Hi all,

I'd like to first introduce myself: I'm Sam, a 21-year-old buy lifelong car guy originally from Newport Beach, now living in San Francisco. My first car was a 1987 190e 2.6, my first job was scrubbing oil of the floor of Bruce Strauss Auto Care in Costa Mesa, and my first love was a 1955 300sl. Over the years my family has had several MBs including every generation of station wagon.

Anyway, I have a pressing issue. My mother is the worst impulse buyer of all time. She needs a new (or used) car, and was looking at a Cayenne S, a6 wagon, old s6 wagon, Touareg diesel, e55 wagon, even pretty much anything she sees on a lot. So she test drove an s55 because there were no wagons around. She loved the car and wanted to buy it on the spot today, and I persuaded her to wait a couple hours. It is a 2003 with 17 thousand miles, no issues and straight out of warranty. I have a couple questions for the community:

Is 47k a more than fair price?
What sort of issues are there with that year/model?
What is the maintenance like/ should she buy an extended warranty?

I am still in favor of the e55 wagon for several reasons:
there are fewer, so it is cooler to car guys, not just another s55 cruising to Neiman Marcus
she loves wagons anyway, and this is the ultimate one
the resale will be better due to the limited supply

What do you guys think?

If she is that impulsive should I just tell her to get the s55?

Thanks in advance,
Sam

 

Welcome, Sam.

Both are great cars. They are so different except for the engine. The S-class is the first-class cabin all the way. As you know, an E55 wagon is the ultimate sleeper, but that's because it's a wagon. It will handle amazingly well for its class, and be the perfect car if you need to haul stuff and still want to have fun, but it's not an S-class.

The ABC suspension in the S makes it much more nimbler than it has the right to be. Twisties at speed are absolutely a joy. And the comfort on a long trip is unbelievable. I had an S55 and took many road trips in it. I've put 15,000 miles on its replacement (an S65) in 11 months, almost all of it long-haul joyriding. I arrange meetings at our Costa Mesa office (I live near San Jose) so I can drive down. One stop in Buttonwillow for coffee and I get to OC relaxed and refreshed. I don't think that's true in many other cars.

A word of advice. Don't get any MB without a warranty. You should think about getting a Starmark (MB CPO) car with the two-year extension. That covers you for 7 years from original delivery. The engines are fairly bullet proof, but the ABC and electrical systems are prone to expensive failures. The supercharged engine regularly needs the intercooler coolant pump replaced. It's not an expensive repair, but an ABC failure can be $5,000 and there doesn't seem to be an electrical module that costs less than $1,000 by the time you're done.

 

PS.

You can see inventory of Starmark cars as www.mbusa.com. I just looked and Smythe in San Jose has a 2003 S55 (CPO) with 30,000 miles for $55,000. So your car sounds like a good deal, but that CPO warranty is worth a fair amount. If I were you, I'd try haggling with Smythe. Getting a good third-party extended warranty for an AMG is hard. Make sure it covers the hydraulic active suspension and complete electrical system. Good luck!

 

If she likes wagons, help her find an E55 wagon, or how about an Ausi S6 wagon. Both are performance oriented. The Audi can be picked up pretty cheaply. Both have great potential to tune.