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.

As others have said, the car overall is pretty solid but still get an warranty as small stuff will fail even with lower miles. My aftermarket warranty has been successful in covering some small yet expensive repairs.

Not a common failure. The part is 2K reman MB. Plus the install. I researched the turbo price after I bought as I understand it can be a maintenance item if kept into higher miles. 2-5K is a lot cheaper than buying a new S560 every 3 years for me.

OP

Third party warranty is a buyer beware world for sure. However, there are good ones to be found. Try your local Credit Unions. They have already vetted the warranty vendors for their membership. My third party covered struts, ball joints, motor/trans mounts. Bought the warranty thru local Credit Union.

Good luck.

45k on mine. Had to replace the rear suspension(airbags). Apparently there was a recall on them. Would have been a 5k job with parts and labor if it wasn't under warranty. My advice? Find a slightly used 2015 or above from the Mercedes CPO site. Unlimited mileage warranty for a few years after the factory warranty expires at 50,000 miles. I don't buy these cars new because the CPO is a MUCH better deal!

I have 126k on my 2008 s63 and planning to go for 200k+. Maybe I’m crazy. It has been warrantied up until now, always dealer repaired. I will start working on it myself and using a local import shop when I need help. I have virtually no experience working on cars but I am a software engineering so hoping some of the skills transfer.

Doing the maintenance yourself is key here. I’m hoping to learn how to work on my 2008 now that the warranty is expired. But over the life of the car my $7k maxcare warranty ended up paying for over $40k in repairs, so I think the can be worth it with these cars.

I'm petrified to own any car, let alone an S out of warranty. i bought an extended and i have unlimited miles up until October, 2022, and plan to keep the car until a few months before then. Just as an aside, they had to rebuild (i think replace) my transmission at 30k miles (in shop 19 days, ic an't imagine the actual cost if i had to pay) and then i had a suspension/air shock issue - that was probably cheap. i think the power train might be solid (except for my transmission!) but all the little doodads are just waiting to break. i think i read once the BMW 5 had about 120 motors in it, and i think i counted at least 90 in my S - I don't want to drive the car with various panel warning lights on and loss of functions - but that's me.

So, did you get the car? What were your learnings?

I bought a CarChex Titanium bumper to bumper aftermarket warranty for $6,200 (24 payments same as cash) 6 years 50,000 miles for my 2011 SL550 this year. Paid for the 5 repairs no problem first 9 months. Dealer wanted 6,000 for a 1 year MB warranty

When my 2016 S550 factory expires I will buy one for my S550.

gregorynp, what were the repairs covered by your warranty? Thanks.

Rear strut, Something in the power steering that made a winning sound, blower motor wine in dash, Truck part that closed the trunk the last 1/4 inch.

They will require aftermarket parts if avail.

I use a local mechanic but could go to dealer. They don't pay diagnostic charges or tax

Did the sum of these repairs exceed the cost of the warranty?

Yes, the warrenty averages $ 1,240 a year. It's paid at least 2x that in 9 month.

The answer to that is easy, 80% of the times the repair cost does NOT exceed the warranty. In other words, there is less than 20% chance that your warranty will worth more than it's value or cover more than what you paid them for (Otherwise most warranty companies would have been broke). If you can afford repairs financially in case something happens, then the best financial decision is NOT to buy a warranty and take the risk as this risk is too low (and as you know, most financial decisions are driven by risk assessment). In this case, warranty companies have already done the risk assessment for you, clearly since they want you to buy from them, it's clear that they are not taking any risk or huge risk. conclusion, best not to buy a warranty unless you can't afford to pay for repairs in case something major happens (which has less than 20% probability or at least around that number, which is the number that warranty companies are using to make the assessment risk on any contract (increase warranty cost until risk is less than 20%).

275K-miles (and counting).
2014 W222 4matic

Excellent! what all have replaced over 8 years? Car is a brute!

My 21015 S-600 has been exceedingly reliable.
Compared to my Ferrari, the S-600 is DIV 3 to DIV 4 expensive. MB maintenance = Ferrari maintenances / 3..4
Compared to my Toyota, well the Toyota has cost 0 to maintain over the last 3 years.....

You might enjoy the difference between a car you command, and a car that gets you there completely without fuss.

Why would anyone ever want a modern Jaguar...........

I have 78k miles on a 2016 S550. The following has been replaced.

Lower front control arm
Upper timing covers
engine wiring harness due to leaking cam shaft position sensors that wicked all the way back to the ECM
ECM due to the above issue as well as a bunch of other parts that were damaged from the oil leak
All turbo coolant lines
aux radiator for the turbo
main coolant reservoir

Don't kid yourself, these are not reliable vehicles. They are complex and things will fail and they will be expensive to fix. That is what comes with the territory.

I am in Bergen and I also commute in crappy traffic.
some days I leave early or have a meeting that takes me out west and I can sail a bit.
I have a 2019 with 51k on it.
I’ve had no real issues.
i work on my car as much as possible and have replaced.
Spark plugs
air filters/in and out
Temp valve
wiper blades
belts and pulleys.
The car is rock solid.
If you can diagnose and work on it yourself there is no issue.
if you have a friend or client who has a lift, even better.
most of my clients are transportation companies so they love when I come in with this beautiful car to do some work.
The mechanic always jumps in because he is also in love with Benz.

There are some who are into the abusive relationship.... FWIW.... Jags have been a huge PITA since the dawn of time.

2015 S65 with 106,000 miles....

Front suspension arms at 90,000. Brake pads at 93,000. Love the carbon ceramic brakes.

All fluids with regularity. Spark plugs.

Heater sucks. Good thing all those surfaces warm up at the press of a button.... and that it doesn’t really get cold here in the valley.

The 221 S65 ate front suspension arms every 30,000 miles. Brake rotors were forever warped... I’m a savage. Engine spat a main bearing shell into the chains at 78,000 miles. That was a treat to replace. Got to replace a heater blower motor and fan controller... a radiator, a voice recognition ECU. Alternator died a month after the radiator. Nothing like getting to pull that radiator again! A/C compressor died at 130,000 miles. Lots of fluids. Never had an issue with ABC.

Interesting statistic - the relationship between Ferrari and MB maintenance. Is the 3-->4 figure using dealer or indy shop labor? What is the multipler factor comparing Ferrari to MB maintenance in a DIY scenario? Therefore comparing parts only? For normal maintenance: engine oil/filter, engine air filter, spark plugs, brakes.

Thats excellent for a town car. As it should be, nothing but wearables.

and forgot to mention all fluids every 50k, oil at 5-6k

I drove my previous 2015 S550 up to 75K miles.... Not a single major repair during that time except two things: Charcoal fuel filter, and later at 70K miles one of the control arms (upper or lower) needed to be replaced. I sold it "as-is" to the dealer at that time because the cost to repair it was $3K+ with labor and it was time to trade-in anyway for another toy. Super reliable!

My current S560 has 33K miles, no repairs at all except the following minor repair: Coolant hose clamp that needed to be tightened.

I had a 2006 S500 back in the days --> This one was a nightmare but served me up to 180K miles.

2019 S450
 

I got my 2019 S450 at the end of 2021 with about 15,000 miles on it. Now at 37,000 miles, with no major issues. Replaced auxiliary battery and fuel door latch while under factory warranty.