That I humbly disagree with. The W211 (2003-2009) was when QC started to pick back up, and the W212 (2010-2015.5) was as good as the W211 and only built up on the 211’s excellence. The W212 was and still is as solid and stout of a luxury mid-sized saloon as they came. The W213 isn’t bad, as it was still decent, but the W212 was the cream of the crop for modern E classes. There was a moment when MB started emphasizing quality again (the period being 2010-2019~ish), though they have gone back to cost-cutting and overcomplicating for the sake of modernizing.

It’s sad to see what’s come of them as a brand. There used to be that point of time when MB legitimately lived up to their name of offering the beyond the BEST or nothing.

For the record, our '19 MY GLC300 is doing well at nearly 60k miles. It’s not as big a benchmark or something to write home about, but it’s been doing well. I believe that the X253 chassis GLC (2015-2022) got more solid later in its production run, and the X254 (2023-onward) is still relatively new but way more complicated with the digital everything interior and more of everything, in my opinion.