Copyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.The head of luxury-car maker Mercedes-Benz said his company is debating whether it is "advisable" to strive for the top rank in a widely followed survey of car customers' opinions about quality, saying that the study often penalizes brands based on "American taste." The comments by Eckhard Cordes, head of the Mercedes Car Group, are notable because officials of the company have in the past declared an intention to be No. 1 in the annual J.D. Power & Associates survey of initial quality by 2006. Mercedes, a unit of DaimlerChrysler AG, has seen its profit evaporate recently amid quality problems that forced it to announce the world-wide recall of 1.3 million cars in March, the largest recall in the company's history. Last month, Mercedes reported its first quarterly loss in more than a decade. Meanwhile, Mercedes officials have argued that the company's performance in the study sometimes reflects cultural differences between Germans and Americans.
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