Used Mercedes are so inexpensive! Pitfall waiting to happen? (insurance, 2013, air conditioning)
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I am very flexible in terms of size, from small to large sedans. My main thing is a luxury sporty vehicle around 35-45k, pre-owned. This is completely an elective purchase for fun.
I looked at every used Porsche 911, Panamera, and Cayenne in every trim possible, and they were just too expensive. For example, used Cayenne Turbo, 2011, with 45000 miles is STILL 74000!
At the end of the day, I may elect to stay with my 90k miles Prius given how cautious I am about spending. It runs well, is solid in terms of quality, and just needs a detailing and TLC.
Why on earth are you looking for a Cayenne Turbo if you're driving a Prius? Get a Cayenne S, save yourself 30k, and it'll still be plenty sporty for you with a 400hp V8. Trust me. Or find a nice low mileage 997 Carrera S. Take a look on 6speedonline.com. Cars meeting your criteria and budget range come up often.
Hell, you're in Dallas, I may be selling my 996 turbo in a few months for a real estate investment if you're really interested.
It's a risk. I think it depends on how much you really want a premium used German car. For $35,000, you can get a fantastic new car from Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet, VW, etc.
For me, the chief appeal of BMW and MB cars is RWD (and in the case of BMW, a manual transmission). It's almost impossible to find a late-model car with RWD and a traditional stick-shift, or even just RWD. Chevrolet offers a promising product: the unfortunately-named SS (especially when compared to German cars!), which for 2015 is supposed to offered with a manual transmission. Infiniti and Lexus have some RWD offerings, and Infiniti offers a manual. Dodge has some huge RWD cars, but automatic-only, if I'm not mistaken. Then there's the Cadillac CTS and ATS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Durant82
I looked at every used Porsche 911, Panamera, and Cayenne in every trim possible, and they were just too expensive. For example, used Cayenne Turbo, 2011, with 45000 miles is STILL 74000!
Have you considered a Porsche Cayman S or C6 Corvette?
Why anyone would want to pay $50k of their hard-earned money for a USED anything is beyond me. I know it's enticing getting your hands on something that was unattainable new, but $50k is not chump change. Neither is $35k really.
Don't mention houses, because they will last your stay there whereas a vehicle with all those moving and electronic parts is on borrowed time. If you want to spend $50k for an unknown few years, have at it, but wow I hope you're not doing it because it's a "deal".
I owned a Mercedes for 20 years. Out of warranty you have to fix it yourself and buy parts on line. I mean I ordered oil filters, spark plugs, mufflers, attenas etc.
The dealers charge a fortune and retail parts are expensive. If you are not willing to do that dont buy them.
My tune up for car for instance was 1,000 at dealer, 200 if you did it your self. Oil change was $200 at dealer. Or you could buy $40 oil filter on line and take car to oil change place and hand them filter and pay for the cheap oil change. Mercedes battery $600 and die hard battery you squeeze in $80.
Tranny repair and head gasket I paid someone to do cost me $7500 combined. And I did not use dealer as they wanted 15k for same job, Car had a book of 10K at time.
For me, the chief appeal of BMW and MB cars is RWD (and in the case of BMW, a manual transmission). It's almost impossible to find a late-model car with RWD and a traditional stick-shift, or even just RWD. Chevrolet offers a promising product: the unfortunately-named SS (especially when compared to German cars!), which for 2015 is supposed to offered with a manual transmission. Infiniti and Lexus have some RWD offerings, and Infiniti offers a manual. Dodge has some huge RWD cars, but automatic-only, if I'm not mistaken. Then there's the Cadillac CTS and ATS.
Have you considered a Porsche Cayman S or C6 Corvette?
The 2015 Chevy SS with a stick is an amazing car. You should drive it. The caddie V series goes almost 200 MPH and seats five
Wow, the horror stories! If German cars are REALLY as bad as this thread makes them out to be, it's a wonder they even sell any, let alone are lauded for technological prowess.
Just like with ANY kind of cars, certain models/trims/engines/years are going to be better than others. Porsche makes some of the most reliable cars on the road (according to Consumer Reports).
It's true over the past 10 years German car reliability was a little spotty, but anything new-gen is going to run pretty darn well. A lot of the "reliability issues" are with the complex optional multimedia systems that are simply fixed with a software patch.
In WWII German tanks were far superior technology wise than US tanks. However, they were difficult to fix and maintain as they were complicated. Many a German tank driver was killed when he had to exit tank to fix it.
The problem here is we live in a universe of entropy. The more gadgets that you have on a car, the more there is to break. I just replaced my breaks and had to replace the sensors on them as well. I have a sensor on my tire that died which causes my dash to show a low tire pressure symbol. It wont go away by pressing "ok" like it does on my wifes VW. Other than that though my 2008 328i has been good to me over the last 3 years. I bought it used with 30k miles on it.
I had a used 1976 Jeep CJ7 way back and a screwdirver, pliers and duct tape I could fix anything.
But then again truck has manual steering, manual brakes, stickshift, no radio and finally no heat/defroster let alone AC.
And this was before shift on the fly, you had to turn on four wheel drive manually at front rims.
I also had a 1963 dart last year cars were built before seat belts or padded dashboards. Car was basically like two kitchen chairs tield to the floor boards. A convertible to boot with a metal dash board and no seat belts. Good luck in a crash but real easy to fix.
By comparision my 1975 450sl was very complicated to fix and my last car which was a late model BMW 5 Series was ten times more complicated than my 1975 450sl.
Ha ha, that dude is hilarious. At first I thought the way he was talking was a little irritating, but after about half a minute I thought he was funny as heck (even if that's not what he was trying to convey).
Quick question to the forum as a piggy-back:
I've never been into either Mercedes or Jaguars, but when I randomly came across the Mercedes CLS series, I was like "wow, I really love the styling!!" Now, I realize it's stupid to even think about dropping $80K just for looks, but I really can't get the look out of my head. That brought me to look at the Jaguar XJ series, which has a similar look. But also similarly expensive. And my understanding is both Mercedes and Jaguar aren't the most reliable cars. So what would be the alternative for that cool coupe-style appearance in a reliable model?
P.S. This is all hypothetical window shopping, but I wanted to know. I'll probably end up just being frugal and buying a Honda Accord Hybrid at the end of the day if I ever buy a new car, lol.
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