This design suffers from the same issues as the X7 - European automotive design just doesn't translate well to large SUVs. 

It looks so much cheaper than most Mercedes products. 

Down to $3.89 87 E10 from 3.99 here where the St Croix meets the Mississippi. 91E0 and Diesel are both $4.99-5.19

Hau Thai Tang was the head of the 2005 Mustang development, one of the best looking 'Stangs IMO. In March 2022, he was promoted to Ford's Chief Industrial Platforms Officer when the business model was divided into Ford Blue, Model E, and Pro. In October he suddenly was volountold to retire after 34 years at Ford. He is now at Borg Warner. There was some other musical chairs going on at the time, but his departure was the most glaring to me. From what I've read about ThaiTang, I hoped he would get the Big Chair one day; an engineer in charge of Ford, imagine that...

I kept it for awhile... but they eventually caught up with me.  I was literally 3 months short of the required 10 years to keeping it, but frankly I was done.  Thankfully, my brother in law is now an employee... should I ever desire to buy another new vehicle.

What only a tiny group of people know, when the 2005 Mustang was being developed, there was a proposal for a 4dr version that got killed by Nancy Gioa.  Her explanation, there is zero chance of a 4dr performance car ever succeeding.  Hello, anybody familiar with Dodge Charger?  Nancy was the same person that killed the independent rear suspension in the Mustang.  Man there were some internal battles over that flawed decision, it actually got the chief engineer removed from his position, that's how serious it got.   Don't get me started on Farley.  He's a flaming effin idiot.  The decision to end sedans was partially flawed on bad math, and partially flawed on Ford wanting to only innovate vs renovate.  Honda and Toyota successfully renovate.  I have no idea why Ford keeps him around.  He screwed up Europe and was put in charge of the entire company?  I heard a 3rd hand story of an exec challenged Farley in a meeting, and was retired the next day.  I trust my source, but have no further confirmation.

OEMs have always tested vehicles on SE MI streets.  Have to keep a sharp eye to find them   They often will have just removable vinyl panels covering them, usually right before release.  I had the Flex the weekend after it's panels were removed.  Took it to Telegraph cruise, and was inundated with people wanting to see the Flex.  The first time the Flex hit the street, in full camo, the first photo hit the internet literally minutes after it drove out of the prototype plant.  Previously scheduled team meeting an hour later, they showed the pic on the internet and chief engineer reminded people, 1st the camo stays on the vehicle, no matter what.  2nd, do not, DO NOT try to evade a photographer, just drive as normal.    BUT, I've seen Ford minivan doctored up to look like a flower delivery van.  Also GM had a camaro dressed up with all kinds of crap addons like high wings, curb feelers, etc.  I almost missed it, but the M plate caught my attention.  Ran into a friend from Chrysler at a gas station one day, he was in a pickup with blacked out wood panels like a urban assault vehicle.  Knowing he was an engineer in powertrain development, I asked him WTF was he driving.  He said did you look at the plate?  That's all I needed to know

I don't think NHTSA works that way. They made a conscious decision to go back and find past problems and fix them now rather than have them continue to pop up a few at a time for the next several years.  Rip off the bandaid and get it over with.  If done right and assuming they aren't creating a lot of new problems it will pay off soon.

you'all ain't going to want to read this, but mark my words, it's going to get worse, a lot worse.  Diesel here in south central MI is running 5.39-5.49.   My forecast in the spring was 7.50.  I still believe we're going to see that.

I think most Chinese auto makers are no longer interested in the US market; the global markets apparently are now more important to them. Some already have plants in Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America.