DaveW68

Katie, I used to have an 2007 S600. Purchased it in 2014 with just 24k miles as a one owner in Southern CA. The original owner was in his 70's. Back then, there were some companies that would still sell you a warranty on a V12 and fortunately I did buy one through my credit union. I kept that car a little over 3 years and in that time I put on 23k miles and the warranty paid out over $24k in claims. I still had 4 years and 53k miles left on the warranty, but I was getting tired of taking it in for repairs every other month. I traded it in with 47k on the odo.

The history on the V12 bi-turbo Benzes are well documented on this forum. After-market warranty companies finally wised up and stopped offering them on the V12 S600's and S65's because they were taking massive losses on those cars. If you really think it's a sucker move to purchase warranty coverage on a Benz, then you don't know Benzes very well. All German luxury cars (with the possible exception of Porsche) are money traps after warranty coverage expires. That's why they depreciate massively compared to Japanese, Korean, and even American cars. But the driving experience and solidity of a Benz or BMW are what keeps people coming back.
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Perhaps your car will be the unicorn that doesn't suffer major repairs. But the odds are stacked against it.

And your engine and suspension system have had very few changes going back to the 2003 V12 bi-turbo cars.

MacMP

I’m making the popcorn and betting on Katie!

hyperion667

Well this took a turn lol

LILBENZ230

To be fair, Dave, the 2007 W221 is quite a different animal than what Katie is selling. Not that I disagree about the pricing being too high.

Also, Porsche is definitely not an exception. You don't want one of them out of warranty either. Porsche dealer repair/maintenance is twice what Mercedes charges here in Atlanta.. it is absurd.

DaveW68

What's different is that her Maybach has more stuff and tech than the W221 version. Which means more stuff to go wrong. The engine and ABC system have barely changed at all.

Not going to argue with you about cost of repairs on modern Porsches. I've never owned one, so I wouldn't know. But I do know that their reliability is better than Benz, BMW, and Audi.

MacMP

There are always outliers. Out of 80+ cars I’ve owned, there were a couple that were money pits, while that year and model weren’t.

I also don’t put much stock in what’s well documented on forums, etc. Someone with a complaint is much more likely to post their experience than the others who have no issues.

How many threads go like this? “Hey, there is nothing wrong with my damned car, and I am bored to death! I need something to fix.”

It just doesn’t happen.

Newsflash: Automobiles are comprised of thousands of parts, all manufactured by imperfect humans and these parts eventually need replaced. When that happens, it’ll cost some money.

LILBENZ230

Not our experience. But certain Benz models (like our W212) are more reliable than others, I suppose.

Katie22

I have observed that the people that point out these cars with all these upcoming big dollar failures " ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS tie their post into having an extended warranty. I swear I could be wrong but I get this feeling that there are a people here peddling extended warranties. Of course there are people that actually own a vehicle and can pay for any repairs because that's actually part of owning a car...........

MacMP

These cars, at least the S550, are very easy to work on and FCPEURO is a great resource. Extended warranties, which are actually pre-paid service contracts, are an overwhelming waste of money. It is rare that one of these contracts brings more benefit to the purchaser than the price paid. It seems @DaveW68 experienced two outliers with one car. He clearly is still showing some signs of PTSD from it. Poor guy.

@Katie22.I’ve only test driven one S600. It’s history was questionable and the driving experience was terrible. I believe it was abused/neglected by its previous owner. Yet, I am tempted by yours. One question, is the exhaust loud? I love serene quiet power. If I wanted loud, I’d get a Hellcat.

DaveW68

I haven't seen anybody on these forums peddling warranties for well over 5 years. Bruce Mendel was the last one that I remember doing so. Lots of folks have brought up a few dealers that sell Benz extended warranties at a significant discount over retail prices though. When purchasing a used Benz, it just makes sense to most folks who don't have deep pockets. It they did, they likely would have spent the $120k to buy or lease it new and wouldn't care about the massive depreciation.

Benzes, especially high end models like the S-class certainly have higher maintenance costs than the normal Chevy or Toyota. But those are not the kinds of things that warranties are going to cover. If something breaks on your car, it's going to be super expensive to fix. Some people may budget say $5-10k/year to cover repairs. Others may want to have insurance to cover those big costs when they arise. In the case of an aging S-class, the cost of a warranty will likely be exceeded by the cost of repairs it pays out. If it were a Honda or Toyota, then the warranty company will likely come out ahead. Many after-market companies offer warranties on Benzes and BMW's because they want to gain market recognition as covering a wide variety of cars, even though they know cars like Benzes and BMW's are loss leaders representing only a small fraction of their sales. But in the case of V12 German cars, I'm sure that they are no longer offered because the losses were extremely significant. I can vouch for that personally.

DaveW68

It seems you've made a friend in Katie22. That's nice.

BTW, I'm only offering helpful advice. If you don't appreciate what I'm offering, that's fine. Fortunately no PTSD here, even from my serving in Kuwait in 1991.

Katie22

Mac the Maybach is dead silent engine wise except when you mash the peddle to the floor and then you hear the engine in a way that only a V12 can provide. If you have an iphone I can do a face time with ya and you can hear the V12 for yourself.

hyperion667

superpop

Normally I agree with Katie but this time I think you are on the moon with the price. It is a 5 year old car with 75K miles. The miles are going to scare the heck out of any potential buyer. Does not matter how well you took care of it or how nice it is, 80K for a 5 year old german car with a V12 and that kind of mileage is an 80K game of russian roulette. Problem is, in 25K short miles it is over 100K in mileage and takes another massive hit in depreciation. It's a 60K-65K car all day if you seriously want to sell it. And if a dealer was offering 65K in trade they had at least 10K in fat on the car you were looking to buy. Good luck with the sale, I think we will be curious to see if you do indeed sell it and what it goes for. There are very few cars like this that actually hold decent value, Porsche 911's come to mind, this is not a 911 though. The pool of buyers is miniscule.

Cheers.

emilner

Katie- I'm sorry that Dave hijacked your thread questioning the viability of your car as a going concern. Then the price hounds moved in for the kill. As an online society we have forgotten our ability to be kind and non confrontational when it isn't warranted. I found myself doing the former more often and realized I wasn't happy with my own actions. The adage "if you have nothing kind to say then don't say it" is forever erased from online printed text and we are all worse off for it. Good luck with the sale, it's a beautiful car...

MacMP

Thanks for your service, @DaveW68 !

MacMP

Sorry, I’m an android guy on the phone side. It’s weird, all of my computers are Mac products, but not the phone.

I see a FaceTime app on my iPad. I’ll figure out how to use it and maybe we can visit tomorrow.

Straight up, this may not be the right car for me. I find the seat bottom of my S550 is not comfy enough, but those Maybach seats look amazingly comfortable!

DaveW68

I don't think anybody was questioning the viability of the car. For the record, I absolutely love the V12 S600's. They drive awesome with that super smooth V12 and the ABC suspension is like riding on glass and keeps the car flat around curves. Not to mention they have every single option standard that you can load an S550 up with, except the AMG body and wheels and 4matic. I had actually been considering a mint 2015 S600 with only 33k miles for $58k, but after tons of searching and calling around, I couldn't find anybody to put a warranty on it. So that pipedream ended and I went with a very well equipped 30k mile S550. Fortunately it can be tuned to make quite a bit more power and torque than the stock S600 with just an $800 tune. But the buttery smoothness of the V12 is in its own world.

emilner

If your friend was selling their excellent condition Maybach V12 would you warn prospective buyers of the 'dangers' they may face with warranty repairs etc? Or would you just say good luck?

DaveW68

I would give an honest assessment about it based on personal experience and knowledge of the cars, no matter who it is. I'm not going to pretend like I work for CNN and just lie about everything to make uninformed people feel happy about their potentially questionable choices. That wouldn't be prudent.

emilner

You would give your friend an assessment, not the world...

DaveW68

So the truth about the history of MB V12 cars should go unmentioned because I don't know Katie personally? Yeah....I guess that makes sense in the new Joe Biden world. My bad for being honest.

prktkljokr

I always find it funny that when you sell something all the "Gee you are asking too much" and all the tech experts on what you are selling pop up, they cant seem to help themselves, pretty sure if you tried this sort of crap in a car yard while a deal was going down, you might get a punch in the mouth, cant see why people see the need to do it on a forum?

If you are not purchasing, there is no need for a comment, let the poor person sell their stuff and keep you opinions to yourself, im sure a interested buyer with the money to purchase can haggle on their own without the assistance of a keyboard warrior .

places

I think this thread was started as an opportunity for a member to sell her can and turned into something else. Now we're talking reliability/warranty with a little bit of politics sprinkled in. Let's bring this back to center if that is even possible.

The Maybach is a magnificent vehicle (as are all S) and whoever buys this I'm sure will end up up with a perfectly maintained and conditioned car. If it's not the car for you move on, or start a new thread.

Katie22

Dave the problem for you is that your statements about the V12 are out of date. The engine in my car is a heavily updated engine over the one from the 2000s. The other thing is you like a lot of people here tie into this dire need for some garbage extended warranty. I have for years now defended FACTS and ALL experts by saying that an extended warranty on ALL cars built today is a waste of money. That sir is the argument I have made with you.

If my price is too high thats fine you simply wont buy it. But then again I would NOT sell my car to you because you would have all these fears that the car would burst into flames because as you put it that's what happens to big dollar cars and I dont have any extended warranty on anything I own.