Hey guys! Just purchased an 07 GL450 with 100k miles on it. Have heard some of the horror stories out there, but my thinking is that I paid around $10k for my truck, and if I end up having to put another $10k or even $20k into it over the next 5-10 years (hopefully not, but worst case) I'll still have paid less than half for a $70-80k truck. I was just looking for some advice, maybe some things to pay attention to or be on the lookout for, and whether or not I should consider purchasing a warranty plan from a third party provider. Thanks in advance for any information, and here are some pictures of my new truck.

 

Nice truck. The only issues you may have will not be horrible and the gas version is very reliable. You can expect to replace shock/air struts, rear hatch latch, possibly water pump, power steering fluid reservoir seal, spark plugs, brakes/pads, and tires. Nothing too horribly expensive. I have over 250k miles on my GL450 and it has been great. When the intake flap breaks, do not bother having it repaired. Could not find where it made any difference in performance or mileage.

 

That's great to hear man thank you for the information. I had been worried that maybe I bit off more than I could chew after hearing a lot of people who probably just couldn't afford their truck to begin with cry about the upkeep costs. To me its worth it for all the people who doubted me after my divorce and called me a loser, because I was bankrupted by my ex and they believed her bs lie side of the story. I love the fact that I can rub my success in their faces now with this luxurious tank.

 

Are there any special tools that you'd recommend I invest in to be able to do diagnostics on my own vehicle to save money and know ahead of my mechanic what needs fixing to prevent being ripped off?

 

A decent obd 2 scanner with Mercedes compatibility will save you hundreds.

a little bit of a lassez faire attitude when it throws a check engine light or gives you random beeps will avoid thousands in dealership ripoffs.

if you’re going into this with the expectation of spending $20k total for ownership you won’t be disappointed, perhaps you’ll be even impressed, even though you may have started out a little bit behind the cost curve.

Truth be told, unless this car needs everything right now you probably won’t even get to that figure. Don’t throw silly money at it and sell it for scrap when you’re done with it, and you’ll do fine. Just don’t worry about every check engine light and don’t take it to the dealer for any thing, except a transmission service when they are offering a coupon for it. Find a good Indy who does mb and only use them for the big stuff. Diy the rest with help from here -

when your power steering reservoir starts leaking, search the forum for how to replace the $3.50 o-ring that is 9/10 the culprit; and save yourself $1000.

usually around 100k the one owner GLs are dumped or traded at dealer auction because the first owners didn’t want to spend money on maintaining them at the dealer. At this age and mileage they will typically need new air springs on all four corners, and if not done at 80k, a transmission service. Very few owners will cough up the $10k maintenance bill on these things for a car the dealer is offering $4-5k in trade in on a new Benz.

if your engine is an early 2007 it could be affected by a defect in the camshaft chain drive - google m273 idler gear for more info. If it is, when your engine does grenade itself after throwing check engine lights for months, a 2008 and up good known used engine can be had for around $1500.

but do yourself a favor and look under the passenger seat, into the battery compartment for any water. Same for the spare tire area in the trunk.

if you have water here you this car will eat every dime you have and let you down to boot. The only gas GL I will not mess with is one with water damage. The other one is the diesel. It’ll eat your lunch and dinner.

Other than that, as someone else remarked - these cars age well. The trick is to not throw silly money at maintaining a sub $10k truck, and let it coddle your in its couch on wheels road manners and provide a ride that is head and shoulders above anything else in this price class.

 

I'm truthfully not expecting to spend that much on it, I'm just looking at that as a way to justify driving it in the first place. At the end of the day this truck was probably 85k with all the bells and whistles it has, so if I were to end up having to put say 2k a year into keeping it running, I don't think that'd be unreasonable for the trade off of having the privelage of driving one of the nicest trucks on the road. Thanks for the advice. I will definitely invest in one of those.

 

In reality I only put 4k down on this thing and financed the rest, and come the next couple of weeks we will have gotten that in stimulus checks, so really it hasn't cost me a dime yet outside of insurance, sales tax, and registration/inspection fees. I needed to build my credit back up to start flipping houses in 2 years (part of my long term business plan) anyway, so I did pay a little bit more than the dealer's asking price of 8700 due to interest, but it was a necessary evil to get A1 credit, with the added bonus of having this gorgeous truck to drive while I rebuild it. So in all honesty, I could ride this thing into the ground if I wanted to.

 

The previous owners definitely took good care of it. There was 61 or 64 history reports when I ran the carfax.

 

At the end of the day, $2k is realistically 16 hours worth of work for me now that I own my own business. Going to work for 2 days to keep this thing on the road is worth it all day. We all know cars are liabilities not assets, so it seems to me most of the people crying about how much they've had to put into these trucks from the same year as mine probably purchased it without being able to afford it in the first place. You don't buy a boat and then just expect the boat to not to damage your piggy bank. Same goes for a toy like a Benz. Its a luxury item, and it costs money to have the privelage of driving it. If you can't afford that kind of luxury you get something more sensible like a Toyota.

 

Regarding tools, there are only a few needed for basic or intermediate level maintenance.

OBD2 scanner as mentioned

Motive brake bleeder- some people don’t use one but the Motive unit makes the job easy

Spark plug deep thin wall socket

Torque wrenches covering the range from near zero to 250Nm (wheel bolts and axle shaft nuts)

Click-R hose clamp pliers. Not sure if MB used those yet on the X164. For example the air intake ducts.

Other tools are one-offs here and there. This assumes you aren’t opening the engine and replacing camshafts, chains, or the like.

As mentioned above I prefer to have a shop/dealer do the transmission service. It’s a time/effort/money trade off I am willing to pay someone else for.

 

If you take it to the dealer for a tranny flush, find one that will give you a printout of the Vehicle Master Inquiry. This is the detailed service records of anything performed at a Mercedes dealership and is far more valuable than a car fax report. An honest Mercedes SA might be able to look in the VMI and tell you if the tranny flush has been done at 80k miles as is the schedule, and tell you to wait until 120k. This being a 2007, and even if it was a Certified Preowned vehicle that warranty would have run out in circa 2012-3, so odds are middling that the previous owners took it to the dealer after that. But if they did, you’re in luck.

whatever is missing from the VMI is what you should keep an eye on.

 

The proud father can't resist showing pictures of the new baby.

You've probably got yourself a heck of a truck, and we here generally agree that properly cared for, these are surprisingly solid.

Note I have found about $0.14 per mile in repairs and maintenance, including tires. A few jobs have been done at the dealer, and a few at a high-priced indy. Most are done myself.

When I got mine I asked the dealership send me maintenance records. That may work for you; in my case, the fellow had done all the work at one dealer, so it wasn't hard. I was a bit distressed to see it printed out a stack of paper about a quarter inch thick.

I don't disagree with anything my friends have told you, but I want to stress: You have to develop your own knowledge base. The way you will do that is by reading, reading, reading. Only use what my friends told you as a starting point. It's like going to the doctor: If you just tell the doctor why you're there, and follow his instructions, you will get all sorts of funny outcomes. If you study your own condition, and his recommendations, you can make educated decisions about your own body. They make mistakes, but more importantly, they have incomplete information. The same holds true for the respondents to your question: Everything they said has already been written here, often many times. Use what they told you as a starting point and do your own research - otherwise things will be missed, because they aren't you.