102000 miles, excellent shape. No scratches or dings. 1 owner. Carfaxed the car and it was well taken care of and serviced. Question, can you still get warranty for a high mileage w221. First time buying a Mercedes. Thanks

 

My Mercedes store sells a "Fidelity" service contract that extends warranty for as long as you would need it and is actually a Toyota owned company so it is well funded. I would check if having over 100M miles disqualifies coverage however. 2007 was the first year for the 7 speed transmission and Mercedes had many blown trans problems. ( I had a failure on a 2007 GL-450 at 64 M that cost over 6000.oo dollars and had to pay 2000 out of my pocket after the dealer pleaded my case to corporate for help.)

 

I went thru Precision auto protection. I'm paying $96 a month till 200,500 miles. I got the plan that covers electronic, engine and trans. Whew. Thank god they covered it. The car runs so good and smooth. Love this car.

 

http://www.precisionautoprotection.com

 

Thanks for sharing the web link and enjoy your ride! Awesome car.

 

Don't know where you live and what your budget is or how much is the car you are looking at but there are plenty of other S550s out there super clean with low miles.

I did a quick CL search and found bunch of them.
Here are a few examples.

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv...395700434.html

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst...398097059.html

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv...397687710.html

 

I already bought mines 22k. Had it carfaxed clean title and the elderly lady took it in for all inspections. 1 owner. Interior was 8/10. No dents or scratches. I even brought it to my buddy that works for a Mercedes dealership and he inspected all the suspension components, fluid replacement and did a compression test all around, everything was perfect. Lady took care of it. I bought my S65 complete facelift kit including led tails, lowering links and 21" 3pc wheels. Love this car. Been wanting this car since it came out but couldn't afford a $93k car back then lol..

 

Awesome and congrats.

 

Please buy a decent warranty before you spend a lot of money on cosmetic mods. Most original owners took excellent care of their cars and stuff still falls apart, not because of abuse or shoddy maintenance, just because there are a lot of complex systems that are prone to sudden failure and costs pile up quickly. A lot of it won't show up in a pre-inspection. On a 100k plus mile S there are landmines galore awaiting your checkbook.

 

Well until then, I'm not going to worry about it till it happenes. I'll see how this warranty works. Plus there is no other warranty out there for high mileage mercedes.

 

You will see a lot of doom and gloom about owning this vehicle and I think maybe those folks should have bought maybe a Camry. But the W221 S550, for the most part, are very reliable. It's no secret that maintenance and repair cost can be high. I knew this going in to the vehicle and can afford it. There are just as many success stories beyond 100k as there are complaints....just my 02. Congratz and enjoy your ride!

 

Thanks man. Sooner or later I'll upgrade to an s65. But until then, I'm going to enjoy this car and drive it to the ground. Thanks for the heads up guys. Well see if the aftermarket warranty really helps out

 

The real proof of the reliability issue is right there in the depreciation guys. Why else do you think you can buy a four year old $100,000 car for the price of a Camry? Did you think it was because you're super lucky? The other proof is in the fact that no reputable warranty company will take the car on. That's not because of all the complaint-free 100,000 mile success stories. It's because they've done the math.

Poor reliability and high repair costs equal huge depreciation. I've owned three S Class, two were CPO and one was covered by a third party EasyCare warranty. All three were in excellent condition, had perfect MB internal service and maintenance histories and were obsessively maintained by me as well. The CPO cars each had extended coverage at $4500 each. The EasyCare warranty was $4,000. I made money on every one of them.

The first logged $13,000 in CPO repairs in two years between 42,000 and 100,000 miles then tagged me for another $6,000 at 103,000 miles for a transmission. It had had two full tranny services by MB and every bit of factory scheduled maintenance.

The EasyCare car had just over $5,000 in covered repairs in two years between 34,000 and 65,000 miles. I dumped it before the warranty ran out on miles.

To soon to tell on the S550, although MB just paid $2,000 for a bad AC blower motor and relay and leaking cam seal plugs. I love the cars, but I've come to accept that one way or another they're money pits.

It won't. "Precision Auto Warranty" is a telemarketing operation that specializes in cold calling people, pretending they're affiliated with the manufacturer and offering to "extend their factory warranty". They were previously called "Precise Auto Warranty" until they were shut down under that name.

The reason they "warrantied" your 100,000 mile S Class when no reputable company would is because they have no intention of ever paying for anything anyway. They'd sell you a warranty on the Hindenburg if you were willing to pay for it. Either a warranty sold by the dealer or through your local credit union would work.

If you can't get a reputable aftermarket warranty, set aside $5,000 or so in a savings account to have as a contingency. If you still have it two years from now I'll buy you a nice bottle of scotch. See if you can cancel that other policy before you send them anymore money.

 

Mike, before I even bought it, I googled and did my research on em. Even looked them up on BBB and they checked out ok. Man bro you scaring me..

 

There is a difference for handy car guys that can work on these cars themselves ,or people that are dependant on the dealers.

If you have worked on cars before or know a good indy that can take care of your ride ,there is nothing stopping you getting a good W221 if you can afford it.

Of course you would need the service history and its highly reccomended to buy with warranty from a dealership.

Parts are not more expensive than any import : know-how that's what its all about with these driving computers.

Also on these forums you always find people with issues searching for an answer ,that is what forums are great for.

But I dare say for every one person asking for an advice on an issue(could be me next time) there are a hunderd having no issues, just driving till it stops...

Just my 2 Eurocents.

 

Thank you for the insight sir ^. I came from a 300c srt8 and we used to swap engines and trannys on a daily. I got out of wrenching and I wanted to chill and cruise now. More of the show side now. No more racing haha

 

Welcome sir ^. Well you can still challenge the occasional ricer , with your in-car home cinema blasting about and having a comfortable seat massage(fast and vigourous) whilst you're at it .

 

Well, no. Parts are insanely expensive and it's not like you can go to Autozone and get aftermarket replacements. You're going to be buying from Mercedes, possibly buying reman'd, or used on EBay. The radio in an S550 is $8,900. A new tranny is $14,000. A new engine is $21,000. Welcome to the world of German luxury cars.

An indie is great and I have one, but his labor rate is no less than MB, and he still needs to mark up parts.

If you're an experienced MB mechanic yourself with the full compliment of required specialty tools, a STAR diagnostic terminal and the current software version then yeah, you can save on labor. Otherwise it's a good warranty or good old fashioned denial and plenty of prayer.

 

Mike I wander why you own a MB as a good deal of your post are negative towards them. It seems at some point you would have talked yourself out of ever owning another one. I have owned Mercedes for a good portion of my adult life and have not had the same experience as you.

 

Actually, you'd think with them being as reliable and inexpensive to own and maintain as they are by the time I'd gotten to my third one I'd have talked myself out of paying the extra money for a CPO car and the extended MB warranty. You know, for all of those times that I spent $6,000 or so for CPO protection and then the car ended up only needing regular oil changes and air filters and I felt foolish. Said no one, ever.

What I've learned over the past decade driving an S Class is that, as nice as they are, when something goes bad it goes bad in a really big way. This is no secret. The S and the CL are notorious. My point to the OP is this: Rather than buying a high mileage S on the cheap with no warranty protection and then blowing money on sexier wheels and an S65 body kit, he might have been better served by spending the extra money on a newer S with lower mileage and a solid warranty. Too late to help him, but the forum gets a lot of visits from prospective first time owners and it might help one of them.

They fall in love with one on a lot somewhere knowing nothing about them other than they never imagined a car like that would be in their price range, and come here hoping for validation that the thing is reliable and a smart buy. Usually they're so head over heals already that nothing anyone tells them matters anyway.

Back when I bought my first S, the sales guy was kinda green but I liked him. He wasn't pushy and there was no BS. This was in 07. When I brought the car in for service I was surprised to see him writing repair tickets. He explained that he and his wife just had a baby and with the economy tanking he couldn't rely on sales.

Over the next couple of years I saw a lot of him, both for regular service and for all the stuff that kept imploding on the S. By that time we were in full blown recession. His wife couldn't find work that paid enough to cover daycare expenses. We own a couple of preschools so I hired his wife and with our employee discount (75% off) they had a second income again. His wife and my wife became friends, and we occasionally saw them socially and at work functions.

One day he called me out of the blue. He'd set up a flag to call me when the S was due to come off warranty at 100,000 miles and it was getting close. "Mike, you gotta dump that S in the next couple of months." I told him he was nuts. It was running fine. Plus, we'd already replaced pretty much everything in the car over the past few years. "I'm not kidding. I write service on these cars all day long and I'm telling you, you do not want to own that car out of warranty, period." He wasn't telling me that as an MB employee, just trying to do a friend a favor.

I decided he was being paranoid. Before the warranty expired I took the car to an indy for an inspection. It found some minor stuff and MB fixed it under warranty. The car rolled 100,000 and I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself. Then at 103,000 the tranny simply disengaged from the drivetrain while I was taking my kid to school. Dead at the side of the road. The tab for a reman'd tranny installed at the indy was $6,000 and change. Understand that at that moment the car was worth all of $14,000, but what do you do? Without a transmission the car is scrap metal. Lesson learned.

 

Since your first S was in 07, am I to assume it was a W220? If so... those are notoriously bad, literally the worst mercedes sedan ever built. The W140 and W126 before them were tanks that had a few trouble spots, but nothing horrendous.

Everything I've read about the 221 says it's nothing like the 220 in terms of reliability. Are you personal experiences with a 221 facelift contrary to that?

 

Too soon to tell. I've had it since last August and it's so far had $2000 in warranty repairs over 10,000 miles, so I'd say it's consistent with my experiences with the 220s. They all seem to start seeing issues north of 50,000 miles, which I guess it's why Mercedes stops the original factory warranty around there. I just consider it part and parcel of owning an S. It sucks buying the warranty, but it's nice to have a problem come up and just drop it off, get a nice loaner and pick it up when it's ready without seeing the cashier.

It's not like they're in the shop all the time, or they leave you stranded or anything. It's more that whatever does fail on it costs ten times more than you'd expect, and over the course of ownership those things really add up.

The true test of the 221 is happening right now, with the 07's and 08's coming of age. Scan any 221 forum and count the number of threads about failures. Eventually they'll outnumber any other subject.

But yes, to answer your question, my disposition toward the 221 has been colored to an extent by my experiences with the 220's. Time will tell. I still have the same service guy. His daughter graduated and his wife found a real job but he handles the 221's service. I'll ask him how the 220 compares to the 221 from his vantage point.

 

Would be interested to know. I currently own a 211, which was designed during the bad period at Mercedes. I have 86K and it and have had a few problems, notably my valve body needing replaced because of faulty integrated speed sensors (a common problem on the 7-speed), the duct work for my turbo cracking and separating under high boost causing limp issues until replaced, my trunk closer being buggy and not closing all the way sometimes (specifically in wind or on an angle) and my driver's side keyless entry door handle only working half the time (frequently stops after heavy rains).

The duct work being replaced was about $200 in parts and a labor hour. The valve body was $1000 job out of warranty. The other things.. I've just lived with.

While my 211 has been buggy, I will probably buy a 212 in the next year as a replacement. I hate american and most japanese cars, and between the big 3 germans (VAG/BMW/MB), I still believe MB is head and shoulders above the other two in reliability (as do the reliability ratings compiled from several sources).

I will make every effort to get a car without airmatic or ABC, and I think I'll have to avoid anything post 221 in the S-Class world, because I can only imagine what all of those cameras and sensors intended for driving assistance will do once they start getting out of alignment or breaking.

I guess in the end, I just want a powerful, RWD (or biased) German car with a nice interior. I don't need the gizmos of a 222 or something to make me feel like I'm riding on a cloud, just a competent, safe, german car.

 

The 211 is MB's best looking sedan IMO. Great stance, very taut sheet metal. Isn't all stretched out like an S. Hate the new E's. BMW makes nice looking cars but the interiors aren't great. My kid has an Audi A5 and my wife drives a Q7. Nice cars but not in MB's league.

You're going to think I'm nuts, but a great straightforward V8 RWD sedan with 420hp, a great chassis, loaded up on options and a reasonably nice interior is the Australian built Holden Commodore SSV, available for $45k right now at your local Chevy store and being sold as the 2014 SS.

In the past thirty years I've owned exactly one American nameplate, and that was a new 2005 Holden built Pontiac GTO with a 400 HP 6.0 liter V8 and a 6 speed manual. Holy crap I loved that car. Massive horsepower, a stick and a balanced chassis is it's own form of luxury. I took the test drive as a lark, expecting the car to be a tub of unrefined dumb domestic grunt. Not at all the case. Very quiet and smooth. Not unlike the W211 at all in terms of ride and road feel. The engine is barely working at around town speeds. Then I opened it up and dumped the clutch. Remember the first time you saw a real live naked girl? Same rush. I bought it on the spot. Which was stupid, because I still had a lease on my current car at the time.

I'd have considered the SS but originally they were built to order on a $5000 deposit and then a six month wait to have it produced and shipped so I got the S550. Obviously two totally different ownership experiences but there's more than one way to fall in love with a car.

Now the dealers have allotments of one or two at a time. If you can get past the Chevy emblem and actually take one out, you'll instantly see (and hear) what I'm talking about. Don't say I didn't warn ya.