I can attest to Honda cheapening out on some of the fasteners, although I've never worked on a MB. For the minimal maintenance I've done on the drivetrain I haven't really noticed it but a few years ago my radio went out so I installed an aftermarket stereo. The dash and other interior pieces that I needed to remove used a bunch of those break off fasteners that are super annoying.
Have you done any work on the interior of your MB? Were they similarly thoughtful in the way things were laid out?
Since we're already going off topic, I may as well add that one of my dreams is to someday acquire an old MB, maybe a W116/W126, or even an older W108, and convert it to an EV.
A few things (had a window motor go out and installed heated seat element, and then misc small jobs). The door panel used a few of the plastic fasteners, but IIRC, they were more mushroom shaped than Christmas tree shaped (I don't recall breaking any, even though they were 15+ years old by then).
Many of the interior fasteners, even if push-to-assemble were curved bits of metal spring that snapped into an FRP "box" to hold things securely and rattle-free.
As an engineer, I couldn't help but marvel at the care that went into some of the design and service thinking.
That's not to say it was all peachy. Mercedes faces the same realities and tradeoffs that other companies face, and they need to assemble cars to hit a price point that people will pay, and people don't want to see fasteners in the interior, so they use some plastic-on-plastic or plastic-into-metal in some areas.
The worst engineering I saw was that that car was eventually killed by rust, caused in large part by poor factory prep and/or a poor understanding of the durability of the (then) new water-based, low environmental impact primer and paint system that plagued the whole W210 line in snow belts. Perfectly good car sent to the junkyard after only 216K miles and 18 years. What's the environmental impact of that? Could have easily gone another 150K+ miles. Pity.
On old MBs, dad has a 1959 220S cabriolet that he's restored (to nice driver condition, not a show car) after we found it in a barn in PA, a W123 he bought new, a diesel W210 that isn't all rusty (as it's a southern car), an R170, and an electric Smart. With all those cars, the electric Smart gets the most usage...
Have you done any work on the interior of your MB? Were they similarly thoughtful in the way things were laid out?
Since we're already going off topic, I may as well add that one of my dreams is to someday acquire an old MB, maybe a W116/W126, or even an older W108, and convert it to an EV.