Everything Brakes
What causes me to write under this mixed-message title is the fact that on our recent trip up north I noticed that on long down-hill highway stretches, the brakes of the 2019 Mercedes Benz GLS 450 that we drive, started to pulsate. This is not a good feeling with something as critical to vehicle safety as braking. Pulsating brakes seem like a big deal to me and without any particular regard to what Mercedes seems to think, it feels unsafe. I am reminded that the day we picked-up our new red 2019 GLS 450 back in August 2019, we drove up a long hill to Ramona and felt our brand new car start to bounce to the point of feeling unsafe on a relatively narrow and steep mountain road. When we pulled to a stop at a gas station in Ramona and stepped out of the car, we could see that the front end was resting high on the chassis and the rear was sitting down on the rear wheels. Clearly something was very wrong with that vehicle and it was unsafe to drive. We had the dealership come and pick it up and we went back and selected the white GLS we now drive since that red car felt like a lemon to us. When we came to pick up the new white car, which the dealership seemed pleased to swap us into, they made sure to tell us that the red car had a simple little suspension control issue that was easily made right and fixed if we wanted to swap back to that car. In a nutshell, they made light of a mechanical failure that seemed quite major to us as new owners. Well, Mercedes Benz dealer service has once again made light of our braking problem and has fixed it by completely replacing the brake rotors and calipers (all under warranty they say proudly). They say this is a normal problem with larger vehicles and that it in no way compromised the proper working of the braking system. Oh, and by the way, it had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the recent two-year pre-paid service I had done a week before the trip…even though the problem did not exist before that.
When Kim and I first met, I drove a dealer demo BMW X5 that was quite a nice car. We liked it so much that when it was time to replace it, we bought another X-5 out of BMW Manhattan’s inventory. Everything about that car seemed different from our prior car. It all seemed cheaper and maybe it was that it wasn’t a dealer demo or maybe the company had “value engineered” the car to save costs. Whatever it was, nothing felt right and it even seemed too small for us. So, we went in an entirely different direction at my urging and bought a Blingmobile, a Cadillac Escalade SUV on the belief that it would be bigger and more comfortable. Wrong. We were shocked at how the Cadillac was actually much smaller in the cabin than we could imagine. We didn’t notice it when we test drove it (naturally), but it shrank around us very quickly. Then I noticed that Mercedes was finally expanding its SUV line from the original M-Class (one of which I owned and found too small in the way the X-5 felt too small). Their new model was the GL and the moment Kim and I sat in it we knew this was the car for us. We immediately owned a Navy blue one and loved it. When that lease ran out we took the time to review options with the Manhattan Mercedes salesman to get exactly what we liked for options and did NOT take one off the lot. We got a nice new GL 450 in a taupe color. We loved that one too.
Life was good in our family (at least car-wise) and everything about that new GL 450 seemed as good as the original blue one. When it was time to trade that one in, I went through the same option selection process and was convinced this time by the same salesman that I should order it in brown. I was skeptical, but went through with it. Wow! We loved the brown car and I have never gotten so many compliments on a car as I did on the brown GL 450. We liked it so much that when it came up for replacement, we ordered another brown one exactly the same, just three years newer. It was also perfect. Once that one was ready for trade in we decided to switch to a very nice blue/grey version with all the latest greatest options, once again special-ordered. Another perfect vehicle, the fifth in a series of GL 450’s except now Mercedes has renamed as the GLS so that they can charge a little more for this special-sounding car.
When we were preparing to move to Escondido, it was time to turn in that perfect car so we went in and transacted with Escondido MB. After the debacle of the red car suspension problem we also had problems with the new white one based on the fact that it had sat on the lot so long that some of its systems were “stale”. That’s a very non-technical explanation because it was never fully explained to me. Then there were the options. We suddenly started noticing little things that this inventory vehicle did not have, like the cup cooler/warmer feature. Who would have guessed we would miss that. I didn’t miss the seat massager, which was at best a gimmick. But the one thing I did notice before transacting was that this one had not hitch for our motorcycle trailer. That was important to me and I was assured it could be put on after-the-fact. That put me into non-OEM hell and a big fight with Escondido MB who wanted $3,500 for the add. We finally agreed to split the cost and I have a hitch, which I will test out next month for the first time. I can only imagine how that trailer might have bounced around with those pulsating brakes, if I hadn’t caught that issue on this trip north.
I haven’t figured out whether these problems are another case of Mercedes falling prey to the “value engineering” demon like BMW apparently had with the X-5, or whether Escondido MB is simply not up to the standards to which the Manhattan MB dealership had accustomed me. I am two years into this four-year lease, which means I have two years to decide on my next car. Mercedes usually shortens that time horizon by cutting deals to keep people like me in the fold after about three years of a four year lease. I’m not at all confident that Escondido MB will play that game as well as Manhattan MB did, but then again, I’m not 100% convinced it isn’t time for me to consider another brand. At this point we are very used to the big Mercedes GL model, but here’s an interesting factoid I haven’t figured out how to factor in. When I went in to swap into this car I took the Weathertec floor mats out of the older (2017) GLS 450 and tried to put them into the new 2019 GLS 450. To my chagrin and confusion, the mats were significantly too big to fit. What’s the message there? Remember that new X-5 felt so much smaller than the old one? Well, I now have clear evidence that the new GLS 450 is, indeed, considerably smaller in the front driver and passenger seat area than the prior model.
This is all making me wonder if everything just breaks and I need to come to grips with that reality or whether I need to pump the brakes a bit on my car-buying habits and look a lot more carefully before I leap next time.