Depreciation is a wonderful thing...also caveat emptor

Can't afford the tax you don't move to the town. I love MBs but would never purchase a modern one.

What's equally interesting is the list of repairs they opted NOT to do.

I believe the prices. I doubt nearly any of the people who drive an AMG Mercedes, used or otherwise, would work on it themselves. Comparing to a WRX or similar is like comparing apples to Faberge eggs.

Seven times stranded. That alone would be enough to make me hate a car.

My 1995 Chevrolet that I've owned for 19 years hasn't left me stranded that many times.

Thanks for sharing, I love reading articles like this on what it truly costs to live the dream. Like others have said, what they payed for even small services on that thing is crazy money and could probably be done at home for 3/4 the cost. I would definitely be concerned with the rapid oil loss if ti was my car, though.

Kramer wrote: Seven times stranded. That alone would be enough to make me hate a car.

Nah, add this http://www.renntechmercedes.com/www/node/212 and you would forget about the car stranding you all the time. Rolling burnouts for days.

2002maniac wrote: That thing uses more oil than any of my beaters!

It uses more oil than my British cars!

Personally, if I'm spending $1000/mo to keep a car on the road, it had better have a prancing horse it.

Right, more power would totally make up for stranding me 7 times and costing several dollars a mile in maint and depreciation.

No thanks! This is quite timely as I found myself browsing used S600s the other day. It's a powerful reminder that modern luxury cars are not created equal. My GS430 has left me stranded zero times and the only problems have been minor annoyances (two door lock actuators quit, replaced with new actuator for $120/ea plus some swearing, that sort of thing) and it's got 200k more miles on it than this car.

There are a ton of cars made over the last ten or 15 years that are crazy complicated and very expensive to fix. Which puts us in a weird place. You can buy a new car and enjoy the warranty, or you can buy a 20-year old car and enjoy the fact that it's simple and (relatively) cheap to fix. But these cars in the 5-10 year old range are just not of any use because who can take a risk like that?

Could there be a market for a plus sized Exocet type kit that would put these large engines in an simple frame that does away with all the excess troublesome bits?

Wally wrote: Could there be a market for a plus sized Exocet type kit that would put these large engines in an simple frame that does away with all the excess troublesome bits?

The problem with many of these is the ECU. They are configured to communicate with the other control computers in the car and sometimes get unhappy when that communication is broken. Even less complex systems like VW's aren't immune (a friend runs a German car shop and did a couple of VW engine swaps into Fieros). There are work-arounds, but it's not something easy for the average home wrench.

I was not actually all that surprised at the costs of this. This was not an ordinary Mercedes, but a special AMG edition. It cost as much as a Ferrari new, so it shouldn't be surprising to see that it costs just about as much to run. If you want to see the counter point, here is an article from a much more GRM POV about owning an "ordinary" S500 sedan. This guy buys used parts and does the work himself, and it doesn't appear to be killing him financially.

And am I the only one who thought that Active Body Control was an old-school Belgian EBM band?

Seems like a jerk job, yeah it is an expensive car to pay the dealer to service, anything with three pointed star and 12 cylinder will be expensive. God forbid if you do any of the work yourself, no you can't because some article says you cant. I thought this was supposed to GRM. I swear for some people the bragging rights are in spending huge money on a car just to see the shock value. $5000 to change 24 spark plugs, get outta town.

My nads shriveled up just reading that lot.

I know people have been saying the same thing for 40 years, but these first decade of the 21st century cars really may be the straw that breaks the camels back in that they are 'too complicated to survive'

I bet as we move forward reliability will catch up with these systems and new cars will be cheaper to run once they are 5-10-15 years old.

Different type of car, but these are holding their value extemeley well, as in cars that stickers for $45K are still going for $30K when 7-8 years old in good condition with moderate miles.

This whole conversation also puts BoxHeadTim's 'cheap 996' thread in a whole new light. His recent experience to get the engine back ready for the next 75K miles is less than their scheduled maintenance. I also liked the comment up thread about the Boxster costing $0 in non schedualed repairs compared to a Merc.

so happy my addition isn't Euro-centric

benzbaronDaryn wrote: Seems like a jerk job, yeah it is an expensive car to pay the dealer to service, anything with three pointed star and 12 cylinder will be expensive. God forbid if you do any of the work yourself, no you can't because some article says you cant. I thought this was supposed to GRM. I swear for some people the bragging rights are in spending huge money on a car just to see the shock value. $5000 to change 24 spark plugs, get outta town.

I am with you on this.

Rusted_Busted_Spit wrote:

benzbaronDaryn wrote: Seems like a jerk job, yeah it is an expensive car to pay the dealer to service, anything with three pointed star and 12 cylinder will be expensive. God forbid if you do any of the work yourself, no you can't because some article says you cant. I thought this was supposed to GRM. I swear for some people the bragging rights are in spending huge money on a car just to see the shock value. $5000 to change 24 spark plugs, get outta town.

I am with you on this.

Forget the costs, anything from 2005 with only 60k miles on it stranding you 7 times is a piece of E36 M3, no ifs ands or buts.

Keep in mind this car was the most complicated car Merc offered --from the era when Mercedes was the least reliable car you could buy. Hopefully the newer ones are less problematic.

I also wouldn't blame all German / Euro cars because this one had a myriad of problems. (I don't rule out all Japanese cars because DSMs are problematic) There's plenty of older BMWs, VWs, and Mercs out there that don't cost a mint to keep running. Of course, the more complex the machine---- the more things there are to break.

A ownership experience like theirs would make me worry every time I hit the throttle, and as a result kill any of the fun. Rotary's don't even burn that much oil. I'll stick to my 12 year old Datsun that has never left me stranded or cost more than a few hundred to fix. Scooping a American V8 of some type with 400-600hp or so still seems safe enough to stomach, but exotic Germans...much less the Italians....its better off staying a dream. Of course, that's all from my perspective of a working class guy. If I had millions to play with, maybe 15k/year in repairs wouldn't seem so high.

I'll stick with my lexus thanks. I guess I'll have to do a custom turbo setup to get my 600hp.

I worked at an MB dealership as a tech for 6 months once. Everything from a Smart to a Maybach is overly complicated, wears prematurely, and is ridiculously expensive-and I was a Land Rover tech for 11 years before this! Guys that did side work or owned an older Benz had to work on them on Sundays at work. Too many expensive computer programs/special tools required to do it at home. If you walked into the shop on Sunday you would think it was a normal work day with all the people in there. At the time I was leasing a base Honda Fit. I didn't go to work on Sundays

The repair costs are a bit much but you can save some money doing some of the work yourself. For me it is the depreciation that I can't wrap my mind around. Losing $14k in one year (and 16k miles) to depreciation alone --on a ten year old car or any car for that matter is too rich for my blood. Granted, it is at that age where it is hard to get bank financing but still 40% depreciation in a year. Wow. Not to mention the car losing more in value than our house is worth in a decade.

If i owned one of those i would be doing my own work so this is almost completely irrelevant to me. Right now i would still consider one, seeing as how i've seen them <20k.

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Ouch on the repair cost.

???? All I saw were a bunch of pics

So moral of the story: do the work yourself and avoid obvious traps like ABC. Got it

While the article was a good example of what can/will go bad on a used luxury car, it was also an example of why someone that isn't familiar with "righty tighty, lefty loosey" should stick to buying appliance cars and leave the cool stuff to people like us.

Its like the people that say a Porsche oil change is $300... or think that red cars have higher insurance premiums... or think that a _____ is bad in the snow because it is small/light... or think miatas are just for hairdressers

(Note: not all hairdressers like miatas as much as we do and may actually prefer a pickup truck!)

(Note 2: the required mention of a miata has now been made in this thread)