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Is it expensive to maintain a Mercedes?

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Qacer

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Someone is selling a used 2008 Mercedes cross over vehicle. I'm looking at it since I'm in the market for a second car. In general, are Mercedes cars expensive to maintain?

The price of the car is probably average market value, but I wanted to get some idea on the cost to own it.
 
If its out of warranty it can eat you alive easy.

If you do all your own work and don't mind little things broken for a while why you try and fix them then ok.

IMO if you want a easy to care for car that is reliable stick to most American and Asian cars.
 
Mercedes makes very nice vehicles. But Mercedes has a not so sterling reputation for reliability. And that reputation does not stem from their engines or transmissions but from all the electronic gizmos Merc. touts on their ads.

At 5 years of age, you'll just begin to enter the period when all those fancy electronics can have gremlins pop up, and chasing electronic gremlins is sometimes an exercise in futility.

Add to that the cost of Mercedes replacement parts is many times higher than your American vehicles, and the cost of ownership, whether it be calculated in dollars or time spent chasing problems, is much, much higher than "simpler" and "cheaper" vehicles.

They're great when new.
 
Thanks for the response!

Mercedes are nice looking cars, indeed. However, I've learned that buying a car is not a short-term decision. I got lucky with my Toyota when I bought it new several years ago. That was a "I got a job .. now time to reward myself" purchase. So far, it still runs great. No big time issues whatsoever.

Anyway, I guess I'll limited my search to other cars then. If I see a good, secondhand Toyota SUV, then I'll make an offer on it.
 
As with most cars, it's not how much it cost to maintain a Merc but more so with how much you pay somebody else to maintain your Merc.

Some people go broke trying to pay for a new one while others go broke trying to keep an old one running, lol.
 
lavaheadache said:
As with most cars, it's not how much it cost to maintain a Merc but more so with how much you pay somebody else to maintain your Merc.

Some people go broke trying to pay for a new one while others go broke trying to keep an old one running, lol.
Click to expand...



Truth!

For instance, on the Silverado we just bought, the parking/turn signal/DRL light housing on each side are cloudy and no amount of cleaning the outside of the lens does anything---the cloudiness is inside.

Bought a pair for $12/ea. Hate to think how much something similar would cost for a Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, et al. Hell, I even bought a pair of replacement headlamp housings for it because they were so inexpensive...the pair was under $90.

Of course, with GM selling like a half million examples every year of that truck sure makes replacement parts cheaper, unlike a car that sells maybe 20K or so each year. That and the parts aren't all imported from Europe.

And as an odd aside, I read a few days ago that VW has managed to sell only around 300K vehicles so far this year in the U.S., which really pales in comparison to the again half million or so pickups Ford and GM each will sell this year. One vehicle from GM and Ford outselling the entire VW lineup of vehicles...mind boggling. The article was written about will VW actually remain in the U.S. market, given its falling sales.
 
Luxury cars require luxury maintenance. That's what a lot of people don't consider when they pick up an old Beemer or Benz off AutoTrader for $10k. A lot of them require premium gas and synthetic oil, tires are often odd (read expensive) sizes. Parts and repairs in general will be expensive.

Not to scare you away but you have to consider that into the lifetime cost of the vehicle. I think if I was going to buy a luxury car, I'd probably opt for Lexus. Just in my experience, they're pretty bullet proof. My mom has owned her ES300 for 16 years now and it's had no major issues. Forbes also says the Audi A5 and Q7 have fairly low lifetime costs for their segment.
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ehmk45gdlm/audi-q7/
 
Qacer said:
Someone is selling a used 2008 Mercedes cross over vehicle. I'm looking at it since I'm in the market for a second car. In general, are Mercedes cars expensive to maintain?

The price of the car is probably average market value, but I wanted to get some idea on the cost to own it.
Click to expand...

Which one?

My parents put 50K on a C class with one unexpected expense ($300 for belt tensioner), I put some 40K on a v8 CLK with only issue being the cats going out, fixed under federal warranty. Both of those cars were awful in snow though.

I imagine the AMG trim and especially v12 cars can get costly.
 
Mercedes used to have a great reputation for reliability decades ago but not anymore.

They're fantastically built cars but they're very complex cars and because of that, they have a lot of problems.

The specific model depends on lot on the cost to repair too. A C class is affordable to maintain, a CL or S class and you'll have a 4 or 5 figure repair bill every time.
 
If you find a quality independent service guy the costs are not appreciably different than other cars. I've owned 3 in the past 15 years and have not had anything out of the ordinary happen to them, admittedly a small sample. Cracked front windshield with OEM replacement (need it for the rain sensing wipers) was $500, I don't think that is that different from what an Acura would be.

You mention SUV -- those will require more thought. My in-laws still drive the '02 ML500 I gave them back in 2005 and it has worked very well for them with 2 repairs about $1k over that time.

2 items to watch for:

-the Nav unit will go, its only a matter of time, and its an expensive fix. Almost worth getting an extended warranty just because of the electronics if you intend to keep it.
-air suspension -- I would avoid it, it will fail and it will be a very expensive fix.

Otherwise MB's last a long time -- mbtex is pleather, but man it holds up.

If you have access to a good independent who can look it over for you, I wouldn't be scared away. Problems tend to surface early in ownership, if it went 5 years without any mechanical problems you are probably ok with the basics.
 
Not too bad if you do most of the wrenching yourself. Also going to need a reputable independent repair shop for any items you can't do yourself. C and E 350's are robust critters that can pull very high mileage with relatively little $$$. If it's a GLK350 and the price is right I'd hit it.
 
About 5 years ago I remember my boss telling me it cost her $1200 to get her headlight WIPERS repaired as the pump wouldn't stop squirting.
 
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