Luxury Cars

Are luxury cars really worth it? I own a Mercedes ML 350 and as much as we love the ride, the comfort and that certain “germanic” quality, we hate the maintenance. Case in point, Mom spent the day and evening with Nana and Grandpa, they went to lunch and I helped them buy a new MacBook (more on this later). After several hours, she got back in her car and when she tried to turn the wheel, it wouldn’t, not easily anyway. She did manage to muscle it home with power steering by Armstrong and then told me as I was on my way home that there was something wrong with the steering. “Crap!” I thought and when I came home I was greeted with a puddle of power steering fluid and steering that would not work. Hopefully, it’s just a cracked hose, but with Mercedes, it will be $2000 for a new power steering pump. So far, here is what has happened to this vehicle since 2004:

- New brakes front and back twice (80,000 miles on the car)
- Internal fiber network breakdown (fixed under warranty)
- Three sets of tires
- One accident (not our fault, but necessitated several trips to the repair shop)
- Air conditioning breakdown (fixed under warranty)
- Heated seat failure (fixed under warranty)
- About $1000 per year on regular maintenance

Well, you get the idea. This is just what I remember. I could go back through the records, but that would be a waste of time. On average, we spend $2000 per year or more on maintenance. Over 4 years, that would have almost paid off this car or been a down payment on a decent used vehicle.

So, my conclusion? This Mercedes has not been worth it. I should have bought an Acura or Lexus, at least they have good reliability track records, but then Mercedes has that reputation, doesn’t it?

ps. The tow truck is on it’s way <<sigh>>