Vette Moto

Hi all

I am looking at a 2006 E55 AMG and need to know the expert’s opinions and insights on the car and if the car is worth the price. Here are the details:

-excellent condition for mileage and year
-iridium silver, black leather, burl walnut trim
-all options, except distronic and panoramic roof
-90,000 miles
-3 owner history, clean carfax that shows maintenance performed routinely , including transmission filter and fluid change in thelast 20k miles
-Renntech exterior parts, such as carbon fiber diffuser & front lip, & some type of wheels that look like SL65 wheels

I’m not sure what else was done by Renntech. It has the powered by Renntech badges on the fenders, but the dealer says nothing was done to the engine as far as they know. They are selling for $19,500firmed.

Is this a good price for the car?

If it does have some basic Renntech engine mods like pulleyand tune, is 90K miles too much mileage for the mod done? Should I be afraid of impending piston blowouts at this mileage?

june82000

I'm new to these so I'm not claiming to be an expert however I spent under $14k for my '05 which is a 112k mile one owner - older gentleman and the car is completely stock. I don't mind starting out with a stock car. For the amount of money being spent I'd say you have alot of options so I would keep looking - maybe find a clean one or two owner.

hayseed

iTrader: (2)

hard to say without seeing but in the grand scheme of things 20k for an 85k car is cheap,, on the other hand the dealer probably bought it for 14-15 and that 3rd owner wanted to walk away from it...your call obviously

boostiality

My .02:

When I went to look for E55, I was so paranoid (from various forums) about costly repairs that I had to settle for a higher mileage 2004 car that had barely any options just because a dealer had it (in order to get it warrantied). 2 years/30,000 miles later the only thing that ever broke on the car were the 2 rear air shocks which was covered. Everything else has been basic maintenance and the car has been bulletproof. I started modding mine right away with a blower pulley and EC tune plus shorty headers and she doesn't skip a beat.

If you skim through the forum, most of the complaints have been pana-roof bull**** and airshocks which are now very affordable to replace. Now if you want see some horror stories, check out the e60 M5 boards

E55Greasemonkey

Check for a leaking gas tank

viren.89

+1
Fuel sender units under the rear seat.

If you do get warranty - make sure it covers suspension, fuel sender units, fuel
pump, tank.

G_Money

I paid 19.5 for my '04 with 71k miles, stock, all options but parktronic, distronic, and pano. I bought the car from a MB dealer, so paying perhaps a small amount more for a little piece of mind is worth it to me. I figure a new MB dealer isn't going to risk their reputation to try to make 4 or 5 grand on a trade-in. If it was beat or ragged out, they'd have sent it to auction.

ETA: bought it October of last year. The only problems I've had were replacing a dead IC pump, replacing a voltage regulator, and it has developed a small valve cover leak which i will be tending to in the next couple weeks.

Enigma94

I think 19.5 is a bit high for a 90K e55. They honestly got the car for closer to 11-14 grand so I'd go in and offer then 17.5k and walk out. The market for these cars are small and they know that, come the end of the month 2k won't matter as much when they're looking to fill their quota.

june82000

Totally agree. If you're handy with cars then you can save a ton of money. If not, well...

BI-Performance

It depends how bad you want that particular color combo optioned E55. Those mods are not to much for the mileage as renntech is a very reputable company.

Just get a compression and leak down test for piece of mind. Let us know if we can help in any way brotha.

Tx AMG

Is this the car in Addison tx? If it is it's been for sale for a while. I looked at it when I bought my car 5 months ago. I got my clean 05 with 70k miles for $17,750.

vegas55amg

Hi guys, a bit off topic, but the info might help the OP decide what to buy.

Are the 07-09 E63's considered MORE, or LESS reliable than the earlier E55's.

Body is the same, and isn't performance pretty close?

Curious as my '07 E63 is approaching 70k miles, went out of extended warranty 6 months ago, and I am wondering how much longer it would be wise to keep it, without expecting any huge repair bills.

07's seem to be going for about 25k, with similiar miles - would the OP be better off looking into them?

TheVazha

Your 05 with 112K miles is a whole lot different than a Renntech (whatever the mods may be) 06 with 90K miles. He will drive this car for almost 2 years and still have less miles than your car. Consider two years from now, he has an 06 Renntech E55 with 110K miles. Can he get $14 K for it? I think so. So, do you pay $250 per month to drive a $95K car? I would. What else can you drive for $250 per month? Not even a Civic I bet. With all due respect. You see what I did there?

OP, it's a "fair" price. You could do better but as CHawk says you may not find the "combo" that this car has. I would make an offer on it.

kompressede

Check the classifieds on here. Quite a few e55's for sale. You should look at few of them before making a decision. You have to weigh out the pros and cons. Mileage, options, color, maintenance & overall condition etc....

Vette Moto

Thanks all for the great input. I'm not gun-shy to jump on a deal when I see one, but this one might take a little more pondering. I'll probably wait out for another price drop on this one if it does occur. If it sells before then, so be it.

to Tx AMG - yes that's it! the car has been sitting there since December and the dealer is quite inflexible with the price. Did the car have Renntech pulley and ecu as far as you can tell or are all the Renntech mods just exterior dress up pieces only?

june82000

I was just giving him some perspective. From my point of view I prefer to have the type of car I got to start out with; a one owner; older guy; documented at one dealership its entire life; etc. Mods are great, but if I'm buying a car, I prefer to be the one installing them and using them. I'd rather not buy a car with a ton of mods already because to me it signifies that the car is probably well used; at least more so than the one I bought. There's still even the question - what are the mods? The dealer stated they think nothing on the engine was changed. It seems as if there was something there that would increase the value then they would want to have knowledge of it as a selling point. Just one man's opinion...

Edit: and we're only talking 20k difference in mileage which is negligible in my opinion.

Shadow5501

Seems somewhat overpriced to me. What you have is a nice looking 88K mile E55 with no real service records and no ability to verify any Renntech content beyond fender badges. The carfax shows regular service at MB dealers. It's better than nothing, but not the same as having the service receipts. Of some concern is that a Ford dealer appears to have bought it at auction and then turned around and sold it at auction a day and 15 miles later. Why would they do that?

Sounds like a $17K car to me. That the dealer has had it for 5+ months confirms it is priced too high for the market today.

If you're serious about it, get a good 3rd party inspection. Make sure you know about anything that would cause a dealer to not stock it and to put it back through auction.

Vette Moto

Looks like the car was sold on Friday.

The search continues...

actech

i drove that car two days before i bought another e55. i didnt like that car. lots of little scratches in the paint and it didnt feel right during the drive. had black exhaust smoke and bad smell of gas coming from the exhaust. i found another e55 for sale in plano at a dealership and nabbed that one instead.

Vette Moto

I'm glad I didn't drive 4 hours to find that out. I had a great opportunity to buy an 06 E55 2 weeks ago and I'm kicking myself for passing it by. It was a 1 owner, 52k miles, all options, all stock, $23,700 out the door.

Vette Moto

Just an update...this E55 is back on the market for whoever may be interested. Apparently, the person that had a deposit on it backed out. Dealership contacted me this past Thursday to see if I was still interested, but of course I said no. Reason being: I found myself a nice, minty, low miles, Mars Red C55. Even though I have a C55 now, I will still keep my eyes peeled for a nicely optioned, low mileage E55 to be my garage queen.

Shadow5501

Really nice looking car there. I approve.

silvertxE55

I traded my 2004 with 72k on it to crest auto in Plano. Not sure if it's still for sale or not seems to not be on autotrader anymore. I gave them a full binder with all of the service history from the first, second, and third (me) owners. Other than the front bumper needing a respray it was a very clean well maintained car.

55kAMG

Hey man idk what that car is worth, but il tell you this, I picked up an 05 with 86k miles 2 days ago, in pristine condition and maintenance for 12900.

moosejaw

C55 aint a bad car. I loved my C32. See if you can source a SC kit for it.