Maybach 62

[graeme73s]

On Sunday night a mate of mine invited us out to a rather expensive restaurant in Kensington called Zoomers. We got a cab to his place in Uxbridge and then Angelo drove us up to the restaurant. (Kerry's mum and Dad kept an eye on our poorly german shepherd whilst we were gone).
Parked out the front of the restaurant was a Maybach 62. We got out of Angelo's car a lowly Bentley red label and I said to Kerry come and have a look at this.
Standing by the car with the engine running was the chaffeur come bodyguard. I say that because a) he had a curly lead hanging down from his ear and b) he looked like one of those blokes you really would not want to f**k with.
I asked what do you think of her (the car not Kerry). He said, lovely to drive and handles beatifully for such a big car, but very unreliable. He said for one of these we do quite a big mileage, a lot of motorway and town work. (my guess is that it is a rental for the night, maybe wrong). The problems are a miriad of electrical issues especially with the gearbox.
I said so even at close to what £300,000 they just can't build them like they used to. He agreed and said it's just a sign of the times. A very nice chap who could have quite simply told me to bu**er off.
So if they can't get it right at this level of financial investment what hope is there for the rest of us mere mortals. A few weeks back whilst my mechanic mate was tinkering with my old Z28 Camaro he said it was refreshing to work on a car that has real wiring. Now I am not a mechanic, I have a very basic understanding and I just drive the bloody things, modern day cars do not have traditional wiring. They have a switch that sends an impulse to an ecu that sends an impulse to the lights that instructs that you require say the headlights on. If Kerry's X5 blows a rear tail light it will automatically put the brake light on but only dimly. The problem is when an electrical fault occurs it is very hard to trace and therefore rectify. What happened to good old fashioned wires that can be traced, even by a wally like me ?.

 

[Dieselman]

What happened to good old fashioned wires that can be traced, even by a wally like me ?.

Weight and complexity..

 

[graeme73s]

Excuse my ignorance but why weight and complexity. Surely in the scheme of things hard wiring cannot add that much weight to a Maybach that must weigh I guess the best part of 3 tonne. It must be surely be for cost savings and simplicity in the build ?.

 

[fuzzer]

its all just being too fancy. Im sure there is a lot of making you go back to the franchised dealer .

This is the revenue stream for the dealership. I believe that the sales departments only make up a very small part of the overall profit for the dealerships and that the bulk is coming from the service side of things.

 

[Dieselman]

Excuse my ignorance but why weight and complexity. Surely in the scheme of things hard wiring cannot add that much weight to a Maybach that must weigh I guess the best part of 3 tonne. It must be surely be for cost savings and simplicity in the build ?.

Cabling adds noticable weight and space requirements on a well specced car.
The advantage of the network is that there are few high power cables and two low voltage network cables.

I doubt CAN systems are cheaper than cable.

 

[scotth_uk]

Some years ago, I saw the complete wiring setup for an S Class laid out on the ground to demonstrate the complexity of the system. It was eye watering to see how much there is.

 

[Rose Chap]

I agree with the basic point of what you're saying Graeme and its a shame the Maybach appears unreliable in this case, but I suppose if we all continue to demand such luxuries (some might say nessecities) as ESP, ABS, cruise control, parking aids, sat nav, phone interfaces, 10 speaker stereos etc etc then the trade off has to be complex electronics.

 

[saorbust]

Some years ago, I saw the complete wiring setup for an S Class laid out on the ground to demonstrate the complexity of the system. It was eye watering to see how much there is.

I've had that pleasure as well.

If any of you pick up your new cars from the factory - at some point you should be shown the wiring loom in a large wooden box. Just remember - its only the main harness........

 

[glojo]

Interesting post, but we should be careful not to generalise too much. One chauffeur states his car has 'x' problems might not mean every single Maybach is plagued with the same faults.

If this was a private hire vehicle, then time is money, I would hate to think how much they charge for the use of a Maybach 62, or its depreciation. A day's lost revenue is possibly a weeks salary for the driver?

Teach them not to stick with a Pullman

Regards,
John

 

[Flash]

If Kerry's X5 blows a rear tail light it will automatically put the brake light on but only dimly.

The W203 and other models do that too but a step further. For example, if a tail lamp blows then the brake lights act as the substitute lights as they are double filament bulbs. Ferraris too are notorious for electrical issues/faults and very unreliable.

Wiring systems are complex in modern cars and therefore there are bound to be glitches (especially if the car is a early model and first batch to be rolled of the production line which this particular Maybach could have possibly been). W211 has several glitches...

 

[Gucci]

As motoring advances - they'll be creating a car that flies...would you trust it?!!

 

[prprandall51]

If you want to get a handle on how much wiring would be used in a traditionally wired car, just count the number of wires that would need to be routed through to the driver's door of a 211 E Class (or any other modern MB, I would imagine).
These are just approximations, I haven't consulted a wiring diagram or studied an electric circuit, however, I think they are about right.

4 electric windows, child safety override = 9
central locking - 4
Speakers - 6
Mirror adjustments - 6
Seat adjustments - 10
Puddle lights / under door lights - 2
Earth - 1
That's 38 wires - some (especially elec windows, earth) are really chunky.
Now there is just a power feed, signal cable and a control unit within the door itself - maybe 5 or 6 wires actually passing through the door frame?

You can carry this guesstimating onwards to any part of the car - there used to be a lot of copper in a conventionally wired car.

 

[Will]

Philip is quite correct here, and the other side of this point being that ignoring the weight and cost issue, surely by having ~40 conductors running through such areas it would be more problematic and unreliable.

This would be a step backwards and further away from the idealism of a 100 per cent reliable car.

Nothing is perfect in this world, I wouldn't have a job if it was. I'm sure as time progresses and advancements are made, the reliability will get better, not just for MB cars but most manufacturers

Will

 

[BonzoDog]

Agreed but this is nothing, is it not, compared to a modern aircraft? If I remember correctly, the A380 has been delayed mainly because of wiring and avionic problems. But considering what must be far more complexity are not aircarft systems relatively reliable?

 

[Mr E]

Agreed but this is nothing, is it not, compared to a modern aircraft? If I remember correctly, the A380 has been delayed mainly because of wiring and avionic problems. But considering what must be far more complexity are not aircarft systems relatively reliable?

Talking with an Airbus engineer recently - reliability arises through the use of triple redundancy in flight systems. Pax wouldn't stand for blocks of seats being without lights, seat-back screens, etc and so tend to be connected point-to-point to some degree.

A380 has a number of wiring problems - basic stuff like not using the same software in France and Germany for design and so the wiring did not meet up when the various unit parts of the aircraft came together. Also, because of the massive weight of the wiring (I can't remember what he said), they went with new materials for both conductors and insulation - neither of which have operated up to spec.

Seems that they (along with manufacturers of most transport systems) struggle with the never-ending demand for more and more features. I remember doing the business case for seat-back video for a major airline in the early 90's - the weight of these things stacks up really quickly and can impact the capacity of the plane.

As previously stated, we're demanding more from our cars and so various things are tried to reduce material cost, build/installation cost, serviceability, weight, etc. It's interesting to see how much R&D spend is made by vehicle OEMs just on telematic and control systems, driven by the above factors.

 

[graeme73s]

Interesting post, but we should be careful not to generalise too much. One chauffeur states his car has 'x' problems might not mean every single Maybach is plagued with the same faults.

If this was a private hire vehicle, then time is money, I would hate to think how much they charge for the use of a Maybach 62, or its depreciation. A day's lost revenue is possibly a weeks salary for the driver?

Teach them not to stick with a Pullman

Regards,
John

Agreed that maybe his one is an odd ball but I would be very unhappy if I had forked out that some of money for a Maybach to suffer any form of unreliability. Look at the posts on here regarding our collective complaints about build quality issues of various sorts with cars costing a fraction of the Maybach. And yes personally the 600 pullman or swb would be my choice. Hydraulics and no electrics but you do have to put up with drips of fluid from the doors.

 

[Birdman]

Are Maybach electricals a wiring issue or a software control issue?
IIRC MB was commenting ten years back that the major design/technology direction was now coming from computerising their vehicles and that is where most of the value-add would be in the next decade. Although they got some of the design implementation wrong the general direction was right and the problems they encountered was mostly from incompatibility between outsourced software-driven components.
You expect DC to know its stuff but it seems designing cars just got a whole lot harder, exacerbating their disasterous folie a deux with Chrysler. But they have it licked so they tell us, and will be abandoning their US mistress while restoring both their name and reputation. So now is the time to buy a Mercedes-Benz.

 

[glojo]

You expect DC to know its stuff but it seems designing cars just got a whole lot harder, exacerbating their disasterous folie a deux with Chrysler. But they have it licked so they tell us, and will be abandoning their US mistress while restoring both their name and reputation. So now is the time to buy a Mercedes-Benz.

Some excvellent points but are we trying to put car manufacturers on an impossible pedestal?

Electronics are never going to be 100%. Just look at the down-time modern aircraft have to have. Am I correct in thinking military aircraft spend more time in the workshop than they do in the air? I love my technical gizzmo's and each new model seems to have more and more technology. I predict it will not be long before our modern electronic loaded machines are fitted with solar panels (or equivalent) as standard, just to help keep batteries in a state of charge? I wonder how quickly the electric meter spins around on the Maybach. Does it have Economy 7 rates?

I would love to see a list of all the electric gadgets that are fitted in these luxury vehicles I'm sure I haven't figured out how to work all the gadgets on our vehicle yet and I imagine a Maybach has even more?

On the long wheelbase version would the owner be the driver an d would they worry about what gadgets it had?

I wonder what type of courtesy vehicle you would be offered whenever your Maybach was off the road?

I'm not convinced about the Maybach brand, I personally would like it to carry the Mercedes-Benz badge and perhaps be known as the Pullman?

John

 

[Birdman]

Maybe they took a wrong turn with the Maybach concept? I believe they sold only a handful in the UK last year (was it just two?) and you can pick them up at around half price at two years old. Not to under-rate the achievement but I don't think that was exactly the intention. They can't drop it without loss of face and neither can they take it downmarket like Bentley. The badge doesn't offer the range expansion possibilities of Rolls-Royce (a convertible Maybach??) but it may go into the odd museum of motoring. And like the Ford Edsel into the MBA marketing instructor's portfolio of historic clangers.

 

[prprandall51]

.... And like the Ford Edsel into the MBA marketing instructor's portfolio of historic clangers.

Page one of the MBA instructor's book of clangers says "If you are a major european vehicle manfacturer with an unparalleled reputation for quality and a healthy profit margin, don't go out and blow the company's entire savings and ruin its credibility by buying a clapped out basket case American automobile manufacturer whose debts run to squillions and whose products are beyond redemption."