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I don't see how an indie shop is going to save you bundles of money anyway. Labor is labor, and digging anything out of a V12 German car is going to cost you lots of hours.
A heater core on that car is 20 hours! Valve cover gaskets 10 hours. Transmission? $7500 + 8 hours.
Interesting car, only reason I've came back to the site a few times.
Time for a can of Bar's Leak and dump the car!
This is the price you pay for bleeding edge tech from days when MB quality wasn't at a high point. Also consider what this cost new, and the general rule for highlines and exotics that parts and maintenance on an old $180K car costs as much as on a new one. This isn't a C-class, and it has more tech than many 2015 cars - but built before it was perfected, and via the German way (why use 10 moving parts when 100 will do).
Come on. For a car with these low miles, there should not have been ANYTHING declined in terms of scheduled maintenance. Things that went wrong and you did not fix them, we can talk about that...but for items such as a scheduled spark plug change at 60k that you did not have done at 60k, or a coolant, tranny fluid or brake fluid flush and refill that did not happen when it was supposed to, that's a black mark, and I am not going to be inclined to consider purchasing that car.
To buy a known problem child car, then start missing scheduled maintenance items and having lot of juicy issues to post about possibly as a result...makes for good page views for Edmunds, but it's not responsible car ownership.
For example. not having the factory tool means that there are headlights on some Mercedes vehicles that if they need replaced we cannot complete the job since they require SCN coding to function. The gaps of coverage in the majority of aftermarket tools is huge source of frustration. Things like you have a car with a power seat issue but the tool doesn't communicate with the drivers seat module to allow the tech to verify the input commands. Almost worse is when the tool will communicate to a given module and allow for retrieving and clearing codes but not support the data and bidirectional control functions that assist with gaining a quick direction when starting diagnostics.
Now from there we have what appears to many to be one of the reasons for the right to repair act which is the fact that the service information for Mercedes can't be found in the traditional sources such as AllData and Mitchell. Mercedes service information is built right into the scan tool software and was never released in a form that is readily reproduced in any other format. From the Star Diagnose, to the BASIC "Xs" to the Compact4 and Xentry/DAS (did I miss any since 2000?) a technician not only had the correct vehicle support for the models that each tool was designed for, with the subscription he/she also had the only full source for all of the service information and the guided diagnostics right in their hands. Any tech attempting to use an aftermarket tool without such support found themselves working with a significant handicap. Today raw talent, experience and even all the training that is available can only get you so far, without the right tools and service information as well you'll more than likely fail.
For this car, you can get the NGK's for $13, or get Bosch plugs that will typically work just as well (iridium plugs have been proven to perform no better than traditional platinum, although they may wear longer) for much less if you really want to save $$. The brakes pads that are formulated the same as OE can be had for $80 fronts and $50 rear, or you can go cheaper but you'll be changing pads more frequently and the rotors as well. Unless we're talking electrical gremlins, and the notoriously expensive and always troublesome MB air suspension system, you can save yourself a lot of money spending an afternoon doing things yourself for a change. Even the coil pack repair can be done a lot cheaper than it needs to cost if you want to spend the effort to save a lot of money.
Yes, MB's are expensive to maintain compared to a Nissan Sentra, but not nearly as expensive as a lot of people allow them to be. If you think the future cost of repair will set you back $20k for your ownership of a used CL65, if you decide to take care of the things you can to fix yourself for much less, it will end up more like $5k instead.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive