Financial Suicide....

[Smiley]

Today i unexpectedly spent the afternoon in this:

martin james cars : mercedes cl600 auto

Tell me it would ruin me,

Please.....

It will ruin you unless you have disposable and unneeded income of more than £1,000 per month that you will not miss.
I am struggling to think of a modern car that would be such an awful potential purchase - after you have dealt with all the brake / suspension / electrical gremlins and spent the best part of five figures you will then find rust bubbles appearing under the paint and as it will be 8 years old next yr MB will run for the hills......
Is the SH full MB by the way?

Have you checked out a 1970s V12 Jaguar or Daimler Double Six; I fancy one of those could be cheaper to run even though they do about 7 or 8 mpg.

 

[gaz_l]

It will only ruin you if it goes wrong! Assuming you have worked out fuel costs beforehand..

I bought my C43 working on the assumption that if I bought the best available, I could run the car for the cost of fuel and servicing and all would be well. I said to myself that I would run it for a year (turned out to be 18 months as I struggled to let go of it ) and then buy something more sensible again. Which I did, and nothing went wrong with the C43, but I still miss it. At least I can say I've had an AMG, and I constantly plot as to how I can obtain another

If you're at a point when you can afford to buy a toy like the CL and run it at risk like I did with the C43, go for it - you only live once. If a catastrophic failure like a gearbox or something letting go would put you in financial hardship, then it's probably best not to.

Just remember - my C43 was over £50K new and I suspect the CL was a lot more than that. Cars get cheaper to buy as they get older but they don't get cheaper to run..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[buccal]

You will buy that CL and promptly discover why the previous owner wept with joy when he got shot of it.

The merest thing will cost you vast amounts and then you will discover that it suffers from galvanic corrosion. After a titantic battle with Mercedes Benz UK you will still be left with a very serious bill.

Strange, untraced rattles will then drive you to drink, the volume of your consumption only being limited and the even more excessive consumption of the CL.

After sinking into a decline, you will be found selling the Big Issue in Milton Keynes from the boot of your CL, which is of course also where you now sleep.

Eventually kind, caring people from the DVLA with the best interests of the Treasury at heart will sieze and crush the CL because it is untaxed and uninsured. Tragically, they will fail to notice you passed out in the in the back.

Great, great post!

I love this forum.

Weekend only Peter, circa 4k per year.

Thanks for the offer Ollie, i am pipe-dreaming TBH in running-cost terms
£1000 a month is out the question. Even the mrs doesn't cost that much!

Will, keep me posted

 

[BlackC55]

It should not cost £1000 a month. Not if you get a good one.

I looked at a CL55 last week with a int current drain problem. It can take weeks to find such faults. One minute it was ok and then it would drain excessivly for 30 seconds, then back to normal. Typical for the CL though.

 

[gaz6148]

Great, great post!

I love this forum.

Weekend only Peter, circa 4k per year.

Thanks for the offer Ollie, i am pipe-dreaming TBH in running-cost terms
£1000 a month is out the question. Even the mrs doesn't cost that much!

Will, keep me posted

I bought mine about 6 months ago, it needed the abc sorting and new disc's and pads 2.2k,
i bought it as a second car and i done 4k miles around Spain in September without a hitch, i averaged 21mpg and loved every minute of it, i would average 6K mileage a year and i am so far very pleased with it

 

[Ted]

The CL is the most reliable car you can buy.
You can expect over 60 mpg
Depreciation is almost non-existant,

What more do you need? Buy it now - you know you want to!

 

[Sp!ke]

£1000 for a coil pack... Really?

Isn't a coil pack just lkike any other coil pack? VW ones are £15 a pop, what makes these so special?

 

[BlackC55]

They do all 12 per bank (twin spark). One peice coil pack.

they do suffer with them too.

 

[IanT]

They do all 12 per bank (twin spark). One peice coil pack.

they do suffer with them too.

When you think about it, that's pretty horrific - just thermal cycling has to cause problems on something that size. I forget which make it was now, where I saw separate packs per cylinder, that looked sensible, albeit at the expense of a more complicated loom.

Ian.

 

[Smiley]

I did not mean it would cost £1,000 per month to fix and repair - what I meant was if your disposable income (after all bills paid etc) is much less than £1,000 per month then a car like this probably is financial suicide - the bills will reduce you to eating beans on toast instead of just giving your credit card a bit of a bashing.

 

[C240Sport97]

2 problems:

1. it's silver
2. it's not the facelift model

 

[buccal]

AMG kit helps the looks IMHO.

Lovely interior, was the wood bird's eye maple?

 

[SG CL500]

Mine (a mere 500) costs me an average of just under £300 per month to keep on the road (excludes petrol but includes insurance etc.) You need to be able to drop £1k on it from time to time (as the bills come along in large chunks when they do!)

I am getting rather frustrated with mine as something always seems to be wrong with it, but hopefully after sorting out the last 'few' things (front cat, sparks and suspension bushes being the main things) it will be OK for a bit. It's a great cruiser and I am happy to keep racking up the miles (116k at the mo) but I am always expecting the worst (i.e. thought it had gone into limp mode the other day when accellerating out of some roadworks, forgot I had put the limited to 40mph )

Whether it ruins you or not is down to your free cash - just remember the maintenance costs still reflect it's original selling price!!!

 

[maxg]

I have had mine for a few years. Yes it has gone wrong in the past (new rear shock) but (touching wood) no worse than any other car with this much kit on-board. Running cost I do approx 200 miles a week takes a tank every other week (£65) servicing £400- £2000 depending on which one ( A or B). If your ok with mechanics then relativity cheep (new front brakes and pads with sensor £140 took me about two hours to fit, of course I dont have the computer to tell it that its got new brakes but I would not have thought this would be a prob. The main thing is its a great crusing car I have used it to travel extensily in Europe and its very easy to drive and fun ( in Germany ).

 

[renault12ts]

...

 

[James Rothwell]

I've got the similar (perhaps identicle) engine in a W140 and it isn't as thirsty as everyone expects. It's better than a 4.0 Jeep I had a couple of years ago.

When things go wrong they are pretty expensive I guess but so far even on my aging tank it is going well, bar a suspension noise.

I've just realised I've done about 5,800 miles since I got the S600 only 7 weeks ago. That's not good!

 

[BlackC55]

Yours is a very different engine. (much more reliable)

 

[James Rothwell]

Yours is a very different engine. (much more reliable)

Oh course, the later V12s are twin-turbo. Because the N/A 6.0 isn't powerful enough when your the ruler of Oman!

 

[BlackC55]

Not all of the V12's are bi-turbo. (275 engine)

 

[buccal]

Now reduced by 3 grand to £11995.

At which point does it look like a cheap car? opinions??