Mercedes, Worth It?

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Originally Posted by billt460
After reading through all of this, it's hard to believe these cars are this bad. Especially when they sell them based on their, "advanced German engineering". Yet experience doesn't lie. It's amazing that in spite of it all, they still manage to keep selling them. Unbelievable.


lol.gif
indeed
 
Originally Posted by Wolf359
In terms of warranty if you pick up an MB, they come with a 4 year/50k warranty and if you get a CPO warranty, they go up to 7 years, unlimited miles. If you pick up a private party use one that still has the original warranty left, you can go up to 7 years/100k on the MB warranty, just have to check with the dealer to make sure it's still eligible.

CPO warranty is 5 years, not 7.

Quote
Every Certified Pre-Owned Mercedes-Benz is covered by any remaining portion of the Mercedes-Benz four-year/50,000 mile New Vehicle Limited Warranty. Then, the CPO Limited Warranty provides comprehensive coverage for another 12 months with unlimited miles. This means up to 5 years of unlimited mileage coverage, extending to the engine and powertrain, steering, suspension, brakes (excluding wear of discs and pads), electrical system, climate control system, and more.

https://www.mbusa.com/en/cpo
 
Originally Posted by Kestas
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
... Case in point, the C300 needed 4 new tires after 13K miles (yes, 13,000 miles),...

Except for the first set I don't think it's fair to pin tire problems on a vehicle. The vehicle manufacturer may have made a poor choice on specifying the first set of tires from the tire manufacturer. I think subsequent sets would last much longer.

I am afraid not. The Continentals on her car are the exact same as the retail versions right down to the MB designation unlike other manufacturers who use cheap tires as OEM. If the alignment is not checked every 10K or within 12 months, MB states that all bets are off. Hardly what I consider world-class engineering if the alignment cannot hold true for any longer than that.
 
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Originally Posted by RayCJ
Get a brand new Mazda6 and for a lot less money, you'll get an outstanding car. The infotainment won't be as full-featured but, on the flip-side, you'll never get a mortgage-sized repair bill for routine service.

https://www.mazdausa.com/vehicles/mazda6/gallery

Nice car but some want an 'image'....



google: 2019 Mazda6 image

M6-2.JPG


M6-3.JPG


M6-4.jpg
 
If you care to appreciate the difference, a MB will drive and feel better, it will actually perform better avoiding problems.. For that feeling you will pay more for maintenance and repairs. You must do all the maint on schedule. I do not know how they know, but if you skip any you will pay much more later to catch it up.

For basic transportation, there are much more economical choices.

Rod
 
Originally Posted by RayCJ
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Originally Posted by RayCJ
Get a brand new Mazda6 and for a lot less money, you'll get an outstanding car. The infotainment won't be as full-featured but, on the flip-side, you'll never get a mortgage-sized repair bill for routine service.

https://www.mazdausa.com/vehicles/mazda6/gallery

Nice car but some want an 'image'....

google: 2019 Mazda6 image

Yep, they sure photograph well. In person, though...

meh.
 
Originally Posted by dbias
Originally Posted by RayCJ
Get a brand new Mazda6 and for a lot less money, you'll get an outstanding car. The infotainment won't be as full-featured but, on the flip-side, you'll never get a mortgage-sized repair bill for routine service.

https://www.mazdausa.com/vehicles/mazda6/gallery


Mazda produces some beautiful sheet metal



My wife wanted a used Merc, BMW or Volvo. Had the Merc picked out (used car lot), but couldn't get the seat properly adjusted for her frame. I didn't offer any advice, neither did the salesman. I thanked my guardian angels. Found a BMW 3 series. Private Seller wanted an extra couple of grand over PP value because he had recently put on new run flats. Yeah buddy, want an extra $50 cause you had the oil changed too? Probably still has the car 3 years later. Thanked those angels again. Settled on a Volvo S40 that was in decent shape with an honest seller.

In the almost a year we had the Volvo, had to replace the alternator (4 times the price of an equivalent US car part), and the electronics went completely ape when it got hot here in Vegas. It would run ok unless left out in the sun. I figured the interior heat was probably well above the design specs of the ECM. Did not enjoy working on the car, it was unnecessarily designed without ease of maintenance considered.

Told my wife if she gave up on the used Euro trash I'd buy her a new M6 Mazda 6 (anything she drives has to be a manual transmission, so it had to be a Mazda 6 or Accord). She agreed, and we got a new one. 2 trouble free years so far. Not near as much fun to drive around town as the Volvo, but a worthwhile tradeoff considering the maintenance requirements. I don't mind working on cars, but I don't like to have to do it on a regular basis because they break down.

I read an interesting book that blamed lack of maintainability, sufficient spare parts inventory, and interrupted production to make marginal improvements as a major reason the Germans lost WWII. If their current cars are an example of that mentality, I think the book makes some valid points.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
Originally Posted by Kestas
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
... Case in point, the C300 needed 4 new tires after 13K miles (yes, 13,000 miles),...

Except for the first set I don't think it's fair to pin tire problems on a vehicle. The vehicle manufacturer may have made a poor choice on specifying the first set of tires from the tire manufacturer. I think subsequent sets would last much longer.

I am afraid not. The Continentals on her car are the exact same as the retail versions right down to the MB designation unlike other manufacturers who use cheap tires as OEM. If the alignment is not checked every 10K or within 12 months, MB states that all bets are off. Hardly what I consider world-class engineering if the alignment cannot hold true for any longer than that.


You skipped a step and bet was off. Typically the OEM tire warranty is not backed by car maker but the tire maker.

I think it fine you dislike MB however your concerns remind me of oddball reviews of products out there.

With respect to brakes on a high performance SUV :

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/foru...rt-brake-life-and-brembo-life-in-general

Your statements are akin to saying my $200 Nike running shoes make terrible winter boots.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
After owning 2 MB cars (2018 C300 and 2018 AMG GLC43), I have only 2 words for you---maintenance and cost. Case in point, the C300 needed 4 new tires after 13K miles (yes, 13,000 miles), the AMG needed a 4 wheel brake job at 26K miles. I would avoid it like the plague, but that is just me.


My experience with the big Brembo's on my SRT somewhat mirror your brake life story. This is apparently exceedingly common, and brake life on the fronts is ~30,000Km in the GTA, I managed to get ~35,000Km, as I don't live in the GTA. Front brake job was around $800 CDN, Chrysler covered 50% of it. It's a heavy SUV with very perfomance-biased brake and rotor selection (both were toast, not just the pads). My tires are getting there, but it has just under 50,000Km on it now. Worth noting, it is only the front brakes that wear out quickly, the rears were still at 75% and thus would likely last 3x sets of fronts.
 
Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
Originally Posted by Kestas
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
... Case in point, the C300 needed 4 new tires after 13K miles (yes, 13,000 miles),...

Except for the first set I don't think it's fair to pin tire problems on a vehicle. The vehicle manufacturer may have made a poor choice on specifying the first set of tires from the tire manufacturer. I think subsequent sets would last much longer.

I am afraid not. The Continentals on her car are the exact same as the retail versions right down to the MB designation unlike other manufacturers who use cheap tires as OEM. If the alignment is not checked every 10K or within 12 months, MB states that all bets are off. Hardly what I consider world-class engineering if the alignment cannot hold true for any longer than that.


You skipped a step and bet was off. Typically the OEM tire warranty is not backed by car maker but the tire maker.

I think it fine you dislike MB however your concerns remind me of oddball reviews of products out there.

With respect to brakes on a high performance SUV :

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/foru...rt-brake-life-and-brembo-life-in-general

Your statements are akin to saying my $200 Nike running shoes make terrible winter boots.

Again - baloney. The cheapest car on the market does not wear out tires at 13K and certainly not a $50K+ car. In addition, no car I have ever owned required an alignment with only 10K on the car--even my trucks loaded and towing heavily.

The part that is being overlooked here is that the tires that were on the car as OEM are the same as the retail market--absolutely no difference. It is Mercedes choice to put those tires on the car, it is also Mercedes choice to design a car that requires alignment so often prevent destroying tires. If that is the current definition of a high-quality, well designed car, then I will take a hard pass.
 
Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Originally Posted by Wolf359
In terms of warranty if you pick up an MB, they come with a 4 year/50k warranty and if you get a CPO warranty, they go up to 7 years, unlimited miles. If you pick up a private party use one that still has the original warranty left, you can go up to 7 years/100k on the MB warranty, just have to check with the dealer to make sure it's still eligible.

CPO warranty is 5 years, not 7.

Quote
Every Certified Pre-Owned Mercedes-Benz is covered by any remaining portion of the Mercedes-Benz four-year/50,000 mile New Vehicle Limited Warranty. Then, the CPO Limited Warranty provides comprehensive coverage for another 12 months with unlimited miles. This means up to 5 years of unlimited mileage coverage, extending to the engine and powertrain, steering, suspension, brakes (excluding wear of discs and pads), electrical system, climate control system, and more.

https://www.mbusa.com/en/cpo


CPO cars come with 1 year unlimited miles, but you can buy up to 2 extra years of CPO coverage. Same with the extended warranty, up to 7/100k. That goes with the 4/50k new car warranty. Of course extended and CPO isn't as good as factory warranty because there were a few things that it didn't cover like ripped MB-Tex seat and faded wood trim which was an early problem with the W212 which was the 2010-2013 E-350.

https://mbworld.org/forums/extended...-best-discount-mb-extended-warranty.html

Oh yeah, I've also replaced the alternator on one of the cars, it's about $185 from Autozone. They carry a reman Bosch unit which was OEM and it comes with a lifetime warranty. That might be a little bit more than what I paid for my previous Taurus, that car I think I replaced the alternator 3 times. That car was really difficult to remove, the book had you dropping the subframe to remove the alternator, but if you fliped it around, it would come out the wheel well. The Mercedes wasn't as bad. MB also likes to use Torx and external Torx bolts. So far working on it hasn't been as bad.
 
Originally Posted by billt460
After reading through all of this, it's hard to believe these cars are this bad. Especially when they sell them based on their, "advanced German engineering". Yet experience doesn't lie. It's amazing that in spite of it all, they still manage to keep selling them. Unbelievable.


Like anything, there's always the bell curve, certain problems are common and others are rarer. You read about problems on the forums that you never end up encountering. For instance in 2003 when they first came out with the E class, the radiators were bad, leaked coolant into the the transmission and destroyed the transmission and was considered one of the worst years aside from 2006 which had the bad balance shaft. But there are those out there that didn't really have a problem with them and although they had the bad batch of radiators, it didn't fail on them. Also keep in mind that the volume sold in the US is much lower than other high volume cars. Bread and butter cars like Toyota, Honda, Nissan might sell 200-400k a year, but the E class sold around 50k-60k a year. But they sold the car world wide. You have some American cars that just sold in the US market. One problem that MB probably has is that it's really hard to engineer something really well if it's a low volume item. That's why some American engines/transmissions are much better, they just made a lot more of them so R&D costs are spread out over a lot more units.

Also I think when they refer to engineering, they probably mean the features that it has, not that it's more reliable. As I mentioned with the brakes earlier, there's a feature that keeps the brakes dry by lightly applying them when it detects rain. It also has a feature where it tightens the safety belts and also apples the brakes harder when it detects that you switch from the gas to brakes quickly. Only had that happen to me once. Jammed on the brakes real quick and felt the seat belt tighten. Plus they were probably one of the first with keyless go and drowsiness detection. Now lots of other car makers have similar features.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
Originally Posted by Kestas

Except for the first set I don't think it's fair to pin tire problems on a vehicle. The vehicle manufacturer may have made a poor choice on specifying the first set of tires from the tire manufacturer. I think subsequent sets would last much longer.

I am afraid not. The Continentals on her car are the exact same as the retail versions right down to the MB designation unlike other manufacturers who use cheap tires as OEM. If the alignment is not checked every 10K or within 12 months, MB states that all bets are off. Hardly what I consider world-class engineering if the alignment cannot hold true for any longer than that.


You skipped a step and bet was off. Typically the OEM tire warranty is not backed by car maker but the tire maker.

I think it fine you dislike MB however your concerns remind me of oddball reviews of products out there.

With respect to brakes on a high performance SUV :

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/foru...rt-brake-life-and-brembo-life-in-general

Your statements are akin to saying my $200 Nike running shoes make terrible winter boots.

Again - baloney. The cheapest car on the market does not wear out tires at 13K and certainly not a $50K+ car. In addition, no car I have ever owned required an alignment with only 10K on the car--even my trucks loaded and towing heavily.

The part that is being overlooked here is that the tires that were on the car as OEM are the same as the retail market--absolutely no difference. It is Mercedes choice to put those tires on the car, it is also Mercedes choice to design a car that requires alignment so often prevent destroying tires. If that is the current definition of a high-quality, well designed car, then I will take a hard pass.


Need a few more details but I suppose you could be correct. The RWD models tended to eat up tires especially if they were run flats. RWD typically had different sized tires on the front and rear so they couldn't be rotated so most tire warranties only give you half the treadwear. Plus run flats don't tend to last either. Lots of people just switch them out and try to find a dummy spare for the trunk. Also the knock on some MBs is that the alignment specs tend to have the inner tires wear out too soon. The theory on that is that they spec the car to run 100mph+ and still have those same specs in the US. My last set that wore out had over 30k on it and it was the insides that wore out. But it was a 4matic so same size all around and I could rotate them. And while I'm not doing 100mph, I'm probably a little higher than 55. The ones that just do city miles seem to do worse.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
The part that is being overlooked here is that the tires that were on the car as OEM are the same as the retail market--absolutely no difference.

How can you be 100% sure?

Often times, it'll be the exact same model, but the factory ones are actually different, made specifically for first install (factory) application with different set of priorities.

CapriRacer mentioned this on many occasions.
 
Originally Posted by billt460
After reading through all of this, it's hard to believe these cars are this bad. Especially when they sell them based on their, "advanced German engineering". Yet experience doesn't lie. It's amazing that in spite of it all, they still manage to keep selling them. Unbelievable.

When I traded our MB in for our E90 BMW, everything was 100% fixed. As I said, I take exceptionally good care of our cars. Our MB looked like it had 12k miles on it, not 117k. And everything thing from the cabin filter to rear diff oil was current with respect to maintenance. It needed NOTHING.

When I first spoke with the BMW dealer about the trade (they hadn't seen the MB yet), they told me they wouldn't take a trade with that many miles. I convinced them they had to see it to believe the exceptional condition it was in. I still remember the used car manager coming out and looking at it. He was incredulous and commended me on how well I took care of our cars.

About 2 or 3 week later I got a nice phone message from the new car BMW salesman we dealt with. He told me they didn't auction the car off but instead sold it from their used car lot. He told me a "nice young family" bought it and happily chirped how thrilled they were with their purchase. He was just trying to be a nice guy and tell me our MB went to a good home.

After listening to his message, I actually felt guilty. As I said, the car was 100% repaired, using all MB OEM parts. But, I suspect that MB POS continued to give trouble. I sure hope not.

As I said in my original post in this thread, I've owned about 30 cars. Of those 30, only 3 were bad. The MB was one of them. The "bad car" that was the biggest surprise was our 2001 Subaru Outback. Horrible! And then there was the 1993 Mazda MPV mimivan in our small child hauling days. I ended up hating that thing so much I tried to kill it one Saturday afternoon but the ECU wouldn't let me blow it up (I'm serious). All these cars were bought new and were treated well. Since we're talking MB and German cars, our BMWs are going to go down in my automotive history as some of the best cars I've ever owned. Our special ordered, bought new, 16 year old E46 has been perfect, literally PERFECT.

Scott
 
Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
The part that is being overlooked here is that the tires that were on the car as OEM are the same as the retail market--absolutely no difference.

How can you be 100% sure?

Often times, it'll be the exact same model, but the factory ones are actually different, made specifically for first install (factory) application with different set of priorities.

CapriRacer mentioned this on many occasions.
The specs are exactly the same in every way including the MB label on them. Not sure how it can be different with the treadwear, traction, and temperature ratings all the same.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
The part that is being overlooked here is that the tires that were on the car as OEM are the same as the retail market--absolutely no difference.

How can you be 100% sure?

Often times, it'll be the exact same model, but the factory ones are actually different, made specifically for first install (factory) application with different set of priorities.

CapriRacer mentioned this on many occasions.
The specs are exactly the same in every way including the MB label on them. Not sure how it can be different with the treadwear, traction, and temperature ratings all the same.

Some OEM tires are indeed different from their non-OEM counterparts. This is not unusual. See Tirerack website.

For example, our 2016 VW Passat VR6. Compare the specs of the OEM Bridgestone 235/45-18 RE97AS to the non-OEM version.
As a second example, our 2010 Honda Element SC. Compare the OEM Goodyear LS2 225/55-18 to the non-OEM version.

Anyway, our 2006 MB C230 with its whopping 201 horsepower killed the rear tires. We burned up rears on that thing every 15K to 18K. Fronts would go 35k.

Scott
 
Originally Posted by SLO_Town
Some OEM tires are indeed different from their non-OEM counterparts. This is not unusual. See Tirerack website. For example, our 2016 VW Passat VR6. Compare the specs of the OEM Bridgestone 235/45-18 RE97AS to the non-OEM version.
While I have seen what you describe in the past, in your case there are two tires listed on Tire Rack for your car and the specifications are different--namely the UTQG rating is 480AA for one tire and 400AA for the other.

In the case of the Continentals, there is only one ContiSportContact 5 SSR listed for the MB C300 with 19" wheels and I compared the specifications of those tires against the OEM tires on the car and they were exactly the same down to the Mercedes, MOExtended Mobility on both tires. I bought Pirelli's instead of the Continentals, but in the end, it is the constant alignment (every 10K) that is needed to prevent them from wearing. This is not something I have ever had to do on any car and certainly none of the many $50K+ I have owned and is not "well engineered" or the best "design" for cars like this.
 
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