Hello all, I signed up here as I periodically enjoy looking at cars that are for sale. I'm always curious to see what other things are out there for the same money. I've normally preferred sporty performance cars (to a point that I'd take cheap interior with high performance over the opposite), but sometimes I find myself interested in various Mercedes models. The problem comes up time and time again when I do the research that everyone says "Don't buy [x] car without a warranty!" even when looking at used ones.

I've mostly owned cars with no warranty, and while I understand the basics of cars I'm not a very technical person. I can change spark plugs, change oil, rotate the tires, change rotors/brake pads, etc. but anything more involved I don't do. I haven't owned any car that I'd call unreliable or costly to repair and I drove one to about 170k miles, still ran fine but the transmission was starting to go out and rather than fix it I just bought another car and sold it off.

My question is, for under $30k are there any Mercedes models that are very reliable? People always say "set aside $1-2k for repairs a year" or something, I have more than that in just emergency money for my cars but I've never had to touch it for anything. I mean I put a new set of tires on one of my cars about 2 years ago and that was around $550 for a nice set of Continentals that I got on sale. That was the highest expense I've had on that car in the 3+ years I've owned it, and I bought it knowing the tires would need to be replaced soon and paid less because of it.

I do appreciate luxury, in fact my first two cars were luxury cars that just happened to have a decent amount of power (A supercharged Buick and a V8 Cadillac). But I cannot give up the performance, I like the feeling of power too much. Naturally this points me towards AMG models, but it seems like nothing but "expect costly repairs if out of warranty" is the standard. I think the V6 Mercedes will not satisfy me, so it would need to be a V8 model. I thought about one of the '90s model SL500's, they seem well liked for reliability but the prices seem high for what you're getting (Don't crucify me but I'd rather buy a C5 Vette for the same kind of money - like I said, I can sacrifice interior quality for raw power and fun to drive factor).

I know prices are different across the country (I'm in the midwest) but is there a Mercedes that can be bought and just basically be like all the cars I've had before? I do enjoy my current cars, they're not as nice as a Mercedes but they're sporty and fun and best of all I never ever think about repair concerns and for the year/miles my cars have they were both cheap. Even my old 170k mile car repairs were not much of a thought, I knew every day it would start up lightning fast and just cruise out without a lick of trouble (This was the Buick, with GM's supercharged 3800 engine).

I end up inadvertently reading advice posts to others who have asked these kinds of questions on this forum before (usually with a specific model/year/mileage), but thought I'd ask one of my own that's more general. Is it really true if you want to not have to think about repairs much that you have to buy Japanese and to a lesser extent American cars (Very hit and miss depending on make/model, I know)? I like driving cars, but I do not like fixing them or doing repairs. I hesitate to DIY on things on my cars, so I know if I bought a Mercedes I'd probably be terrified of the thought of messing something up by trying to DIY.

 

I think you may get more appropriate replies I you post in the AMG car's section for the relevant models. It's tough to comment on general models since each model may have its unique set of problems. To me you sound like an AMG , BMW M series, or Audi RS kind of guy and none of them are cheap to maintain.
Good luck with your search.