But was Mercedes always inferior to Ford or were only some particular models of Mercedes inferior to Ford? If it's the former than my point still stands.

4 of them owned by members of my family over 4 decades is good enough for me. Mercedes cars a patchwork of overengineering and underengineering. Overengineering like sodium cooled valves, but a fatal susceptibility to overheating. Like a driveline that is not aligned properly with the engine. And electric windows that are so poorly made they keep the mechanism in stock.

Fords, on the other hand, have an even, predictable quality. The same with my 72 Dodge. The windows still crank up and down nicely!

> Fords, on the other hand, have an even, predictable quality. The same with my 72 Dodge. The windows still crank up and down nicely!

I don't know if I'd say they have an even, predictable quality, but on an actuarial basis, Detroit certainly makes for easier claim severity modeling than anything out of Ingolstadt, Muenchen, Stuttgart, or Wolfsburg.

That said, I don't really understand how quality maps to cars beyond what my comprehension of Japanese has allowed me to read about how Toyota's industrial engineering contrasts against Ford's. My first may have been a 1971 Opel GT that I salvaged by bringing home in parts on a bicycle-drawn trailer as a teenager, but I only ever wrenched on it. I never drove it.

> I don't know if I'd say they have an even, predictable quality

Euphemistically at least, considering they're frequently known in car circles as "Found On Road, Dead" and "Fix Or Repair Daily". It used to be seen as an advantage that Ford spare parts were dirt cheap, although I don't know if that's still the case given the trend to have Chips With Everything.