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New R-Class Owners - Give Us Your Report

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Comments

  • happygal1happygal1 Member Posts: 2
    I have been looking at this car, but am not sure about it yet. Do you feel like you have enough space in the trunk? I have kids too and am worried about fitting groceries and kid gear in the back!
    Also, would you mind sharing what you paid? I have been to a couple of dealerships and the prices seem to be all over the place........
  • dpirwindpirwin Member Posts: 3
    Update, a little more than a year after repair of this weird problem. The R Class has turned out to be a terrific car. Diesel gets 28-30 mpg on highway, ~18-22 in city. Handles well, holds the mob, pets and beach week stuff in comfort and quiet. M-B origin removable roof rack fits cunningly, is very sturdy, and very useful when the mob wants to take more stuff than any reasonable family unit should. The few shortcomings are self-apparent: blind spot in right rear corner (one gets used to it and compensates for it), long wheelbase (turning radius is surprisingly tight, but the center of the car is in a different place on a turn than a shorter wheelbase car), somewhat arbitrary, hierarchical controls on nav system (once you get used to it, it is just fine). No recurrence of initial problem, no new problems, great car for what we wanted it for.
  • swwalkerswwalker Member Posts: 5
    If you are carrying 7 passengers you are not going to have much room, however if you have one or both of the back seats down you have more than enough room. My wife and I love this car. We paid a tad under $54k, but we have all the bells and whistles including the diesel version. Buy it.....you wont' be disappointed.
    :)
  • docrwdocrw Member Posts: 94
    Unless you have 10 bags of groceries, you will not have a problem. We make trips to Costco and have never had a problem, you just have to be a little creative and plan out how to pack things in. We recently went to a wedding across the state with the car full, my wife, both in-laws and two kids-one in a toddler seat and one in an infant seat. We packed a cooler and enough clothes for 3 days with no problem. We used soft bags, not hard suit cases, and utilized the spaces between the seats. Amazingly, everyone was comfortable and no one complained, including the toddler.

    Another tip, if you remove the spare tire that area can hold a few good sized bags. I would not recommend this if you are going someplace remote, but for highway trips the spare tire could be sacrificed. Of course I did not tell the wife about removing the spare tire until after we had returned home. Its always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission:)
  • marinitemarinite Member Posts: 44
    Good lord, that's shocking. I'm glad you and your daughter were unharmed.

    Thanks for the warning - hopefully you'll read this one of these days. And I hope you get some resolution. That's shocking about MB's lack of attention whatsoever.
  • ted39ted39 Member Posts: 2
    I have 3500 miles on a 2008 R Class Diesel - it's awesome. I find reasons to go for a drive.

    I did have a KD box installed by the dealer that upped the power and mileage. There will be no warranty issues because they treat the KD box like an AMG - built for MB.

    Love the power and this thing is quicker than my Toyota was. (The R class weighs about 5200 pounds.)

    Get one - you'll love it.

    Room is great: back seat leg room is great, storage is great, and it is a very user friendly car.

    I wish they had more upscale floor mats though. The ones that came with it are cheap looking.
  • new2benznew2benz Member Posts: 5
    About 10 days ago I bought my wife a used 2008 R350 and we both love the car. Never had a Mercedes before.

    Extremely spacious, well equipped and fun to drive and getting roughly 23 MPG on highway. I know the cost of ownership will be more then my Volkswagen however love the style of the R350 and the comfort.
  • dpirwindpirwin Member Posts: 3
    My wife and I have had our R Class since early 2007. It had a couple of issues at the start relating to sudden engine flameout, which made us nearly try to dump it. But the local M-B dealer got the right help (it took a while, ultimately coming from the Black Forest), and in the meantime did the right thing by loaning us another R Class that was working right. 3 years and 50,000 miles later, the car is increasingly proving to be what we'd hoped for: dependable, comfortable for long family trips, spacious, reasonably economical (28-29 mpg on highway -- phonomenal for a car of its size). If buying again (which I would, though I hope it won't be for another 8-10 years), I'd look closely at quirky nav system before buying it. M-B has fixed the other problem for families with kids and carpools, since second seat row can now hold 3 passengers. AWD usually not needed but really helps out in those weird mid-Atlantic-States winter snowstorms. All in all, a great and pretty stylish workhorse of a car.
  • new2benznew2benz Member Posts: 5
    Almost forgot about that .... the AWD feature. That is one of the reasons that we went with the R350 because living in the mid-west, AWD comes in handy.
  • jasonwipfjasonwipf Member Posts: 3
    Well all of your comments have been so helpful in my research I decided to get a 2 yr used 08 R320cdi and flew to Atlanta, GA from Houston, TX to get it (thats how committed I was to getting the exact options and year lol). I just got done driving about 13hrs and 900 mi and will give my first report.

    Awesome drive.

    25mpg at 75-80mph and as good as 31mpg at 55mph (30-50miles test intervals). I averaged 28mpg at 63mph for the whole trip.

    Some people say the nav joystick is ackward but i am coming from a touch screen Acura RL that I have had for 13 years and after awhile touch screens get perma grease on the screen or pure wear over frequently used buttons that mess up the screen and then get hard to press the various buttons. Sure this button and joystick took getting used to but I am liking it better.

    My tire pressure monitor light did go off even though the tire pressures seemed filled ok. My town and country does this all the time too so not that big a deal. It seems to to be the perfect family cruiser but sorta tankish if your looking for hard cornering abilities and agility. But then again I did NOT buy they car for that. I got 2 boys and lots of gear that I wanted to transport. I'll report back.
  • manigopimanigopi Member Posts: 17
    How is your experience with the CDI? Or Gas is liveable? I am looking for Diesel CPO as well. Honda Odyssey is still an option too. Grateful for your thoughts.
  • happygal1happygal1 Member Posts: 2
    I didn't end up purchasing the Mercedes. I tested a lot of cars of similar and larger size and was impressed with the R class' handling. However, I ended up buying the Buick Enclave and love it. For the size of the car, the handling is superb, the styling is lovely, gas mileage is liveable, and you can't beat the safety of Onstar. Good luck in your search!
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