I herd my dealer will be taking orders for the new SL550 in April. I wonder if that is true?

 

I think so; SL550 in the USA with new 4-valve V8 (?).... Not sure if we have more details than that -- but somebody else wil chime-in, I'm sure -

 

April is when the dealers start taking 2007 orders.

 

The new SL550 is going to be a great value with 382 hp and a retractable hard top for +/- $90K; as a Carrera S cab is +/- $90k but with less hp/trq and a cloth top. This car is going to be tempting...

 

Heh, Knowing mercedes and their 'great' year by year pricing increases, the price will rise 5k or more.

 

Thanks to MB I'm able to start anew (buy-back). The new engine for the 2007 appears ideal for the SL, unless they increase weight. The SL55 is over the top for me- also, I don't particularly like the American-like V8 exhaust rumble. Price-wise I'm sure it will go up and it is something to think about considering the 20K discount for the 2005 and invoice price for the 2006. What holds me back from the 2007 is MB poor reliability when they introduce changes, otherwise it is a very appealing car.

 

Absolutley correct...between $3,000 and $5,000.

 

Mercedes Benz is a business and profit is their priority. Just look at the parts and their costs: for example, the long dash piece wood trim on a S Class is roughly $800 (according to a MB Exclusive body shop). As for cars, premiums will be charged on almost any new car or new feature. Back in 1999, with the W220 S Class, they came loaded at $92K. The new engine will be fantastic (can't wait to see some performance numbers ), but the downside will be the jacked up cost. Upside, the 24V 5.0 Litre SL's (which are pretty quick themselves) will take a price hit, so start looking guys.

Regards

 

I read the new S550 is supposed to be priced less than the 2006 S500 model; is this true?


Josh 12: I'd also be concerned about the new engine and possible issues especially with MB's recent reputation.

What was the reason(s) for your buy back?

 

Yes, the 2007 S550 has a lower MSRP than the 2006 S500.

MB engines are SOLID. I've never heard of reliability issues with the engine.

The 2007 SL is still a R230 and apparently, quality issues have been fixed as I've heard good things from 2005-2006 owners.

 

That's correct, for all the quality problems in the cars, the engines have always been fine.

 

What was the reason(s) for your buy back?[/QUOTE]

Buy-back due to repeated problems, e.g., replacement of wiper assembly, gear shift, suspension hydraulics, instrument cluster, plethora of electric problems, etc. The car was a launch edition with 34K miles. MB was very agreeable, no attorney or mediator was needed, and no confrontation took place. I was very low key, but the real reason for the successful buy-back was the excellent relationship between MB and my dealership.

 

I really apologize for this but what you are saying are just words and I don't believe they are correct.

While I know Mercedes Benz is trying very hard to correct their problems, I have not seen any statistics that would support what you are saying.

If you have any hard evidence that would be great as I would love to see Mercedes Benz get back to where they were prior to 2000.

When I spoke to Mercedes Benz people that were talking about their quality improvement programs they told me it would take at least 2-3 years before these improvements would be seen in the cars coming off the line.

Remember, a lot of these improvements must come from their suppliers and that is not easy to effectuate.
.

 

Intelligent and reasonable comment LovinSL600 -

Yes, I agree with you that quality improvements and changes in the supply-chain can be hit-and-miss and can take time to improve across a vast number of suppliers or supplied components. But do you really think that it is that vast a number of suppliers and/or components? And that we won't see some immediate improvement? Production engineering and re-engineering is so much more advanced these days than it was even 5 years ago....

 

Remember, Schrempp really screwed things up with MB's suppliers and now that he's finally gone, it will take time and more of an investment from MB to get things on the right track again. As with anything, time will tell...

 

I am sure they are trying to do whatever they can as quickly as they can but the process is very difficult and a huge task.

You would be surprised at how much of this turn around is supplier dependent. When Schrempp took over he vowed publicly to reduce costs by taking them out of the supply chain. That is exactly what happened and the suppliers reacted with poor quality products.

It is not only going to take effort but money as well.

I am not sure if you remember the problem I had with my new 2005 SL600 and the engine failing. It was found that the engine kept stalling on start up because the fuel pump did not have enough capacity to consistently fill the engine with enough fuel on start up. Well, this didn't happen with all pumps but it did happen enough so that they had a replacement pump manufactured in late 2003. That pump was further replaced by yet another updated pump in early 2004 and yet again finally in November of 2004. My 2005 SL was produced in December of 2004.

The 3rd generation pump is what it took weeks to get after a lot of pushing in order to fix my car. When they took out the original pump in my one week old 2005 SL600 we found that the fuel pump that was in there was the original pump from early 2003. In other words they knew they had problems and had a new 3rd generation pump, however they were not willing to throw out their existing inventory of older defective pumps and take that loss so they were putting defective pumps from 2003 in brand new 2005 cars costing $145,000. That was a year ago.

Have they thrown the old pumps out yet? If they did that would be the right step toward quality improvement.

Anybody taking bets?
.

 

Here's another example:

MB is having serious problems with certain late 2002 - early 2004 vehicles where radiators are failing internally and leaking coolant into the transmissions causing complete transmission failure. The "fix" requires a new radiator and complete transmission removal and replacement; not a cheap endeavor to say the least.

MB has been very well aware of this problem for over half a year and refuses to recall cars just within the effected VIN range and simply replace the radiators. MB would rather wait, roll the dice and hope more of these car fall out of warranty and relieve them of responsibility. In the interim, loyal MB customers are having transmissions fail and are forced to endure all the pain that goes with total transmission failure and another unscheduled major service visit to the local MB dealership; this in-turn causes even more bad blood between MB and its customers especially when the service dept informs them that it's a well known problem with the radiator but MB would have rather let it fail causing catastrophic transmission damage and all the grief that goes along with it. One would think...hope, that MB would do the right thing and replace the radiators and save the company many, many thousands of euros in unnecessary transmission replacements and the numerous hours of labor associated with it. The vendor Valeo, a major world wide supplier of automotive parts is to blame for the shoddy workmanship. I wonder if this too was part of all the Schrempp cost cutting? I also wonder what all the transmission failures will do for the already stellar[sic] customer satisfaction #'s MB has been able to achieve in the past few years.

 

Ouch. and Ouch.

 

Drove the new 550 engine in a new S Class....loved it.

 

How did you get to do that?

 

S550's are getting to the dealers.

 

They're already in quite a few dealerships in major markets including S. FL. But as of Monday, at least in S. FL, there was no official pricing as of yet...

 

If you look at the German web-site, the new S Class with the new engine is still badged S500, maybe in the US market, which is more badge-aware (or should I say preoccupied), it's the S550.

The best thing about driving any new S Class is that you cannot see the outside of the car from where you're sitting. What you can see though is all those people mouthing, "Look at that ugly car!".

 

OUCH.

 

You're absolutely right. I really don't know for sure and I'm giving you stats based on a statistically insignificant population of 2005 owners of SLs.

I know you're passionate about MB quality issues due to your own experiences, and I know you'll be the first to inform us of better quality. I'm waiting to buy a SL55