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Mercedes-Benz C-Class Sedans
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Comments
M
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2022 Wrangler Sahara 4Xe, 2023 Toyota Tacoma SR 4WD
What's the problem? This morning, I follow a C320, it is funny that his brake light is also out!
Recently, I noticed that some noise come from the hood, the noise like a big fan. I thought it was A/C, but after I turn off the A/C, it is still there. What's that?
thanks
ESP - Is it happening when you're pressing the gas pedal. If it is, you have wheel spin. Either your tires are pretty worn or there's water or spilled oil on the ground. When it happens to me I know it's time to get new tires.
I've heard mix responses on when the new 5 spoke wheel on the C320 Sport is coming to the U.S. The MBUSA website is showing it already and the people at the 800-For-Merc are saying that it can be ordered even referring to a brochure that says C coupe gets the 7 spoke and C Sport Sedan gets 5 spoke wheel design.
My sales rep thinks it will be available in 2004.5.
Then what is available in 2005? Will 2004.5 show some changes to preview what's coming for 2005? Then, 2005 will have more changes to fulfill what some here are hinting as facelift?
Does anybody here know the real story?
Thanks,
Alex
M
The service dept at Barrier in Bellevue, WA has changed a lot in the last 2 years. They've hired two people just to walk around to make sure you're being helped.
Do you have a new or later model M-B? I switched to a 2003 C240 with 4Matic on Sept. 22nd this year. So far so good. I absolutely hated to do it but traded in my '99 C280 It was as good a car as I have ever had. Five years old and only 38K miles. I feel that there have been numerous improvements in the last five years (since I bought our '99 C280 in Sept.'98. Don't know yet whether the 4Matic is worth it. Will see this winter. Plan to buy the extended warranty from Lisa at Courtesy Motors in Chico, CA this coming January. Do you have such a warranty on your car. If so, what is your impression? Look forward to hearing from you once again.
Thanks.
I'm sure I won't be going with the new C-class because it's even smaller. I looked at the outgoing E-class last year but it drove like a boat. I'm not in that much of a hurry to change cars because I have another one, so I'll probably wait until something big breaks on this one. Even though it's only got 31K on it, the resale is pretty low, so I'm not looking forward to trading it in. This C-class is the perfect driver's car for me if I didn't have kids, and if I had gotten an extended warranty I'd probably keep it for much longer.
You're so right. The resale price is so low. The dealer discounted (from MSRP) $3,500 and gave us $18,500 in trade. Not good - but, it's good to get it over with. Anxious to see what the 4Matic does in situations where it is needed. Do not plan to drive it in the snow or on icy roads however. But,I understand it is good in rainy weather. Later.
We like the 2003 C240 very much. There are several improvements that are worth noting. (1) very smooth and quiet ride (2) we think that the 4Matic will be great (3) the functions that are shown in the speedometer area are both numerous and effective - very easy to see while driving. However, it will take time to learn how to use this new additional information (4) the separate seat warmers are great (5)we really like the charcoal interior - it has the "leather inserts" but we can't tell the difference from full leather (which we had on the '99 C280.In fact it is better than the '99 we had. (6) the CD player is in the glove box - very convenient (6)the full four year maintenance service is a plus (7) the shift lever is better (8)separate temp. controls are good and, (9) the blinker for left/right turns on the side mirros are very nice. We have 1100 miles on the car.
It was hard to give up the '99 C280 - it is a great car. We took our last long trip to Yellowstone and our best mileage was 33.11 mpg - terrific! The overall trip average was 30.86 mpg. Would be a bonus if the new car gets even close to that. I wish that the new car had the same side rear view mirrors as the '99 - which are bigger and easier to see back. I liked the xenon headlights too. Also, the standard Bose speaker system. The new car sound system is good, but not quite as good.
Over all, both cars are winners. We will get the additional three year warranty in January - for peace of mind. Thanks for your posts.
Not all dealers, of course, will do this, but the fact is that they are making money on it at the prices Courtesy is quoting, and most would rather have the business than lose it. Doesn't hurt to ask.
Our '02 C240 is now living in Vancouver, WA, with 9500 miles on it. We just finished a quick roundtrip to the SF area and the car continues to fulfill its initial promise as a great tourer. I can drive it all day and still not feel beaten up - all of our MBs have been great long-distance cars, and this one is no exception. Overall fuel consumption almost exactly matches the EPA range of 20-26, though we occasionally see as high as 28 mpg on trips if everything is favorable.
I had the oil changed once on my nickel at 3500 miles; FSS is predicting the first service at 12000 miles. The only significant repairs have been the wheel alignment [it was off at delivery and was part of my pre-delivery checklist of things to be done], and a leak in the diff that turned out to be a plugged vent tube. Nothing else of significance has surfaced, but it is still relatively early in the game, of course. I would describe us as very satisfied at this point.
jrct9454, if you are in Vancouver, WA you are just across the river from me. I have always appreciated your posts in the past and look forward to them in the future. I have some (dumb) questions on your extended 3 year warranty.
(1) is it a "factory" warranty? (2) how does it differ, if it does, from the four year factory warranty? Thanks for the tip on getting a better price from (your selling) dealer. I will call my dealer in January.
Why did you change the oil at 3500 miles?
The factory extended warranty does have some exclusions that I don't find bothersome, but one should be aware of - a lot of the really complicated electronics [e.g. COMAND] are not covered, but everything that matters to me is on the list. They used to offer this extension for 4 years [a total of 8 years / 100k miles], but the recent decline in quality of a lot of vendor-supplied subsystems obviously has given MBUSA pause. In our case, it is unlikely that we would exceed 65k miles in 7 years, so I'm not getting much more than the original warranty as it would apply to most people. Still, we have never kept a car longer than 4.5 years, so this will make me feel better as we try to make this car the exception.
Any comments on the service from the Portland / Wilsonville dealerships? I have to admit I don't like giving up the relationship I had with the dealer in Sacto - we knew each other and I felt mostly good about the work they did. Always a little trepidation when starting over with somebody else...
On the oil change: our car was actually produced in late January '02 at the Bremen plant; we didn't take delivery until Sept. of '02. If I had left the original oil in the car, it would have been two years [or more] since the original fill before the first oil change [I'm projecting probably Feb of '04]. I have a lot of faith in both the oil technology and MB's engineers, but perhaps not quite THAT much...plus I had 10 quarts of Syntec in the garage that were not getting any younger, so I took 8 of them to the dealer and told them to have at it. I paid for only the filter and 30 minutes of labor.
We almost made it to Vancouver from SFO for our honeymoon last month, were it not for a detour to visit Oregon's Mt. Hood. It was a beautiful drive, however. Granted I had to drive a rental car (Olds Alero), and it would have been much nicer in a C230. The drive vs. flight from Boston to SFO and return would have been quite long though!
I need to run the car, it's been almost 3 weeks since I drove it. The '00 2.3 liter seems to take a little more effort to get back into running smoothly after it has been sitting than the '95 2.2 liter did.
I have a 1998 C230 with just shy of 160,000 km's (100K-miles)on the odo. If I were to trade the car in, I would probably be at a trade value of about $18,000. I paid $42,000cdn for the car six years ago. So, my depreciation expense for the six years I've owned the car is $24,000. With 1994 examples selling for $14-15K it seems that my depreciation curve is levelling out. Does it make financial sense to sell it? What about out-of-warranty repairs? Hhhmmm.
Suppose I buy a new 2004 C240. I'm looking at $45K again, and in five or six years the car will be worth $20K. It's going to cost me (in REAL money) $25,000 over the next five years for depreciation on the new car, plus the costs of operating. New or old, they need fluids, filters, etc. Plus, the new car will be more expensive to insure.
What is I take that $25,000 depreciation expense and put half of it in a fund for repairing the C230? Think I'll spend $12,500 over the next five years in non-maintenance repairs? Not a chance. This is my sixth MB, and I've driven several to over 300K. Not even the worst one required more $2000 a year. $1500 a year was a pretty good budget. For five years that's $7500.
What about the cost of money? Even if you're paying cash, you have the opportunity cost of tying up your dollars in the car. The cost of carrying that $45K for 5 years at 7.5% is ~$9000. The cost of carrying the $18,000 "investment" in my existing car is $3,600.
The total cost for buying the new car is $25,000+$9,060=$34,060
The total cost for keeping my existing car is
$7,500 (repairs) + $3,000 (deprciation) + $3,600 (interest charge) = $14,100.
That leaves me $20K in the bank in case something really goes wrong with the car. It NEVER makes finaincial sense to buy a new car. Warranty coverage is not a money saver. So, why on earth, in December of 1997 did I buy a new Mercedes? Not to save money! Just because I wanted a brand new car. I knew it was going to cost buckets of money, but went ahead anyway. Not every decision in your lives has to be the "right" one.
But, don't try to justify a new car with the 'ol "warranty coverage will save me money" argument.
Clearly, you have given this a great deal of thought. I don't know about others but, I thought very carefully about what you have said BEFORE my wife and I decided to buy the new car. As stingy as I consider myself, I am now seeing this whole thing in a totally different light.
We realize that we are getting old. Our kids were all for it - that made it so easy. Besides, we will have a warranty for 7 more years - the thought does ease our minds.
However, thanks for your well considered and excellent reasoning and calculations as well as your very wise comments. I feel that you are absolutey correct. We like our new car a lot however.
But, none of the older cars would offer the safety features. Not even a well-maintained 4-5 year old MB will have side head air bag protection.
I think everyone knows that better than keeping a new car longer to keep the cost per mile down, you'll save even more buying used.
You could base decisions only on the money if the mfg's would cooperate and not build in so many improvements and attractive features into successive models. One of the reasons older cars are worth less is because newer cars of the same model are so much nicer to drive.
Rather than simply cost per mile, I think you would also have to compare the value that is offered. Buying bicycles is an example: a $1K bike probably is twice as good as a five hundred dollar bike, but a $2K bike may only be 50% better than $1K bike, and a $5K bike might be only 5% better. But, the more expensive (or the newer) bike is still the "better" bike, right? And, "better" has value!
Of course, many of the above factors are subjective--in the minds of buyers, e.g., factors like "better" and "value"--and, to mfgs, only the opinions of potential buyers are relevant. In most instances, not even the opinions of professional reviewers mean much. The reviews of the latest "Matrix" for instance were not too bad but it was one of the worst ever movies I've seen. And, I've seen many movies that were roundly panned by expert reviewers but to me were great.
I think that sometimes, the cost is the least relevant factor. For instance, based on cost alone, who would ever "go the movies" if simply waiting a year and renting the DVD saves more than half?
Just pretend to drop by when you know they're going to rent movies.
Don't keep up with the Joneses, spunge off the Joneses. Hey jrct, where exactly did you say you lived in Vancouver?
Question is do we get it this spring or next fall?
M
I gave up on sticks when I moved to the D.C. area, too much traffic. I really enjoy the automatic, on the QX4, and the 4matic stick in the Benz C230K sedan.
But, I wanted a new car. The 1998 C-Class had some nice updates that I liked (including side bags and SmartKey) so I bit the money bullet and went ahead.
Eventually, every car reaches the end of it's useful life, and gets very expensive to maintain. Usually that is WELL past the 5-7 year mark, and that's why used MB's hold their value so well.
MB's challenge is come up with compelling reasons to buy a new one. If MB Canada brings a C270CDI to market with a Classic trim available without COMAND or any other useless stuff, I'll be down writing a cheque.
I now have 21K miles and still love the care.
Some people such as myself are willing to deal with the fact our cars are not as up-tp-date and full of safety and convenience options as they could be. I drew the line at Y2K, which had enough features for me. Hopefully my C230 will serve me until it's time to replace the air bags (15 years).
I am encouraged to hear from you that remedial maintenance will probably not exceed $1,500. per year after the extended warranty expires, I would think it especially so if the car is not a daily driver. Thanks very much for that info.
I paid $32,000. cash (including trade) for the car, so on my financial spreadsheet I deduct $300. per month from its value for depreciation. Next year I will change that to $250. per month., and in two more years, $200. per month. Eventually, that amount will become a remedial maintenance expense instead of a depreciation one.
Btw, at 39 months and 11,100 miles my C230's battery just died. All covered under warranty, though. Guess I don't drive the car often enough, something I'll need to start doing.
- Paul
Any information would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Tony
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2022 Wrangler Sahara 4Xe, 2023 Toyota Tacoma SR 4WD
M
Does anyone remember if they did anything else last time?
Apparently, the rumor is that this C class will get a more substantial facelift than that.
Any suggestions on how to get rid of the noise?