Mercedes-Benz vehicle ownership?

Get a Mercedes AMG C63 or C63S (around $70-80K). You will not be underwhelmed by either car. The AMG's are not too flashy, as most people will not be able to differentiate the cars from a regular Mercedes C300. This means you could practically drive the AMG anywhere. In fact, either car will feel a lot faster than your Maser GT, will sound as good as your Maser, although they are not as pretty as the Maser.

 

First of all the 6 cyl in MB never have enough power and the 550 has a very different feel than the 400. Also part of what you are feeling is the drive by wire hesitation. Not sure I am understanding this you don't want to be noticed but you want to go from a Dodge to a MB, and I would not think a Maserati would cause that much of a stir in a city like Chicago, they do not around here. You want a car that drives well and will get you through winter wait for the Golf R.

 

I assume you drive the Maserati very hard and want to save it for just that and not just posing. From your posting it is possible a large car like the CLS might not appeal to you, or more to the point you might not feel the cost to own it will be worth it when you calculate how much it really is to park one of these in your garage, er parking space.

A new CLS will have high depreciation. No, make that M-A-S-S-I-V-E depreciation. The kind that Jaguar owners even pity. $80k new to $40k in two years. Or down to $20k in four or five years. It will be by far the highest cost associated with owning the vehicle. $400 oil changes every year, $2000 brake jobs every 40,000 miles, $1500 for tires (every 30k-ish miles, OEM on Mercs are always fairly soft). None of that compares to the deprecaition on these things.

Having owned five Mercedes over the last decade (four from new) I can tell you as a blanket statement they have lost their way and gotten progressively cheapened and less reliable. Our latest one has had so many problems over the last four years that it is time to trade but I highly doubt it will be for another M-B.

Since you asked for thoughts let me tell you mine. It is obvious you are a young guy, with a bit of a chip on your shoulder and something to prove. Apparently swimming in income from whatever venture you are doing and determined to spend it. Consider moving from the apartment complex in the picture and buying a house or upgrading your residence, and don't piss away your current good fortune on any new car, especially a new CLS.

 

???

 

Are you married to Mercedes? In that 4 door coupe class the CLS would be third choice behind Audi A7/s7/rs7 and bmw 6 series gran coupe.

 

Well i owned an SL500. Brand new. Many mech problems. It was an old mans car. Auto tranny and very quiet exhaust.

Traded it on an F355 F1 GTS. The rest is history.

Never have driven an AMG...but Mercs are posers cars IMVHO.

 

This ^^^^^.

 

Mobiledev22

If a CLS is what truly appeals to you and your finances can accomodate it, do not let anyone dissuade you from getting one. My previous daily driver was a 2006 CLS500 , purchased new in 2005. I traded it in last year on a new CLS63 AMG 4Matic. Both are absolutely phenomenal. They are true drivers' cars that offer bulletproof reliability. The CLS63's perfomance is unreal -- nothing from Audi or BMW can touch it. Maintenance costs stated here are fairly accurate. As for depreciation, a drop from $80K to $20K in 4-5 years is totally incorrect. It took NINE years for my first gen CLS to drop that far. Comparable models from other luxury manufacturers that I considered suffered greater depreciation. The CLS draws more attention than most other MB or comparable luxury cars. I recieve positive comments on a regular basis in a city that is a mecca for exotics.

Many people offering negative opinions about MB cars don't know what they are talking about. Since age 17, my daily drivers have been exclusively S, SL and CLS models. It has now been 30 years since the first, and this AMG will not be the last. Quality and engineering have not suffered as some people assert. Today's cars are different in some ways from those of the past, but this the natural evolution of a product. The pure essence that makes MB unique remains. I have enjoyed test drives of competing brands and truly love my Ferrari and Bentleys. However, if I was forced to own only one car it would be the CLS.

I, and everyone I know who have owned MBs, have enjoyed wonderful ownership experiences. And those who tried another brand eventually returned to MB. You should test drive a CLS63 (new or CPO) before you make a final decision.

 

A brother (or sister) is gonna buy what they like and suits them so all is well.

 

Amen!

 

but used and buy a warranty......

 

First of all, I no longer like German cars or German Car companies. They all now just mostly make ugly cars. They ran out of ideas and are now looking at kids' toys, you know transformers, Batmobile...etc for inspiration.

While they do have the noise volume and speed I don't like the quality of noise AMGs make. They sound very coarse and crude like someone's home garage NASCAR experiment... just hurts the ears. Their older cars used to project refined power and beauty. Nowadays, they are just about power and thuggish looks. The "kids" have taken over corporate Germany.

I used to love the interiors of the early 2000s SLs, the ones that came later look like they came out of a 70s Detroit playbook. I tried very hard to like them because I wanted to explore the SL experience but my stomach couldn't take it every time I sat in the car. I felt like I was throwing money away.

The Germans no longer want to make beautiful cars; they are after the "Gangsta" look these days... everything dark, grungy looking, ugly grotesque proportions... designed to provoke, like a street thug. I used to love German cars but gradually over the recent decade, I began to feel betrayed by their design and management teams. They are after production volume nowadays, chasing young buyers and people who lease cars or just own for a couple of years. MB, BMW and VW are competing against each other for the EU and Asian markets. I'm not sure their designs take cues from NA. I mean, do they even make a pickup truck?

When a buyer pays cash and buys a car with classic appeal, he tends to buy it to keep. Cars that have a high ownership turnover rate cheapen the brand, cheapens your ownership experience, which in turn feeds the lazy designers who just follow everyone else, chasing buyers who buy trendy (young generation) fads. Brands like MB and BMW were about quality and classic design, which could justify their prices... they changed that equation. They are now after production volume. The bottom line is, you do not want to pay a lot of money for fads... which is a lesson that I hope Marchionne and Ferrari understand.

 

Funny, that is how I felt about the late 2000s S class to the 't' ...but
the new / current S class is quite a sight to behold. I love its much more subdued lines...its my favorite S class in ages. I am strongly considering one now instead of another 7 series (another car which went through a very ugly adolescence in the 2000s after the wonderfully sculpted E38).

I also don't understand you disdain for the SL interiors....my R230 SL600 has an absoluely lovely interior dripping with leather. The R129 interior was very late 80s in comparison...with larger fitted components and at times 'very Mercedes' use of interior space....it reminded me more of the old SEC then a car built in the early 2000s....understandable give its underpinnings. Even my old E31 had a more ergonomic interior, while retaining that German Teutonic feel.

My biggest issues with Mercedes is quite frankly, their steering dynamics are awful, their suspensions are too soft, and they are setup for far to much understeer from the factory. That, and it took Mercedes a few tries to quite work out their automated body control system...but that is another story.

All that said, I love my 04 SL. This year marks my 10 year anniversary of owning it!

 

I actually agreed with you... but I should have been more specific.

The R230 came out in 2001 and that's the model I liked, the early 2000s model (I couldn't recall exactly when the R230s first came out). That generation lasted till 2012 whereupon it was replaced by the ugly, cheap-looking R231. It appeared to me they simply decided not to put any effort into designing the interior.

As you and others have surmised, these cars are not drivers' cars. They are luxury lifestyle items... so they should have paid a lot of attention to how they looked and felt to be in. They didn't. The end result were vehicles that did nothing particularly well. No charm at all.

As for the S-Klasse, I've never liked their interiors although I thought the AMGs from the 220 generation were kind of cool in a Q-ship sort of way. AMG Q-ships are dead. For full-size sedans I liked the 7-Series that came before Bangle appeared and ruined everything. The BMWs from his generation were simply ugly for ugly's sake. What made matters worse was that they also became much cheaper-looking and cheaper-quality in reality. The BMW mechanics derided them.

 

go to trade a five-year-old CLS with expected miles (15k/year would be 75k miles) at the same dealership where had paid $80k for it new. The percentage of original MSRP would be heartbreaking.

 

As stated in my post, this is exactly what I did last year on a pristine CLS with just over 60K miles at the same MB dealership. If I had sold privately, it could have been sold for more than $20K after nearly a decade. The CLS is a niche model that seems to hold value better than many other MB cars. My point that the depreciation is not as steep as you claim is based on an actual experience.

Do you think that another marque would have done better? I cross-referenced values of other brands that were considered (e.g. BMW, Lexus, Jag, Audi) to see how I'd fared. Most suffered greater depreciation. At the end of the day, painful depreciation is a fact of life -- especially with high-end vehicles.

 

I forgot to mention that when my warranty was nearing expiration, I visited my dealer to obtain quotes on extended coverage versus trading to a new CLS550. They offered around $50,000 for my 4 year old 500.

 

As far as MB depreciation is concerned (particularly lack there of), nothing comes close to a G wagon!

 

S65's are at least tie,… or worse.

 

I believe you mean are they are the other end of the extreme....G wagons have a painfully slow decline from new...I was looking at 07 models with ~50k miles and they still command >60k....for a 8 year old car!