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This is my first time posting on this forum so please let me know if I should do anything differently.
In late October of 2020 I purchased a 2007 CLK550 coupe with around 109,000 miles on it and there’s just over 117,000 miles on it now. I did not know anything about cars at the time but I was in the market for a new car and I saw this CLK and fell in love with it. I’m only 21 years old and buying a new car was a huge moment for me as I took a larger leap towards “adulting.” Within the first few months after winter I had an upper radiator hose leak and an oil cooler gasket replaced as well. Other than that, I had no other issues with the engine and actually never had a service light on it at all.
Fast forward to yesterday, I took my car in for an oil change and alignment since I had just done all control arms with bushings and ball joints. I also had the mechanic who I bought the car from investigate a low knocking noise which only occurred on warm start, after sitting for about an hour to a couple of hours, but not being completely cold. My mechanic informed me that there was the presence of metal shavings in my oil likely due to the knocking noise. Since I had purchased a 3rd party warranty through them, he recommended immediately getting a new engine since they did not know what the extent of the damage was inside the engine. I was scoped out a used engine with around 77K miles on it but the catch was my warranty had a $5,000 max coverage on it. Since I previously used $400 for the oil cooler gasket, that left the warranty with $4,600 to cover, with me covering an approximate $2,500 out of pocket for the rest.
What I’m wondering is what exactly am I getting into with this situation? I can afford these charges but I cannot afford continually extremely expensive repairs on top of what I have already paid. With my warranty running out, and a seemingly good engine being replaced, what should I do guys? I am set to graduate college this spring so my ability to work more and afford these issues will increase, but I guess I am lost at the moment. I’m in love with the car and absolutely love it. What would you do?
Nice looking clk....
1st I would get a second opinion from a reputable independent service provider
Would also take a sample of the oil and send it to be analyzed
These would be done just to validate what your service person said.
Good that you have warranty. Since you've only had the car for a bout a year, I doubt that you could sell it (probably at rock bottom price) and get another comparable car. You would have to assume that the buyer would have the car checked and know the engine has issues; I would not want to "dump" the car on some unsuspecting person.
As a side note, I plan to have my engine rebuilt sometime in the near future (burning oil and has 230K miles and mostly driven around 2K RPM). I expect it to cost ~$10K. If I get really lucky I may be able to do with a valve job for 3.5-4 K.
Since you really like the car; I would bite the bullet on the $2500 and have the engine replaced.
1985(W126)500SE, 1994(W124)E420 1991(R129)500SL and The Mothership 2009 CLK550
If possible acquire a 2009 engine because the 2007 M273 (5.5 liter) engines were plagued with a factory defect relating to the resilience of the metal used to fabricate the timing gear teeth, which caused the timing chain to derail prematurely and without warning in 2007 models, thereby imploding the engine. That metallurgical defect in the timing gear teeth had been rectified for the 2008 and 2009 production run of the M273 V8 engine.
I realize everyone is going to have a different opinion on this, but I would get rid of the car. As a 21-year-old with so much life ahead of you, it's just not worth the time and money out of your life that can (and should) be spent on significantly more productive and enjoyable endeavors.
Even under the best of circumstances, a daily-driven 14-year-old Mercedes with 100K+ miles is going to be somewhat maintenance intensive. Replacing an engine is just going to add additional complexity to the situation. Who knows what ancillary components are going to be broken or connected incorrectly/haphazardly during the replacement process which could lead to future repair headaches, who knows how much the replacement engine was abused, etc. It's just an unwise gamble in my opinion.
