I guess my questions are:
How many people have had every one of the listed problems? I sure have not. My radio and some wind noise are the only manufacturing problems I have had, and my car is on the road every day.
There is a TSB for the wind noise, and it fixed mine.
The radio and manual tranny (from my reads of the posts on the tranny) were swapped out by D/C; a fair and reasonable fix to a problem. So it was not done in 24 hours, but it did get done.
The enginge power (or lack thereof), interior design, cupholder, and missing features I was aware of when I signed on the dotted line. If I didn't like the looks or features, I should not have bought it. Would I like to see them? Yes. Should I sell my car over it? No.
Dusty brake pads? They are stock M/B, and you would have them if you paid $55K for the SLK. When it is time for replacement, there is a fix.
I have only heard of one or two occurrences on this forum of the glove box latch, heater fan, lifter noise, gear shift ****, and auto tranny. Does a few problems make the car the newest YUGO? I don't think so.
The rear hatch needed an adjustment on some of the early run cars. OK, it is fixed. Get over it.
The manual misprints and errors. I do have a problem with this one, and I think we all should get revised copies. Time will tell on that one. My copy just has the fixes hand written in on it for now.
That leaves the Michellins. At last count I think I read there are about 5K Crossfires on the road, and I don't know if that is US or worldwide, but lets use that number for the calculation. That is 20K of a brand new tire. How many have been defective? I doubt it is this high, but just for the sake of an argument, let's say 200. That is 1%. So 99% are OK. Unless someone out there has any real numbers for this that they could publish, that does not seem that terrible to me. I wish the computers I get had a 99% out of box complete success rate. Do they have an availability problem? Yes, and I think I waited the longest for my replacements. Will that last forever. I hope not. But as most people on this forum know, I fixed my personal problem with this situation by buying some spare wheels and tires. To me that made sense, to others it may not. But my car will not be off the road for this problem again.
I think I covered everything in the list. So what does it all mean? I have yet to purchase any vehicle that has been 100% perfect, and all I have ever purchased was brand new vehicles. And I have had a few that were only in production for a few years. Does anyone out there remember the 1981 Dodge Rampage? I had one. 2001 Dodge Stealth? Had one of those too. But even though they stopped the manufacture, I still enjoyed and drove the hell out of both of those vehicles. I intend to do the same with my Crossfire.
And I truly apologize for getting so wordy, but like it has been said, this forum is for sharing opinions. But you know what they say about opinions......