I'm on my second Mercedes, first was a 1997 E class which used to belong to my dad. Ran absolutely fine, eventually traded it in at 14 years old for a C class coupé which is now around a 10 year old car and you would never know it. Drives like a dream. I'm pretty sold on the Germans.
We had one of the original Xara Picassos. Was a terrible car, died in less than 5 years. Only the French are stupid enough to buy French cars.
My dad's had 2 C4 GPs never had a mins trouble, thing is all well & good saying don't buy French but C4 GP is best in class by a mile. MiL when she was with us had a Grand Scenic for 5 years had one problem at 4 years radio broke & flattened the battery. It's not all horror stories.
The crap German things relatively new, the cars being mentioned are old enough to have avoided the drop in quality. The new mercs coming out are terrible, then there's the Discoveries the most unreliable cars on the road pmsl.
Personally I think all cars have their faults, all companies churn out bad designs at one time. Remember the 16v 1.4 vauxhall engine that used to eat cambelts causing £4000 in damage? Featured on watchdog any times.
I'll say this about the air suspension fault on the C4,Citroën admitted it was a problem and setup a fixed price repair of £70 for that they replaced both bags & compressor & said they would continue to do so until car was 10 years old. How many German companies would replace worn suspension parts for a minimal price until 10 years have passed?
Had one bag done at my local non-citroen garage, Citroën then wrote me a cheque to cover that too, without me asking!
Zafira new one is horrible no room in with 7 seats, horrid engines
Grand Zafira as above but boot for a handbag
Grand scenic - french
C4 GP - French
Touran - over priced & poverty spec, crap engines, ugly
Other than those you then talk about going up to Galaxy size which altho have 7 adult seats, too expensive & minimal boot space.