As an old Benz owner who attempts to work on his car himself, I am questioning many of the design decisions implemented in my 2001 ML w163, cause they are pre-destined to be causing problems. And I do not like the overall trend in cars design: instead of improvements, MB car designers seem to be deliberately making things worse. Just an example:

Among the known and widely-spread problems of my car, there is an issue with the solenoid blocking the transmission selector in the Parked position. As it gets cold outside, this solenoid fails to release the gear selector handle, so at zero Degrees Centigrade and below you are very likely to not be able to shift your car into any gear after a cold start. It is a design flaw - all the w163 owners I had a chance to chat with had this issue to a certain extent. Rumors are that this solenoid flaw was inherited by the w163 from some earlier MB model. A fact proving this rumor, or at least proving that the w163 designers were aware of the solenoid issues, is that there is a specially designed opening with a small hatch near the selector you can stick, say, a pencil or a screw-driver into to manually release the selector when the solenoid fails to do its job. Which in the winter time becomes a very standard procedure for shifting into D the first time after a cold start. The existence of such a useful emergency release opening makes this solenoid issue just an inconvenience: when the solenoid freezes, you are not left stranded, you can still drive your w163 - it is just that you have to make sure you always have a pencil handy and be informed how to do this "pencil trick" in case of such an emergency...

Recently, I had a chance to do a short test drive of a newer Benz model, and to have a chat with its owner. He complained that his motor was poorly designed and had a tendency of dropping pieces of the plastic chain tensioner (or guide or whatever is used to prevent chain oscillations) into the motor internals, and said that he wished he had a less modern motor like mine. 

In an attempt to comfort him I said that at least he could obviously shift his gearbox OK in the winter time - judging by the absence of the abovementioned special "pencil opening" around his gear selector handle. This assumption of mine made the situation even worse - according to the newer Benz owner, newer MBs still had that same old solenoid issue - it is just that the MB designers chose to abolish that "emergency pencil opening", so every time the solenoid froze the poor owner had to pay for towing, and for the workshop services - and dismantling the whole middle console in order to get to that very solenoid is not cheap. And it is not that you have to pay this once - since solenoid replacement does not really help against design flaws, you pay every time the solenoid freezes, over and over again...

Like I said: just sharing. Bottomline: I would never buy a modern Benz, and I will not complain about me having to use the pencil trick in the winter time any more.