CLS W257 to a CLS W219....Brain VS Heart what to do.....

[Jimmyv28]

Hello

I currently own a CLS 350D W257 that I’ve had for nearly two years, owning a CLS was my dream car and I finally made it. However spending £554 a month on a car (£406 for the car, £52 for MB service plan and £96 for extended MB warranty) is now making me think twice, knowing if I overpay my mortgage for next 7 years I’ll be mortgage free plus my place of work is changing from a 72 mile daily drive to a 4 mile daily drive (I’ll probably walk), now could be the time for V8 ownership. Also due to the chip shortage webuyanycar type websites will offer me just shy of £32k for the car and my settlement figure is £23K, so I’m thinking of buying the car for £23k then selling and buying myself a W219 CLS petrol 5.5 litre version.

I know going from a pretty much new car to a 15 year old car is going to take some getting used to and I’m going to test drive a cls500 at the weekend to get a feel for it. But I would love to hear some people’s opinions on my situation as talking to other MB owners / petrol heads is better than the wife who doesn’t really care.

It’s the heart vs the brain going on here, I could just drop the warranty on my current car and keep it but soon it'll be just sat on the drive a lot and it's a diesel..... I was also pondering about the CLS55 / CLS 6.2 AMG but very scared they will just be money pits. However saving nearly £500 a month I would have plenty of savings that if something major does go wrong I might be alright? Also a small chance a CLS55 / 6.2 AMG may start going up in value at some point in the future…?

I’ve also noticed there is only one lower mileage CLS550 for sale in the UK at the moment, so do I keep my car and try and sell it very quickly once I see the perfect CLS550 or just maybe get the one for sale today. Ideally I would love a lower mileage cls550 on an 08 plate (LED taillights) but they seem to be non-existent. I really don’t want to buy a car with over 100k on the clock.

Also another question I have, one of my favourite features about my current CLS is my headlights, I know the W219 lights aren’t in the same league, but is there any way of making them a bit brighter / whiter legally? Has anyone changed the actual Xeon projector like I’ve seen a few Americans do? My old Clio 182 Xeons look better than the CLS lights.

Looking forward to hearing some feedback hopefully

Cheers

Jimmy

Also the only CLS550 for sale that i can find that i'd probably go for: Auto Trader UK - New and Used Cars For Sale

 

[mercmancdi]

For me young is always better when there’s such a difference, under body rust , age related problems, then do you need the service plan and the extended warranty if you were putting that £148 a mth by towards service etc , and really the diesel does not need much to service it , oil change filters etc and could be done cheap if you found a good local trustworthy mechanic or mb indi , the short journey in large petrol is going to use a lot of fuel compared to the diesel, also not putting so many mls up on your newer car is going to help hold its value better . I am no expert but I would think carefully about going back , but I can see the
financial end too , so you have a tough decision and going back might work out but you would need to be sure you can keep the older one long term and maintain it all round and find a real mint well maintained car.
I wish you all the best no matter which way you go , but just be sure as it would be hard to reverse your decision in a yrs time or so. Don’t the the reg would add much value to the one you saw.

 

[Jimmyv28]

For me young is always better when there’s such a difference, under body rust , age related problems, then do you need the service plan and the extended warranty if you were putting that £148 a mth by towards service etc , and really the diesel does not need much to service it , oil change filters etc and could be done cheap if you found a good local trustworthy mechanic or mb indi , the short journey in large petrol is going to use a lot of fuel compared to the diesel, also not putting so many mls up on your newer car is going to help hold its value better . I am no expert but I would think carefully about going back , but I can see the
financial end too , so you have a tough decision and going back might work out but you would need to be sure you can keep the older one long term and maintain it all round and find a real mint well maintained car.
I wish you all the best no matter which way you go , but just be sure as it would be hard to reverse your decision in a yrs time or so. Don’t the the reg would add much value to the one you saw.

Thank you for your reply. You’ve made some very valid points. Not being able to go back being a big one for me. I get to use a work van a lot which helps me keep my mileage down, car had been sat at work all week and I drove it back tonight, still puts a smile on my face.
Also finding a well looked after cls is a good point, I have thought about an older car potentially costing me a lot to maintain and overall I may not have been far off my £406 a month figure.
Very tempted to ditch the warranty but keep the service plan as I feel it would help me sell it in the future if I was to keep it. But I can transfer the warranty to the new owner if they wanted it, which I thought would be a good selling point from a private seller, beats an AA warranty

I’m not the biggest fan of electric cars tbh, but what are your thoughts that in the near future the government puts in a new legalisation that will really drive diesel cars off the market. Loosing say £7K on a car I can swallow but £32K not so much. I’m being very drastic here / worse case scenario and for me people need the mpg a diesel car can give. If the chip shortage never existed I wouldn’t even be in this situation, I’d still happily be paying my monthly payments, even at the end of the term I could buy it for £16K (2 more years) and I think to myself it will still be worth more than £16K in 2 years...

 

[Smiley]

If you buy a good 15 yr old CLS then you will not be buying a money pit; get it inspected at your local indi. And if your mileage is low then you will probably see close to zero depreciation. It's pretty unlikely that maintenance is going to be more expensive than your current warranty - which by the way may not cover all faults anyway. I would actually be more concerned about the reliability of your newer diesel car over the next few years - especially if you are going to be using it for short journeys. My guess is that in 3-5 years time when the shift to EV and petrol hybrid has really got under way then the current generation of diesels with all of their complex (=expensive to maintain) emission control systems will be really undesirable. So I would say you are spot on, a good petrol 219 with money to overpay the mortgage is a much better deal imho.

 

[Accused]

Being of limited means I pretty much have had cars over 10 years old all my adult life. I have always chosen what were expensive cars new, there is risk but financially I don't see it to be that frightening.
You are paying out a huge monthly amount now, if you put away say £100 a month to maintain a w219 I doubt you'd need more unless super unlucky. Your mileage is going to be fairly low so why not smile every cold start.
Just buy wisely and find a good indy locally, everyone should at some point have a V8 (It's late in the game they'll all be gone essentially in a few years).
The engine is pretty much bulletproof, the 7g gearbox may play up but once fixed it'll have years in it. Other than that it's normal maintenance.

 

[Teego]

Just get a full fat CLS55.

 

[mercmancdi]

Thank you for your reply. You’ve made some very valid points. Not being able to go back being a big one for me. I get to use a work van a lot which helps me keep my mileage down, car had been sat at work all week and I drove it back tonight, still puts a smile on my face.
Also finding a well looked after cls is a good point, I have thought about an older car potentially costing me a lot to maintain and overall I may not have been far off my £406 a month figure.
Very tempted to ditch the warranty but keep the service plan as I feel it would help me sell it in the future if I was to keep it. But I can transfer the warranty to the new owner if they wanted it, which I thought would be a good selling point from a private seller, beats an AA warranty

I’m not the biggest fan of electric cars tbh, but what are your thoughts that in the near future the government puts in a new legalisation that will really drive diesel cars off the market. Loosing say £7K on a car I can swallow but £32K not so much. I’m being very drastic here / worse case scenario and for me people need the mpg a diesel car can give. If the chip shortage never existed I wouldn’t even be in this situation, I’d still happily be paying my monthly payments, even at the end of the term I could buy it for £16K (2 more years) and I think to myself it will still be worth more than £16K in 2 years...

On the point about electric cars I m o I think that from 2024 onwards spending big money changing your to a newer petrol or diesel Is going to be risky for everyone, basically we don’t know what the government going to do ,are they going to tax them off the Rd or start and ban them from certain areas .
Who knows. I think my strategy would be if I could keep my car or in couple of yrs change to a real good low mls easy to run petrol or diesel something with low emissions so I can’t be taxed off the Rd. My problem is I bought a new rav 4 a yr ago hybrid and absolutely hated it. On some of our rough surface rds the tyre noise was giving me a headache with the constant drone. Was not just so bad when engine kicked in but was not for me sold it and bought 2016 glc 2.2.

 

[Nat]

Just get a full fat CLS55.

That was going to be my answer to

 

[LTD]

I’d get rid of your current car and simply walk to work given it’s only 4 miles

The health benefits will outweigh anything else and you can always rent any marque should you want to go on a trip

 

[Jimmyv28]

So I test drove a CLS500 yesterday.
Are these engines meant to whine? I have read that the V8 is quiet in these cars, but all I could hear whilst driving was this whining that I thought can’t be right. However I’ve never been in a V8 car before.
The throttle response was nothing like my car at all. I had to push a lot more than expected to get the car moving. I put my fooot down a bit on a dual carriageway and it went alright, I can see why I would want the 5.5 version / CLS55 though.

It was comfy though and even though the steering felt heavy compared to mine, I liked it. I could definitely live with how it steered and handled the road. I feel I didn’t test drive a good example with that engine noise however.

My car feels rapid compared, it really does, I don’t think I appreciated how much diesel engines had come on over the years.

I’m thinking I should test drive another one or a CLS55 as the throttle response would surely have to be more responsive than the car I tested today.

 

[Accused]

Torque...the diesel has tons, you have to use the pedal more on the petrol then it performs...

 

[Gbrowncls55]

You are moving from a car to an "on the way" classic. If you buy a good one with a supercharger a) you will never stop smiling and b) you stand a pretty good chance of zero depreciation which will offset any unforseen exoenses.
I have had mine for six years and added 60k miles to it. I still love it to bits, although as I get older I apreciate its comfort as much as its mad alterego

 

[Nat]

So I test drove a CLS500 yesterday.
Are these engines meant to whine? I have read that the V8 is quiet in these cars, but all I could hear whilst driving was this whining that I thought can’t be right. However I’ve never been in a V8 car before.
The throttle response was nothing like my car at all. I had to push a lot more than expected to get the car moving. I put my fooot down a bit on a dual carriageway and it went alright, I can see why I would want the 5.5 version / CLS55 though.

It was comfy though and even though the steering felt heavy compared to mine, I liked it. I could definitely live with how it steered and handled the road. I feel I didn’t test drive a good example with that engine noise however.

My car feels rapid compared, it really does, I don’t think I appreciated how much diesel engines had come on over the years.

I’m thinking I should test drive another one or a CLS55 as the throttle response would surely have to be more responsive than the car I tested today.

The V8 is a great feature in these cars (not has the normally aspirated 5.5 so can't comment on that) and no, they're not meant to whine. One thing about both the 5.0/55 is that you can drive them sedately and waft along, then when you bury your foot it then comes alive and you'll pass most things apart from petrol stations - actually in saying that I think both can return quite good mpg. Quite different to how a derv delivers it's power as pointed out above.

If the maths works for you then I'd suggest the 55. I've been unlucky with mine having to replace the SBC, airmatic pump as some other stuff but my out look is that I only have to do it once.

 

[Londonscottish]

Hello

I currently own a CLS 350D W257 that I’ve had for nearly two years, owning a CLS was my dream car and I finally made it. However spending £554 a month on a car (£406 for the car, £52 for MB service plan and £96 for extended MB warranty) is now making me think twice, knowing if I overpay my mortgage for next 7 years I’ll be mortgage free plus my place of work is changing from a 72 mile daily drive to a 4 mile daily drive (I’ll probably walk), now could be the time for V8 ownership. Also due to the chip shortage webuyanycar type websites will offer me just shy of £32k for the car and my settlement figure is £23K, so I’m thinking of buying the car for £23k then selling and buying myself a W219 CLS petrol 5.5 litre version.


nnnn

So I test drove a CLS500 yesterday.
Are these engines meant to whine? I have read that the V8 is quiet in these cars, but all I could hear whilst driving was this whining that I thought can’t be right. However I’ve never been in a V8 car before.
The throttle response was nothing like my car at all. I had to push a lot more than expected to get the car moving. I put my fooot down a bit on a dual carriageway and it went alright, I can see why I would want the 5.5 version / CLS55 though.

It was comfy though and even though the steering felt heavy compared to mine, I liked it. I could definitely live with how it steered and handled the road. I feel I didn’t test drive a good example with that engine noise however.

My car feels rapid compared, it really does, I don’t think I appreciated how much diesel engines had come on over the years.

I’m thinking I should test drive another one or a CLS55 as the throttle response would surely have to be more responsive than the car I tested today.

If you stood in front of my C43's and my 5.0 E500 you could hear a lot of drive belt whining noises but you couldn't hear inside - just a muted V8 soundtrack which really only become apparent past 4k.

Also, the 5.0 has a long travel throttle and doesn't have the wall of torque you get with a diesel.

The 5.5 addresses that latter point; tickle the throttle at low engine speeds and it's off. It's basically got loads more than the 5.0 all the way through the rev range. It slices nearly a second off the 0-60 and two seconds off the 0-100. If you look at the 0-100 for 5.0, 5.5 and 5.5k it's something like 13.5s, 11.5s and 9.5s.

So the 5.5 sits almost exactly half way between the other two in performance terms. As has been said on other threads, in terms of character an E500/CLS500 is more like a mini-S Class than an AMG. Looking at in another way, if the AMG is an RS6, the E500 is the S6.

Pound for pound you'd get a slightly newer 500 and/or one with fewer miles if that's important. When I was looking myself a few years ago, an E63 was maybe 25-30% more then the equivalent E500 - ie cars of the same age on similar miles.

I'd personally go for a pampered version of either a 5.5 or 55K with a nice fat service history. Evidence of Airmatic stuff having been done is always good (struts/bellows/pump), SBC pump maybe, more than one g/box flush, balljoints, new-ish discs, etc etc. Some get pampered, others get ignored and if you buy well you can avoid several K's worth of maintenance spend.

 

[Phil1968]

No the engine shouldn't whine, they do a bit from the outside but you shouldn't hear it on the inside. In fact I couldn't believe how quiet mine was inside when I first got it, even at motorway speeds. Very little wind noise, mostly tyre noise, even the engine is pretty much silent until you floor it & even then the V8 soundtrack is in the distance. Performance I would say is very adequate. There are times when I've wanted more & wished I'd got the 5.5 though But then the M113 5.0 is comparatively bulletproof. I think coming from a turbodiesel it will feel a little down in the midrange (the 3.2 straight 6 turbodiesel in the W211 320CDI I had developed more torque), you have to rev a petrol engine instead of surfing the wave of torque as you do with a turbodiesel. I wouldn't be using it for a 4 mile drive into work every day though, the engine wouldn't even get to full operating temperature.

 

[jdrrco]

So I test drove a CLS500 yesterday.
Are these engines meant to whine? I have read that the V8 is quiet in these cars, but all I could hear whilst driving was this whining that I thought can’t be right. However I’ve never been in a V8 car before.
The throttle response was nothing like my car at all. I had to push a lot more than expected to get the car moving. I put my fooot down a bit on a dual carriageway and it went alright, I can see why I would want the 5.5 version / CLS55 though.

It was comfy though and even though the steering felt heavy compared to mine, I liked it. I could definitely live with how it steered and handled the road. I feel I didn’t test drive a good example with that engine noise however.

My car feels rapid compared, it really does, I don’t think I appreciated how much diesel engines had come on over the years.

I’m thinking I should test drive another one or a CLS55 as the throttle response would surely have to be more responsive than the car I tested today.

Mine is the 4.7l twin turbo, so a different beast, but certainly no whining and no issue about torque either. Its attempt to hurl you into the back seat when you put your foot down is very entertaining.

It's not for sale, but if you want to experience how a non-hooligan CLS500 should perform, pop down Cardiff way and I'll happily show off a bit!

 

[Gbrowncls55]

No they dont whine from inside (a little from outside with all the belts whirring round and the air suspension pump starting up. ) As said above, I couldnt believe how quiet the E500 was inside when I first got it. The whining could be all manner of things, but my best guess would be a noisy alternator or a/c compressor

 

[John]

If you have any designs on a 55, I would go with that.

A CLS500 will always leave you wishing you'd bought the CLS55K.

The CLS500 will have AirMATIC as standard so similar potential bills to the CLS55K.

Earlier CLS500s (assuming they did them after the facelift, I am not sure) will have the same SBC pump potential bills too.

But as stated, you are only likely to do these once in your ownership if you even have to.

The running costs will be very similar but the CLS55K is a whole lot faster.

I also wouldn't use it for a 4 mile commute - I'd cycle or walk it personally.

But they when you do have to use the CLS, it will bring entertainment.

If you are not adding miles and keep it maintained, it shouldn't lose much if anything at all in depreciation.

There is a small but fairly strong market for these niche AMGs.

 

[Gbrowncls55]

Later facelift 219 cls500s had the 383bhp 5.5 n/a engine and I think did away with the SBC pump . After that there were a few 218s (also badged cls500) with the 4.7 twin turbo engine but these are like hens teeth to find

 

[Gbrowncls55]

So far as 219 cls lights are concerned only the dipped beam is xennon the main beam is halogen. Upgrading the halogen to a whiter ,brighter Nightbreaker or similar type bulb evens up the colour and adds brightness. If you are OCD like me you will also need to update the side light bulbs and the two fogs or they will look horribly brown. All easy enough to do and pretty inexpensive.