Mercedes are nice cars no doubt, but I prefer Bimmers as they are a little sportier. Nice thing is there's lots of cars, foreign and domestic, to choose from so to each his own.

As for the Edmunds ratings, there are 173 consumer reviews for all 2004 models listed, and the average rating is an 8.75 outta 10. Seems to me the people driving them on a daily basis should have a pretty good idea of what they like or not and we all know people can be brutally honest on the internet. I would consider these to be reasonably accurate because of the # of reviews. The one area I saw a weakness in though was their SUVs. The rest of the lineup was consistently in the 9s while the SUV ratings brought down the average.

Ah well, can't have it all eh?