![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_7886.jpg\" "\\"IMG_7886\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nI change the oil in my cars twice as often as the factory recommends…a practice I’ve kept on doing with my Mercedes. \u00a0 My first car, a 1973 Ford Pinto, got its oil changed every 2k and I am convinced that is how I managed to get over 136k miles out of one of those. \u00a0 When I finally had to give it to the junk yard it was because everything but<\/em> the engine was falling apart. When you popped off the valve cover it still looked factory new in there…a thing I was intensely proud of.<\/p>\n So I took Spirit<\/em> in for an oil change this morning and while I waited one of the service clerks and I chatted about our mutual love of Mercedes-Benz cars and she told me something I hadn’t known. \u00a0 The steel for every part of the body…the frame, the doors, hood, trunk, all of it…are all cut from the same single sheet of steel. \u00a0 Where other car makers cut a bunch of doors, or hoods or things that are all destined for different individual cars out of a sheet…bang, bang, bang, one after the other after the other…Daimler cuts the parts for each individual car from the same individual sheet of steel, to insure that all the body parts have exactly identical metal chemistry, exactly identical properties of rigidity and strength. \u00a0 And this little detail she said, contributes to the overall rigidity of the car.<\/p>\n This is why you pay the extra money for a Mercedes-Benz. It isn’t about the options or the luxury touches. Compared to other makes my ‘E’ class isn’t even all that sumptuous. \u00a0 You get more dazzle out of a Lexus or a Cadillac. \u00a0 But not that solid Mercedes-Benz feel. \u00a0 That is why I bought the car. \u00a0 I like having solid things in my life. \u00a0 Solidly built things, that are made to last and that you know the hands that built them can feel proud about. \u00a0 That solid feel was the thing I noticed right away when I first sat down in my uncle’s brand new 220D back in 1971, and even more so when he took mom and I for a drive in it. I’d never felt a car as solid before then. Back then you were use to American cars, even the upscale ones, being a little loose and rattle prone. \u00a0 And even nowadays, my Mercedes is noticeably more solid than other cars. \u00a0 Of course the basic design and engineering matters more, but this business about cutting all the body parts from one single sheet of steel is typical of the attention to engineering detail they put into these cars. \u00a0 And that is why they cost more. \u00a0 A little Economy Of Scale is sacrificed in favor of a little more structural rigidity. \u00a0 It isn’t about spending money, just to be spending money.<\/p>\n Matthew Yglesias tweeted a question a few days back asking what if anything justified spending the extra bucks on one of the “fancy cars”. \u00a0 I didn’t bother tweeting back as I figured that question probably got him a torrent of replies. \u00a0 But it depends on the car and what you’re after. \u00a0 If fancy is what you’re after then go for the options. \u00a0 If it’s a status symbol you want then go for the brand you think does that. \u00a0 Alas, that’s all some people see in a Mercedes-Benz, but that’s disrespectful. \u00a0 I wanted the car they use to say of when I was a teenager, that the first hundred thousand miles you put on it were just for breaking it in. \u00a0 Because there are so many roads, and so little time in a life to drive them all.<\/p>\n \n [Edited a tad…<\/em>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Still in it… I change the oil in my cars twice as often as the factory recommends…a practice I’ve kept on doing with my Mercedes. \u00a0 My first car, a 1973 Ford Pinto, got its oil changed every 2k and I am convinced that is how I managed to get over 136k miles out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-7467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-mercedes-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}