Tomsen

Hello

I'm current looking for a new car for the wife.
She's currently drivning an old audi a4 avant 97 and she needs a car with more space.
So we are looking at older ml's 2006-2008 with the air suspension. The ride is just that much better.
They are ranging from 180.000kms to 350000kms.
I live in Denmark, therfore the age of the car
I'm getting mixed oppinons about this model. Some say don't worry it a great car, others say that I'm get ruined in running costs.

I'm current doing every service and repair that I can myself. I drive an old volvo from 2001.
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I plan on getting a odb scan tool like the autel maxicom808 or launch x431 mini. I don't think I'm getting a star as it is Mercedes only, the same reason I've not bought the volvo Vida dice for my volvo.

So you that own this car, what costs are you having keeping it running?

paulg

Labour costs are what put a lot of MLs in the scrapyard, so if you can do most of the greasy stuff, you can make owning an ML a sensible choice.
When looking at a potential buy, check the seller's driveway for oily patches, there are a few common oil leak places, and (generally) they take many man-hours to fix, even though the parts are cheap,

Front differential bearings can get very noisy in the age-range you're quoting, so listen for rumble around 58 MPH.
Accelerate hard and check for violent jumping/knocking, it could be the transfer case chain. Quite a long job to fix.
Budget for 4 new shocks. The ML handles well for a tall car, but not when the shocks are past say 40,000 miles.
Check everything works! Electrical things/aircon/power seats are expensive to fix.

Apart from the above, the ML is a great SUV, I look forward to every trip in mine, even commuting to work!

Tomsen

Hi Paul

Thank you for your reply.
In the mean time we stumbled upon the R class, not a model that we were looking at, but the wife was alot more happy driving this model.
It was a very well kept car, so we bought this one. A mechanic checked it out for us, didn't find anything suspicious.
So we're hoping for a relative trouble free Mercedes experience.

For maintenance and repairs I'm going to do as much as I can. I'm currently keeping the old 2001 Volvo s60 and 1997 Audi A4 running by my self without much trouble.

Only trouble is that I'm begining to think that the Volvo needs replacing also, the ride height of the R class is so nice to drive. I really like the height of the R class.

paulg

I'm sure you already know that the R-class is almost exactly the same underneath as a ML (W164), so all comments above apply.

I've always liked the styling of the R-Class, but didn't need the 7 seats, and the length wouldn't fit in my garage...Enjoy your new motor!

clevedonML

gotta agree with you there Paul on all aspects of the mechanical, look forward to driving mine even to the village shops 5 mins away on a windy downhill road....