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USED European Luxury Cars (pre 1990)
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Comments
If you need something especially large and luxurious, I'd check out a '89-91 Mercedes 300, 420 or 560 SEL (560 has electronic suspension, larger engine and a few silly goodies like a tri-tone horn and heated power rear seat over the 300 and 420; the 300 has a six-cylinder, the 420 and 560 are V8s). The '89 and later have dual airbags, and they all have ABS. You should be able to find a VERY nice example for well under $15k. Just remember, these cars are over ten years old, so will not be totally trouble free, but they're big, fast, comfortable and luxurious. They're probably one of the most 'recognizable' status sedans. If you find a nice one, get rid of the factory radio (Becker), they're lousy.
The big BMWs are nice, but generally are more troublesome than 'equivalent' Mercedes. Personally, the 750iL looks nice and certainly is fast and fancy, but I would avoid it, unless you have unlimited financial and time allotments for when it's in the shop. They're super expensive to maintain.
The '92 and up S-class Mercedes are not as highly regarded as the previous generation described above, and it's doubtful you'll find a decent one for under $15k.
For $15k, you can easily find a '93-95 Lexus LS400. They're a bit bland IMO, but very refined and should be reliable. Lexus service departments are among the best, also.
Many Mercedes owners view the 126 as the best car Mercedes ever made (tho the dieselheads hold out for the '85 300D) -- my comments are limited to gas cars. No one (including Mercedes now) builds them like the '86 - '91 126s with battleship steel and attention to fit, finish and engineering detail -- how many competing brands are even running at 12 to 16 of age, not to mention being considered as a prestige daily driver or worth purchasing with over 100,000 miles on the clock.
Unlike the successor W140 S class ('92 - '99), the 126 is not electronics-dominated and are relatively inexpensive to keep in top shape. $15,000 will only buy you trouble with a 140 (e.g., the notorious A/C condensor problems of the earlier cars).
$15,000 will get a top well-maintained 420SEL, which is probably the best buy (I have an '88 420SEL). A good 560SEL would be a bit more expensive, more expensive to operate and the air suspension can be an expensive pain. They are both relatively common (the number of US 560SEL's is about 2/3 that of 420SELs). The 560SEC is the short wheelbase with the big engine, so there will be less room in the rear seat; of the big V-8 S-class, only 10% were SECs. See http://www.mbusa.com/brand/container.jsp?/overview/ with overview_engine.jsp&yearModelCode=88_SEL420&class=88_S&rnav=0124568&menu=2_3 [I split the URL dur to Edmunds limitations -- just put them together without the "and"]
The 300SE/300SEL (with a 6) is a good car and available with the short or long wheelbase (the V-8s came only in the long wheelbase SEL version), but a V-8 is preferable for a car of this size.
I would avoid a BMW 750 -- see http://my750.com/.
I have heard (particularly from other Mercedes owners) that high mileage Lexi (100,000 miles and up) start to get very expensive to maintain and the leather, paint, etc is not up to the durability of the old Benzs.
In any event, "depreciation" is not an issue with these cars -- you're not going to get a lot of tax shelter in any event from depreciating a $15,000 investment.
If $$ are a factor, an alternative might be to lease a used model with an extended factory warranty and them turn it in at the end of the lease. M-B will go back as far as their '94 models and cover up to 100,000 miles on the clock: http://www.mbusa.com/brand/container.jsp?/starmark/index.jsp (you can do a national search through the website by model, year and price. The lease payments can be written off and can offer a better tax result than depreciation. A Starmarked '94 or '95 E class might be an overall best deal.
Another good value are the post-'95 Jaguar XJ series (I had a V-12 '96 XJ12 before going over to The Dark Side) -- reliability is good, factory-warranted used cars are available (like the Mercedes Starmark program), prices are relatively cheap and nothing beats the looks and impression they give.
I guess "network marketing" is something else, but in this side of the computer industry, if you show them you can afford an expensive BMW, that means you're too greedy and are not down to earth. Most sales execs here use their Taurus as their daily driver and have something luxurious they keep at home.
http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/forumdisplay.php3?s=fd417e2802f9751530593b96ff5cee94&forumid=15
Also the Benz will be easiest to unload should things not work out.
There are very good reasons why some cars are a "steal". The public is not stupid, it knows good cars from troublesome ones.
These comments apply to older models of these marques, not necessarily the new ones.
-Jason
Also, how about a '93-'95 Alfa 164 (manual only) or '93-up Jag XJ6?
This is complete BS. I have a 1995 Lexus ES300 with 109,000 miles on it. I've personally owned it for 5 years and 80,000+ miles. I drive my cars very hard. Let me tell you that this puppy still looks and runs like it's brand new. The only service I've ever needed other regular oil changes/maintenance was to replace the A/C Expansion valve for $300 - but that was it. I have friends who have much newer MB, BMW, Porsche, Audi cars and they are nothing but expensive problems. I'm totally sold on the reliability, luxury, and quality of Lexus and can't in good conscience buy anything else. If you are leasing - who cares what you lease (because they cover repairs and you will ultimately trade it in)...but if you BUY and you BUY USED, you better get a LEXUS. I can only speak from personal experience. This car has never let me sit and $300 in 5 Years and 80K+ can't be argued with.
(a) I would not put the ES300 in the luxury category -- it's essentially a rebadged Camry. The equivalent Lexus, the LS400, is a considerably more complex vehicle with significantly higher cost parts and service.
(b) A '95 is a significantly later model [note the forum title] than the '86 - '91 Mercedes/BMW/Audi, etc. we are discussing and a decent '95 LS400 would not be available for $15,000.
(c) At seven years of life and 109,000 miles, gekko is only now entering the maintenance period which we are discussing. It would be interesting to hear LS400 feedback from the '90 - '92 era. No one disputes the relatively trouble-free service of Lexi for the first 100,000 miles -- the question is what is the subsequent experience.
(d) It is a fair point [and one with which I and many other Benzers agree] that newer M-B are not being made to the same standard as the cars of the 126 era, and most would probably agree that Lexus is now doing better on initial quality performance and owner satisfaction -- if you like its particular combination of soft ride and minimal road feel.
(e) That said, any one owner's experience with a single car is not necessarily indicative or representative.
Jrosasmc, I really like big BMWs but I also haven't heard much 'good' about their maintenance costs or reliability, at least compared to the 126-style Mercedes. The '88-94 7 series are well-designed and all, but pretty complex machines. The 635CSi is a cool car, but seeing as how the newest one available is 13 years old, I wouldn't consider one as a 'luxury daily driver' for their price. They've become more a collector/enthusiast car at this point.
I know someone that has a 1991 LS400 with 200K+ on it and it still runs like a top with nothing needed but regular maintenance.
I love it when the "elite" call the ES300 a "Camry" with no knowledge of the actual small % of shared parts. fyi - It's about 25%. By the way, the Camry is a great car anyway.
Style, and perceived "Luxury" and performance are personal preferences. To each his own - if you like MB, great. But MB past, present, or future is not even close to being in the same class as Lexus when it comes to reliability. Stop trying to delude yourself and face the facts - the Japanese have taken car quality to a new level that the Germans nor anyone else can match.
Good luck with your MB. I hope you have lots of money and time for repairs and also a spare car to drive while it's in the shop.
Granted, a Mercedes needs heavy maintenance but that's to be expected. Frankly, I'd rather have a Mercedes even if the risk for reliabilty was higher than a Lexus. Most Lexi are incredibly boring. Who cares if they have leather and run forever?
I'll remember what ya said.
He'd be better off taking the $15,000 and spending it to lease a factory backed used car for its extended warranty period and by the end of the lease term he's hopefully caught enough flies to be able to afford something for real.
I would look at a 5-series BMW, a E-class Mercedes or, probably best, an XJ series Jaguar (where the value/flash ratio to cost is probably highest). A LS400, which is a good car and also available used off-lease, seems to be the car of choice for real estate salespersons around here and thus less "flash", but maybe it's rarer where maw1982 is.
An old Benz like the 126 is a car for the auto enthusiast who appreciates the timeless engineering, build quality and peculiar Mercedes characteristics of solidity and great high speed cruising (at the expense of some agility -- these cars are ponderous) -- young networkers [unless they are engineering geeks or Benz affiandos] are unlikely to be impressed by an old Benz, BMW or Audi or (apologies to gekko) an ES300 of any vintage.
Given the budget range of $15K, and the fact that we are discusssing pre 1990 cars, the Benz is the clear choice if you want a car that's probably going to run day after day.
However, ANY luxury car with over 100K is ripe for catastrophic repairs. The engineers (who are smart people) only design certain life expectancies and while the occasional car (like mine) exceeds them, by and large you have to play the odds with used luxury cars. The fewer the miles and the better the reputation gives you the best odds, even if someone did indeed drive a Yugo 500,000 trouble free miles. People fall off buildings and live, too, but that's not where the odds are if you catch my drift here.
As for impressing people, I agree....pre 1990 German luxury cars are for enthusiasts, not status seekers. These old cars are what the French call "baker's cars", meaning anyone who has a job can probably own one.
"Affordable luxury" is a self-canceling phrase unless you're dealing with an unsophisticated audience. Prospects with enough money to be worth impressing know what's hot and what's not. It's how they rate each other.
However, "quality" still has currency and is harder to "fake".
Sadly, it's MB themselves who seem to be doing more and more of that these days.
However, in quality of materials and in assembly quality I think Mercedes is still unsurpassed, as evidenced by how well their cars hold up in fit and finish over the years. You hear complaints of stalling or having to go back to the dealer for the same defect four times or some component failure, but you rarely if ever hear people complaining about parts falling off or upholstery degrading rapidly or paint peeling. Your Benz may nickel and dime you as it grows old, but it will not be a pile of rattling junk when you trade it in.
Also I think another very strong point about German cars in general is their suspension technology, which is hard to beat and which characterizes their particular appeal to buyers.
If the only criteria for buying a car were the results in reliability polls, everyone would have bought a Toyota by now. Obviously, people are willing to trade off to get what they perceive as the best attributes in a luxury car.
http://detnews.com/2001/autos/0111/20/b01-345143.htm
You have cited a reliability study for modern cars that are 5 years old. This type of discussion really belongs in with the modern cars. I would suggest the Coupes or Sedans Boards. This is the Classics Board and so we like to stick with older cars here.
To summarize the current thread, we were talking about pre 1990 German luxury cars in this topic, 13 years or older, and we are talking about build quality, assembly and materials of cars 13 years or older, so comparing cars concurrent with 1990 or older German luxury cars.
thank you
Host
If you want to talk about the inherent defects in reliability and/or materials of Lexus or Toyota, please use the Sedans and/or Coupes board and I'll be glad to share what I know about recurring problems with these cars.
Which leads me to ask: What is Quality?
Answer: Quality is consistent, long-term, on-target performance of products and services in the hand of the customer. Quality is a moving target driven by customer needs and competition. Quality is Conformance to Requirements/Zero Defects. QUALITY is meeting customer expectations. Quality is not goodness, prettiness, or luxury.
Historically, Mercedes Benz was the first manufacturer in the world to conceive of, and actually implement, the *mass production* of cars of superior quality. Prior to Benz, perhaps the closest anyone ever came to the mass production of quality automobiles was Cadillac in the 1930s through 50s. Postwar Mercedes were made in the hundreds of thousands to a very high standard, and being a historical first, I thought it appropriate to mention it.
Whatever other manufacturers have since replicated this feat, Benz was the first to do so, and remained the only maker of mass production quality cars for at least two decades.
If you'd like to talk about relative build quality of modern cars, that's also an interesting subject, but please use the Sedans or Coupes Board and I'll join you over there.
I believe in your own field of work you realize the connection between complexity and failure rates or how new technology sometimes pushes the limits of absolutely faultless levels of reliability.
The Germans, in my opinion, do tend to over-engineer and this sometimes leads to problems. Whatever Benz made work in the 80s with 56 parts, Toyota made do with 35 and probably got by with a better reliability rate, too. But their cars were boring and not very stylish.
Another factor to consider is that in the 1980s the gulf between a Benz and a domestic was vast indeed. I think people were so impressed with the quality of the car's materials and workmanship that they were more than willing to forgo the basic reliability of a Ford pickup truck's simplicity.
I just posted a series of questions on the MB300 board, with a longish post that I would rather not repeat here. Those of you who don't subscribe might wander over there and offer whatever feedback you can...
So here's the question, for our host and anyone who wants to chime in:
I'm looking for an MB that we can use reliably for longer trips, but where total annual miles probably won't exceed an average of around 6000 or so. We have a nice reliable late-model Corolla for the local runaround stuff. Because I'm not a mechanic, I haven't bothered with looking for anything but low-mileage cars. For the past 2 issues of the STAR, there is a guy in SoCal who is trying to sell an '81 300SD [more or less identical to a car I once bought new] with less than 10,000 miles on it since new [no, not a typo]. He wants $20,000. Yeah, I know...but the questions are these:
-What is this car's value, do you suppose, in the cold hard real world?
-What should I be looking for in inspecting the car, beyond the obvious [starting and running like a car with only 10k on the clock, AC function, no obvious leaks, running vibration-free at freeway speeds, etc.]? Yes, I'd probably take it to a professional, but only if it passes my cursory examination on the driveway and the road - here's where I can use some hints.
-How should a garage queen like this have been maintained? At least annual oil changes for the engine, but how about other fluids?
-Should I be worried about other rubber parts besides tires [which I would replace in almost any case - I have strong prejudices here]? Seals, suspension bushings, door/trunk rubber?
-Joe has already given me some ideas about maintenance costs; anybody else is welcome to chime in.
I owned a total of 5 diesels during the 70's and 80's. My experience was that the turbos were far and away the most enjoyable cars to drive, and always seemed to run better on the crappy diesel fuel we have in this country than the normally aspirated engines. Still, I'd welcome any "watch-out-fors" from any source - I'm an MB veteran, but not in the area of cars with 20+ years behind them.
Finally, a question for Joe: are you the "Troise" half of the R&T cartoon team? If so, I'm a big fan....
Thanks in advance for everyone's input.
John R.
Elk Grove CA [near Sacto]...so working AC is an absolute necessity...
Real world price for an '81 300SD that is immaculate?
Well,here's my reasoning. There is no sense in paying much of a premium for these ridiculously low miles. Why not? Because if you start to DRIVE the car, then you put on miles and the very thing you paid the premium for disappears. If you DON'T drive the car and try to preserve the low miles, all you have is an old Mercedes diesel that will never be worth much anyway. What exactly are you saving?
I'd say this particular 300SD with only 10K miles is basically unsaleable, because the owner obviously does not really want to sell the car. If he did, he would not have such an absurd price on it. I mean, get real. You can buy some REALLY NICE used cars for $20K, including mint S Class Benzes.
Anyway, I'd say the car is worth perhaps, at best, $5,000-6,000, maybe $7,500 if you want to establish new levels of charity to owners of old Benz diesels. Even then I feel like I'm being magnanimous. I bought a mint 300D for $1, 200 with high miles, so I'm giving a 4X value for low miles. Seems fair enough.
As for what to look for, I'd say seals, seals and more seals, and all the belts and hoses you can possibly replace. I'd spend at least $1,000 to renew everything and flush all fluids. Tires will have to go, too, no doubt, so that's another $600 or so.
Last of all, I"d ask that the 10K be verified. If it can't be, then it's just an old Benz diesel with a new speedometer if you ask me.
SPEEDSHIFT -- I think there is something to the mystique of a door closing like it was a "bank vault", as opposed say to the "reedy twang" you hear on some cars when you slam 'em. But it's not just about doors, of course, but about the door locks and striker plates and window construction and door fit and quality of the door seals and steel frame to which the hinges attach, etc. In other words, the old "neck bone's connected to the shoulder bone" theory.
Unless I'm missing something, I don't see any more "cheapening" in a Benz than in any of the other premium makes. All new cars are more plastic then they used to be. Nobody lines the inside of the glove box door in chrome anymore like Benz used to do. Forget the days of lavish use of acres of leather and wood and chrome and stainless. It's all "trim" nowadays.
Let's face it, we could take any new car and destroy it with our bare hands and feet. Surely we could rip the dash and door panels apart and bend the hood and trunk into curlies no problem, and stave in all the body panels with a few swift kicks. This would really hurt on a 1948 Packard..
If itwere me, I would pass on that 10K miler.
First, $20,000 will be MORE than enough to by what would be the best W123 in the world.
I sold a 1991 560SEL, Smoke Silver/Palomino (one of the most valuable combos) for $17,500 not too long ago. 45K original miles, not a drop of paint on it since it left Germany, brand new MXV4 V rated rubber, service book current to the 90K mile service simply due to time. One-Owner. Oh, it also had ASR and a CD Changer.
So that 300SD... Sheesh, I like it more than Shifty does, I'd say $10K. I know of several reallyt nice 150K+ mile 300SDs that have sold near me lately for $5Kish, so let's keystone it for the miles. Maybe you could, as a seller, get $12K on eBay or something, but, like shifty said, without total and documented proof of the mileage... no dice.
$20,000 is smoking rocks of crack the size of boulders.
But more importantly, I would be afraid of the car. First, like shifty said you start putting miles on it and you run its' value. And, if you start driving it all sorts of stuff will start to break. Quickly.
Find a nice old 300SD... or a clean 300SDL (86-87). Avoid 350SDLs and stay well under $10K for a mint one.
Bill
When I think of 'good' cars at the same price as say an '88 300E (~$4-6k), I can't help but think an early or mid-90s Accord or Camry would be better, more cost efficient daily transportation. Less exciting to drive or be seen in, sure, but less exciting repair bills, too.
As it happens, I DO believe the miles are legit - the guy is a collector, has several cars at his disposal, but simply misunderstood the nature of this car: it is not a collectible, so the low miles do little for its resale. No one wants an SD to use as a weekend car or to admire as a garage queen to drive to Concours. He has all the documentation, but has, as noted above, an unrealistic view of the worth of the car. I just needed some reinforcement in my mind that the risks and things to be concerned about here were the same list I had put together on my own.
An example of a practical concern: I would use the car for 6-8k miles a year of longer trips, it would be out weekly, it would be exposed to all the normal risks of traffic, etc. No insurance company is going to cover this car for theft and total loss for more than $5-6k or so...
Anyway, thanks for the prompt responses and reasoned ideas.
JMR
300Ds are nice but really almost too slow for modern aggressive highways. I have to "drive ahead" with mine and keep the pedal mashed most of the time. About 50 extra HP would be nice. But they will chug along eternally it seems.
Use it, drive it, enjoy it, smoke in it, get the odd parking ding, etc...
Just dont ever plan on making a dime off of it!
Now, a 500E? E320 Cabriolet? Yeah, someday those will sell for a lot of money. Maybe even the old 300CEs.
But not a common sedan. Very nice cars, I am a big fan of the W126.. but sheesh!
Bill