Mercedes quality? Bah!
 

"STUTTGART, Germany â€" DaimlerChrysler chairman Jürgen Schrempp himself was a victim of his company's faulty navigation system; the one in his car got him lost â€" three times.

In an ironic twist, the system couldn't find its way round Stuttgart â€" the city where Mercedes is headquartered. Schrempp said the navigation system on his Mercedes kept telling him to turn around as he was driving. "I realized only after the third time that there was a problem," he said.

Schrempp told German magazine Der Spiegel the problems were caused by giving too much responsibility for product development to suppliers: "It was wrong to rely fully and completely on system suppliers who supply a complete navigation system or an engine management system and thereby to trust that these parts work when they are brought together in the car." Mercedes recently had to recall 1.3 million cars because of technical faults.

Schrempp could face an angry showdown with shareholders at the DaimlerChrysler annual meeting this week. Shareholders are upset about the Mercedes quality problems and could vote not to ratify management's actions in protest; effectively a vote of no confidence in Schrempp.

What this means to you: Be glad you weren't on the other end of that phone call from Schrempp's lost car. Furthermore, this admission comes from a man who doesn't often admit to mistakes â€" so he must know the bad navigation might soon be the least of his troubles."<ul><li><a href="http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Articles/articleId=105280">klik</a></li></ul>

Now that's poetic justice - Schrempp couldn't navigate MB, so his MB couldn't navigate him!