auto
ownership experience I ever had. So I went back and now enjoy a 2003 LS430.
It's just "no-hassle". And to make matters worse, the sinking financial boat
known as the former Chrysler Company seems to have made Daimler cut corners
EVEN MORE in the Mercedes division.

This all reminds me of how the "Cadillac" name...one where I grew up (I am
43) to understand it to be synonomyous with "quality" degenerated into a
joke in the mid 1980's and beyond, except to old retired men in plaid pants.
Mercedes isn't THAT bad (yet), but seems to be moving in that direction.


"k" <co.nz> wrote in message
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