Just like the title says, I'm between a rock and a hard place, I'm unsure if I should sell my E63s or stick with it.
New account but I've been on this forum almost daily with everything that needed to be done to the car.

Context:
I bought a 2014 e63s wagon 2 months ago to the day from someone here locally in Nashville (with 82k miles), the car was super clean inside out, aside from a small scratch on the rear bumper. Had it taken to a reputable Euro PPI shop near by, they diagnosed and mainly brought up that there's a small oil leak and that the CV Axle boot needs to be replaced since its torn and THATS IT. They chalked it up to 'no big deal'. And thats what I thought of when I bought the car, it's no big deal and it'll be $1-2k to fix and get it up to my standard, I've done that before.

Fast forward 2 weeks, finally have some time and good weather to get the car on jacks and take a look underneath. To my surprise the engine is covered in oil, both engine mounts and trans mount need to be replaced, both control arms (with the split bushing) need to be replaced, all cam position sensors and magnets need to be replaced because there's oil in the plugs (luckily the ECU was dry), and I need a new axle.

By this point I feel royally screwed by the PPI shop on misdiagnosing my car, and at the same time the previous owner who likely knew of all these issues, but held his tongue, cant do anything about it now I guess.

Take it to my Indy shop, get the oil leak fixed which was about $5k, had to get the timing covers resealed and oil filter housing gaskets replaced, put new cam magnets in, along with a bunch of extra goodies like replacing all the drive belt pulleys and tensioners.

Here's everything that has been fixed on the car in the last 2 months:
- Oil leak (indy shop) - $5k
- Cam Magnets (indy shop) - $275 (just paid parts)
- Cam Position Sensors (DIY) - $275
- New Axle from MB (DIY) - $1800
- New Control Arms (DIY) - $200
- Brake Flush (DIY) - $80
- Fix a bent rim and alignment all wheels (indy shop) - $440
- Engine Mounts/Trans Mount (Not yet, but have parts) - $600

Now I'm like cool, got all that fixed and we can go on smooth sailing, right? Nope, after having the car back from the shop for less than a week, there's a coolant leak, at first I thought my Indy shop fumbled, but it turns out its the heater hose and leaking from the back of the engine, great another $1000 visit to my indy shop.

Now its time to do engine mounts which I plan on to DIY this weekend, but before I can even jack the car up, I think to myself, "is this worth the headaches and stress I keep going through just owning this car?"

And yea I get it "its pay to play" with these cars, but after almost $10k spent with only 1,000 miles added since bought I'm geniunely astounded and I have no idea where to go from here.

I live a comfortable life and I can 'swing' these kinds of expenses, even though I dont want to, I expected to do some work, but not 25% of the cars value.

I know I'll also need to do a transmission service here soon, as well as spark plugs and coils, and I know those aren't cheap even if I DIY, so I'm at a loss on whether I should just sell the car or stick with it. Its been fun, but all these different expenses and issues coming up is geniunely distracting me from everything else going on in my life, including my job which led me to be able to afford this car in the first place.

Any input from experienced owners would be super helpful, and thank you for reading my rant.

Lastly, of course, here's a pic of the wagon

 

My heart goes out to you.

may I ask more details into $5K oil leak? What exactly were done for that amount?

was it
timing cover reseal
oil filter housing gasket
cam solenoids
Belt
pulleys and tensioner
Does this sum it up? Or are there more?

 

What did you pay for this car? How many miles?
edit: 82,000

your car stickered north of $110,000

once all this is fixed - you're past the bad stuff - all of this was maintenance stuff and expected issues for the car that was simply neglected or put off for the next owner

what ELSE did the PPI miss?

did they scope the cylinders?

if your engine is otherwise solid - all this stuff was yours to repair anyway at some point but sucks two things happened:

- your PPi missed a lot
- all these issues are happening at once

you already know the pay to play motto but now on the other side (the please pay me side) it sucks more than theory. Totally get it. Whether you're stinkin rich or paycheck to paycheck- it's ok to value your cash and know when it's "sunk cost fallacy" and time to cut your losses.

I think your trajectory is more towards - you've done the hard stuff and lots is resolved. All your coolant lines and connectors will need to be addressed, cv boots, lower control arms, mct service or repair, airmatic nightmares always abound with hard to find wagon rear air struts (but you read about this right?). Review the sticky if you haven't already but I suspect you have. Your engine wire harness is safe for now - not saturated with too much oil? This is the $8000 repair for "m157 oil creep cancer"

scored cylinders and bent rods etc are real
motivators to move on and away from this car, what you're seeing thus far is the normal abusive relationship we all have with this m157/e63... we are the battered owners that keep going back because when it runs - it is a brilliant car

$0.02

 

Here's the itemized list of everything done.

 

Paid $40k

 

check my edited post above

$110,000 msrp plus ttl vs $40,000 plus ttl

Sadly it'll always be a $110,000 headache

 

Thanks for the write up Peter, saw your edited post.

Haven't even checked the cylinder walls and frnakly afraid to do so, it'll just be another thing to add on to the list if not the last thing on the list (lol)

Also yep, familiar with the hard to find rear air struts for the airmatic, another reason why I'm considering on moving on.

I'm not stinking rich, but I'm not paycheck to paycheck, I just dont want all of my disposable income to go towards a car I hoped I would enjoy for at least 10-15k miles before anything major had to be serviced. And also trying to avoid sunk cost fallacy at the same time and know when to get out.

I've read prety much every sticky, I had plenty of time while the car was away at the shop for a month.

You're also on point, its my first AMG and it almost feels masochistic, because I do want to drive the hell out of the car, but something just keeps coming up and it pains me. It's also not the first German car I've had either, I have a Porsche Cayman which has been stout with minimal issues in the last 20k miles (at 94k mi right now), and I had a C300 w205 which was almost bulletproof, and wish this amg was the same, but alas.

 

At least there's no miscellaneous shop charges, like $30 for rags.

 

I totally hear you and I appreciate this feedback.

Your Porsche is an example of German excellence in terms of reliability and you know that.

The C300 also has a good pedigree (minus the issues with cracked pistons). This E63 unfortunately just is known for what it's known for and like I said you may be on the other side of this mountain and you can now enjoy it, but I totally get if the emotional investment has been tainted And now you have to move on. I would make my decision on dumping this car based on scoping those cylinders, obviously you would've mentioned if it's not driving well, it's producing the power and if there was any issues with seized rings or scored cylinders, that was bad enough, you'd be losing power or getting misfires Etc. etc.

I wonder if you can just drive it for about 5000 miles and see if you can fall back in love with it and you have time, it's not gonna depreciate anymore. In fact you've done a lot of work to it so it's gonna be a more desirable car to somebody when you discuss all the things you've repaired and fixed.

People who are truly knowledgeable about what they're buying know what to look for, and if they know that these things have been addressed, this will be a more enticing car then say an unknown from a random used car lot or website.

is there a tune on this car? ECU tune or TCU tune?

read this if you haven't (just the part on the owner picking up a money pit e63 and being in a similar boat as you)

https://mbworld.org/forums/w212-amg/...014-e63-s.html

 

You have already done most of the foreseeable maintenance / needed maintenance. I would keep the car and enjoy it.

What are the rotors/pads looking like? That is another potential DIY / buy your own parts and save a lot of $$$, or take it to the dealership and wish you had sold the car last week expense.

 

I was going to say dump it...until I saw the picture, beautiful ride!!

But like everybod else said, you've done all the hard stuff. My belief is that older used cars go through maintenance cycles, that's what I call them. You'll have years and many miles of happy daily driving, then you'll hit a spot where you're dealing with a flurry fo repairs and maintenance issue. but once you get past that, you're golden. The seller knew the maintenance cycle was about to hit, so he decided to sell. Then your PPI shop crapped the bed, took your money and laughed at you on the way to the bank. Sorry, but it is what it is. As far as cylinder scoring; that is a real concern so getting it scoped is a good idea.

If you like the car, keep it. If you don't, get rid of it.

 

Getting a PPI is always challenging and could be game changing too. What have always worked for me is to find out ahead of time what are the trouble spots and more maintenance intensive and then I have shop comment on those issues.

If you had ran a Carfax on the car, you would have not only seen where the car came from but also how many owners it went through, what services the car has had which would have helped you tremendously in assessing your decision.

a car with 80K miles, both engine and transmission mounts replacements sounds normal. Transmission, plugs/coils service sounds normal too. Similarly, Cam sensors, belts, brake fluid, turbo lines and oil leak is all expected and should have been thought about.

Unfortunately, your PPI shop dropped the bomb and these issues should have been brought up with them or at least let them repair them at a discounted rate since their monkey missed all those issues

Having said that, don't think you paid very high price since it looks like it's $5000 give and take

If the borescope comes back clean, Id say keep the car or sell it and your should be able to recoup the money.

Me personally, have sold one car where I didn't trust and liked the PO and no matter what I did, he kept getting in my thoughts so I sold the dang thing.

Life's too short to worry too much.

Beautiful wagon and they didn't make many.

 

Appreciate the kind words Saint, Carlos and Faast, yep she's a beauty, and yep they didn't make too many of them.

I understand the theory of maintenance cycles, been through them before, but not at this high of a caliber.

As far as brakes go, pads and rotors got a lot of life left, probably another 10-15k miles or so, so I'm not too worried about that.

For scoring, I'd have to look into that, but I haven't had any performance issues, oil loss, misfires, or anything of that nature.

Carfax has been super clean, its a Canadian car originally (shout out heated back seats and power folding mirrors). And has had all of its service done at an MB dealer up until 50k mi which is when it was sold to the owner I bought from, then it's been pretty much blank, from talking to the previous owner, he's mentioned numerious times about how he does work himself and how he didn't have to replace anything during his ownership (outside of replacing the front wheels after hitting a crazy pothole), and funny enough the PPI shop joked about that too (and how much its gotten him into trouble), I should have taken that as a redflag, since he definitely knew about all the overdue maintenance work that needed to be done to it but kept quiet about it.

As far as doing research before buying the car, I've read all the stickies, and watched pretty much all of Exotic Car DIY videos on YT (shout out to him, he's been a huge help in DIY work for this car). So I knew about oil in the sensors, I knew about the engine mounts, and I knew about a majority of the failure points on this car before buying it, and priced in a 2-3k buffer before buying the car just in case. Even when I brought up specific things to look for in the car to the PPI shop, ie engine mounts, oil in sensors, airmatic, etc. I got brushed off and was told that 'it would have come up on the autel scanner if something was wrong'. Again another red flag, but I was too emotionally invested in the car and wanted to take it home.

Either way, it is what it is, even with the maintanance cycles, I dont think I would feel comfortable stomaching another $10k next year if airmatic breaks, another coolant line bursts somewhere, or anything else that comes up.

I'm at 70/30 selling/keeping, and even if I end up selling I'll still want to get another benz wagon likely non amg and a few years newer to not have to go through so much maintenance at once again I just love the damn wagons so much hah.

 

No ECU/TCU tunes that I know of, I haven't taken it to an MB dealer yet since i know they would know if something has been tampered with.

Also saw that forum post just now, and man, reading through it I 100% feel that mans pain, and its exactly the similar rigamaroll I've had to go through. Thinking that every repair done I'm over the hill and can enjoy it, until nope, something comes up. I hope he ended up selling it (haven't read through the whole post), at least I'm not 23k in debt because of this car.

 

Fellow wagon owner here. It's got ~104,000 miles. I've owned the car from about ~78,000 miles. I would say keep it! I think it will be hard to find another car that has what this wagon has.

 

Gotcha, what kind of work have you had to do to the wagon over those 26k miles? And how many years have you had it?

 

I have had wagons for years. I, for me, for my money....well, always in the market for another. There is a cost of ownership. For you, heck, you already did 99% of the work that may need to be done....you should be set for the long haul (longer haul if you disconnect the oil solenoid!)

 

I've had it a little over three years. I bought it knowing it would need pads and rotors all the way around and so my first upgrade/modification was lightweight rotors. It would stay that way on the mod. front for a while!

Then shortly after that it developed a small oil leak that led to replacing the oil cooler. Turbo coolant lines were replaced at that point along with the radiator. After the oil cooler, the oil filter housing was also leaking. So, that was replaced and I also had a suspension squeak at the same time and the front strut mounts were replaced.

I had about six months of worry free driving until one of my heater hose connectors busted and I had to have that replaced plus the water pump and some other turbo coolant lines. Then I had a year of enjoying things without issue.

When it was time for my next oil change, I elected to have the transmission serviced and have the fluid on the rear diff. replaced. While the wagon was in for that, I also had the shop check if the cam sensors were leaking/wicking oil up into the ECU. They were leaking but oil hadn't gotten to the ECU. They replaced the sensors and installed the "dummy" extension harnesses. I also had the shop unplug the oil solenoid at that time.

It's been a year (to the day almost) and about 7,000 miles since that work. The car has been great. I absolutely love ripping around town in a wagon. The car sounds awesome stock and it flies. I do wish it were a bit louder at times (that will be fixed later, I think). It's great to surprise motorcycles and STIs alike. I grin every time I accelerate from a stop, take an onramp, or overtake on the highway. I also get a kick out of starting it in the parking lot and seeing people visibly shocked that a station wagon just made that rumble on startup.

I'm excited to start on some additional modifications now. I have a ModalWorks intake en route. When that's installed, I'll have the spark plugs and coil packs replaced in anticipation of getting a Eurocharged tune. Then, maybe it's downpipes or a KW HAS setup or who knows. I will say, it consumes a fair amount of oil even though it's less than what the manual states is "normal". But, I always keep a quart in the hatch and back ups at home. I check the oil level every time I refuel.

I don't know what your modification plans are - if any - but even 11 years after the car was new, it's pretty exiting to see users like @Cifdig and others keep pushing this platform. I debated with selling this car and getting something else (RS6, M5, Panamera Sport Turismo) versus putting that money towards mods and the inevitable repairs. I landed on keeping this one. There's something much more desirable about this engine - 5.5L twin turbo - than the newer, smaller ones out there. I know they produce crazy power, too but they seem like small motors! But, knowing that there's still new products being developed on top of other solid ones led me to hang on to this for a while.

I hope that helps!

 

I loved my 212 wagon. Warranty work while in warranty was over six figures. After warranty was done and I got tired of opening up my wallet every month or two I let it go. If you drive it and put miles on it the fixes will never stop. It will be endless.

It's one thing to lurk and know of all the issues and costs. It's another thing when they start actually happenining. You knew logically it would come to pass, only when you open your wallet and start paying does it really hit you: "This is really happening! I am not special."

If you keep it you may get a random pause here and there but fear not, you will pay. Is that bad? <shrug> even my new 213 breaks a lot. If I wanted reliable I'd rock a Camry or Honda Fit.
Vroom Vroom!

 

What's nice with known platforms is they are well predictable. You can be proactive ahead of scheduled troubles.

-- To help your engine consume less oil, switch to a better (Amsoil Sig.) PAO or ester lubricant. It will not vaporize as much as thin blends.

-- Because of high oil consumption, your fuel map would benefit a fresh set of 2x upstream Lambda ASAP... the response will feel like a new engine!!

-- When you refresh your ignition don't overlook the aged boots + coils + plugs + intake seals.

 

Have you ever thought it might be your aura? My daughter can't go anywhere near electronics because they malfunction -- diagnostic equipment at the doctor's office, cash registers, a 2005 Audi A4 that would change language on the IC to something eastern Europe. She certainly does NOT touch my cars. I still lover her, though!

 

Thanks, @CaliBenzDriver . I haven't read up on all the oil posts lately but based on what you mentioned in another thread, I was looking at this from Amsoil Signature: https://www.amsoil.com/p/amsoil-sign...motor-oil-amr/ . Is that a good one to go with? @Cifdig recommended it, too.

I didn't think about that with the primary oxygen sensors. Could they really be hurting that much performance and not throwing any codes? If so, I might just go and have them done when I do the oil change.

I had thought about the boots, coils, and plugs. But I'm not familiar with the seals you mentioned. What do you mean by the intake seals?

 

When you temove the intake plenum to dump the vaporized oil out of it AND check on CPS Pigtails... it is best to replace the intake silicone donuts seals. The quick-job of not removing plenum because "you don't have to..." prevents from inspecting CPS leakers.

Lambda are spent around 60 to 75kMi... of course they don't pull a fault until the ceramic heater blow open near 135kMi: way TOO late!
These sensors direct the ECU fuel maps that direct the engine driveability performance.
The codes they help throw are lean MISFIRES.

The Amsoil Sig you referenced looks right. You want to purchase the newer API-SP products. It's light years ahead of thin stock, group III blend based on polymers.
You want solid performance based on solid lubricants. PAO have been around since 1945.
​​​​​​

 

Got it. Thanks!

 

sigh , i’d advise you to go ahead and get rid of it . would you like to go down the rabbit hole my good sir? it is a beautiful car i must say , whatever you do i wish you luck. you could maybe try to find another mechanic that will do it cheaper but you know how that goes. you get what you pay for in this world and this exact scenario with your vehicle is true id hope . i’d hope this was on the cheaper side of the market so you got what you paid for essentially.