S Class Reliability - Who has higher mileage, Any Problems ?
 

Hi,

I am thinking of purchasing a 2014 S Class and I was wondering how reliable they are and expensive to fix out of warranty. Let me give you a little background on me. Many of you may know me from my YouTube Videos on my GLA 45 AMG.
My channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWT...iVSFmK7nz6Q5_w

The GLA 45 has been my daily for two years and I love it. For the last 12 years I have had a short commute to work and I took the GLA 45 on back roads to the office and it was great in all kinds of weather (I put blizzacks on for winter, I live in Bergen County, New Jersey). I recently changed Commercial Real Estate jobs and now I have a 45 minute commute in bumper to bumper traffic averaging about 20 miles per hour with red light after red light.

My new job requires taking clients around occasionally for 3-4 hour tours and the GLA 45 is too small and the ride is to stiff for them. I also love BMW's currently owning a BMW M2, 1M and M Coupe and thought a 2014 M5 with competition package would be the perfect choice. I could get one for $45k with 45k miles and it would big enough and comfortable for work and I could have fun at night and on the weekends when the roads opens up. I prefer small cars, the biggest car I have ever owned is an M3. My other cars, Porsche 993 Turbo, NSX, S2000 are small as well.

Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic I realized I have a lot of sports cars for the weekend, why not just get the most comfortable daily driver for work. I am a speed freak so I do want a powerful car with a sub 5 second 0-60 time. I am interested in a 2014 S 550 4matic. My price range is about $45k. I can find used ones in this range with about 45k miles on them.

Obviously these cars will be out of warranty. I can do basic maintenance myself, oil changes, brakes, brake fluid, etc. I have a good local independent mechanic for everything else. I would probably own this car about 2 years and sell it when it has 75k miles. I would put about 15k miles per year on the car.

The S550 4 Matic is very popular in Commercial Real Estate, everyone has one but all lease them new. I am debt free (own 8 cars free and clear, house paid off, etc.) and I don't want any car payments. I prefer buying used and pay cash.

My questions:
Are these cars reliable, especially with higher mileage?
How expensive are they to maintain?
Coming from AMG's and BMW M cars would I get bored driving an S Class ?
Has anyone come from a BMW 750, Audi S8/A8 or Jaguar XJ ? How do they compare with the S Class?

thank you

Glenn

Anyone ?

i wouldn't own one without a warranty. try to find one certified and extend it to 3 years.

Lease only for me. Got rid of 3 S in the 4-50k mile range. All had some sort of defect present at turn in or was rearing.

If you’re doing 2 yr, 30k and don’t want payment, do single payment lease.

Maybe look for a 2015 with a couple years remaining on the factory warranty and get rid of it in a couple of years just before the warrantee runs out.

73k on my 2015. No problems so far.

If you are looking at buying a S Class then upkeep should not be a issue for you. As far as reliability goes there is a difference between reliability and cost of maintenance. The S will be costing you a lot more then a GLA45.

Also, are you a DIY kind of guy? Do you know a good indi shop? Or are you the person who runs to the dealer for everything? All of that will determine the cost of ownership. Basically with a MB or any other higher end car. The more you do yourself the more you save.

I have a 2015 S550V4 with 34k miles, no issues at all. Love the car, comfortable and quiet. However I would not own a MB out of warranty. There are some 3rd party warranties out there, that may be an option for you, but the best is a CPO warranty.

Find one with the LOWEST miles possible. Over 50k, get the extended.

Any one out there with high miles now? I'm at 96k trouble free miles! Plan on keeping this car and wearing it out.

I purchased a 2015 last year and it fell out of warranty around 9 months ago. I could not extend the MB ELW but I only had 17K miles on mine when I purchased it. I decided to go without a warranty and so far at 30K miles I have had zero issues. I think warranties in general are a waste of money and really only pay off with a catastrophic failure, which is low for this motor and tranny. Both have been in use in the S class for a long time. I decided to roll the dice and so far it has been great. Love the car and if you are driving around a lot there is no better car available for comfort and quietness. Makes the BMW's look and feel like plastic laden cars.

Mine is a 2015,Euro delivery picked up in 2014, for a run on the Autobahn.Now 87K..routine maintainance done.Have a 100K warranty from MB..hope to keep till 100K and move on..In michigan so driven through Winters.no major problems..

63,000 miles and not a single issue.

I have 112,000 miles on my 2015 S550 4Matic. I bought it new in fall 2014 and have had no issues whatsoever.

60000 miles on my 16 Maybach and very little issues. Been a good car. I do all the maintenance on the car myself and its good stuff. I refuse to waste my money on an extended warranty. Please try to understand they people that sell extended warranties MAKE MONEY on that stuff and sell them based on fear............. Do the MATH and you will see warranties are a waste of $$.

Katie22, normally I would agree with you and have refused to purchase extended warranties on other vehicles for the same reasons you stated. BUT......with my 2015 S550, I didn't even want to think of any issues popping up and having to come out of pocket. So I did get the two year extension on the CPO, and I am glad I did. Two weeks ago, I'm driving around town and I noticed that my check engine light had illuminate. I hooked up my OBD scanner and got P0299 code for Turbo Under-boost. Long story short, I brought it to the dealer; they found turbo#1 malfunctioning, which they replaced under warranty. FYI, that repair would have been ~$5000 with no warranty. So as you can imagine, I have changed my stance on extended warranties.

Glen, sounds like your good w a wrench and coming from Bmws maint cost doesnt scare you. These cars are very reliable, yes things can break but w a good indy Im sure you'll be fine. Most people do lease them and are scared at anything out of warrty. I came from 750's and switched to a 221 s550 and now the w222, handling is great for such a large car on the w222, the 221 was a boat. I have owned and do own Bmws out of warty yes things go thats why I have a good mechanic. That said my 222 is still under warty. But I dont think Id have a prblm keeping it if it expired.

Lika. Could you please take a picture of the repair reciept for your turbo repair. I would love to see what the dealer wrote on it.............

A good rule of thumb is to stay away from first-year cars. I'd say buy a 2015+ if you can. That's when Mercedes debugged most the of issues. GLWP!

2015 with about 30K+miles on, no major issus. Whatever I did was minor in comparison and I just got replaced bc it was still under warranty. i.e. shocks, lighting, seat rails etc. Mechanically, car is sound.

I won't be back to my house until tomorrow, but yes I can take a picture of the receipt with all the dealer's verbiage.

Sorry for the delay; been pretty busy at work. Here is the write-up on my recent repair of my turbo. As you can see, the no charge (N/C) is compliments of my CPO/extended warranty. For most cars, as I mentioned above, I would normally pass on an extended warranty......but the S-Class is a different beast!

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...84adf8f07.jpeg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...8b4ea414a.jpeg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...6d454e3fd.jpeg

Thank you for the post on the turbo repair. I have occasionally gotten into debates with people over extended warranties and they claim these nebulous repairs they had to have done with nothing to back up what they say. It does appear that this repair was done under the original factor warranty and not some extended warranty.

I would think you would be in the market for a different brand of car if you had this sort of repair on your new S class.