Road Racer

I recently purchase a '04 E55 that I haven’t received yet.

I run the VIN# thru carfax and showed a lot of works done on the car and got me thinking that maybe this car was abused in some way.
I want to ask you guys if this works are normal or just maintained procedures on these cars.

The car has 52k miles right now and for example there is some change of parts but for me is too much or too frequently...for example
- It shows 4 changes of front rotors. The first set was change 3 months after purchase it from new. Then another set of front rotors were changed 5 months later, another set of front rotors 1 year after that. And the 4th set of rotors 1 year after that.
For a 50k miles car 4 set of front rotors is a lot... I think.

Also, shows a lot of alignment works on every service.

Some "Engine/powertrain computer/module reprogrammed" works too. I dont know what they mean for that.

And what REALLY got my attention is that shows a Transmission replacement at 42k miles.

I’m sure a lot of you are laughing at me for buying a very abused car, but I just want to ask you if all this changes are normal under warranty or any idea why this car has that many work done.

Or maybe I can find the original owner of this car here at this forum and explain me why all this, who knows...

Comments please…

bobgodd

Well, it could be bad or could be good. The rotor use is a lot most definitely. The alignments could be normal as I hear these cars work themselves out of alignments quite often, though it was probably agitated by the type of driving that warranted 4 sets of rotors. I know my car is currently out of alignment and it was in alignment when I got it at 42k miles; it has 53k miles now. There are surprisingly quite a few members of this board who have had their transmissions replaced under warranty, hopefully one of them will chime in on that subject.

Good luck though, if it has warranty coverage and checks out and drives nice, I say go for it if the price is right.

regor60

My comment is: why did you run the carfax after you already purchased the car ?

This car has been run hard is my second comment

nychokeyplaya35

If the car is still under warranty and it has never been hit you are still safe. The car may have been abused but nothing serious seems like....

liquiddi

ouch!

fosmith

My Mercedes dealer told me that an alignment every 10,000 miles is recommended "normal maintenance" for my W210, which I think is a load of crap. Your PO might have just had his pockets picked by an aggressive "service advisor" who recommended all this work to someone who didn't know better.

Fred

AZIPOD

Those maintenance records do seem out of the ordinary. Who knows? Maybe the PO was so meticulous about the car that he went for frequent service.

Air Force One for example, gets her components replaced at the very first sign of wear. Talk about a waste of money! Well, maybe not, it does fly our President. *shrugs*

Blacksport350

Things to consider:

1. An E55 tranny failure is NOT unusual and is most commonly due to a failed heat exchanger for the tranny mixing coolant with the tranny oil. I wouldn't worry about this at all.

2. The brake rotors were most likely replaced because someone was complaining of squealing or rested their foot on the brake pedal while driving which results in warped rotors.

Neither of these items necessarily reflect any abuse of the car or major issues. In fact, it is pretty difficult to abuse and break an E55 by driving it hard as that is what it was designed for. I would be more concerned about the cosmetic condition of the car.

ChicagoX

^^^^^^^^^^^^^Good advice.

CynCarvin32

If you drive an AMG hard enough to actually warp the brakes for any length of time the calipers will turn golden brown instead of silver. So if the car shows up with silver calipers it has not be abused. These cars all have brake squeal and some customers just get freaked out but such things so they complain until they are replaced.

The transmission is not a big deal like the poster said.

Car sounds like its not going to be something that will fall apart or need a ton of work when you get it.

IF you ran my VMI from my E55 you would see likely 7 pages of warranty work. But I am a perfectionist and I like the car to feel like new always. You could think I abused the car or that I cared for it well. With all new shocks and bushings at 30k miles you think I am crazy but its the only 30k car that feels like it has 1k. These suspensions wear out pretty quickly.

My SL55 just had new front thrust arms, control arms and rear toe links installed since they were all seriously worn at 36k miles. That car just goes up and down the freeway at 80mph and has never seen a hard hard corner in years. Its a spoiled brat.

Oh and that ECU flashing item likely was the recall for the Air Pump that included a new ECU flash. Plus its not abnormal for the factory to update the ecu after many warranty items. Its just a way to make sure the car has the latest and greatest (torque limiting) software.

Road Racer

Thank you ALL for the help. Specially for the lasts posts because I started to freak out at the beggining with the firsts posts.

Im outside of the US, and in my country it is not usual to run VIN#s on carfax or other sites, I did this after purchase the car because it was purchase in an auction with a salvage title. Tha car has a minimal front damage, it runs and drives, with NO airbags deployed. So that is why I decided to go for it.

But now that you are telling me that the transmision change (what worried me the most) is not rare in this cars and some of you got it under warranty now I can sleep better. Same thing with the front rotors. The color of the calipers is perfectly silver, not a sigle of golden brown or heat spots.

Also, the car came with a rear spoiler, a very well taken care black color and Im trying to figure out if the car has a pulley because I see some signs that it had been changed; maybe some ECU mods too.

Thanks again everybody, and if someone that had a '04 Black E55 in the Tampa, FL area that suffer a light front damage...let me know. We probably end it up meeting here.