My CL600 Personal Experience/Problems MercedesBenz Forum
16 Май 2015 | Author: dima | No comments yet »
Mercedes-Benz CL 600 C215
My CL600 Personal Experience/Problems
I’ve been a long time reader of this forum, but joined to tell you all about my CL600 experience.
This car has always been one of my all time favorite cars due to the fact that I am a huge fan of coupes with the lack of B-pillars: i.e. Bentley Brooklands, the new Volvo C70, the W215/216 CL series, etc.
The CL is by far the most appealing, but upon its’ debut, I did not have $150,000 to pay for the car, gas guzzler tax, luxury tax, tags, etc as I was only a freshman in high school.
Not only that, the three year waiting period to get one could instantly shoot down any hopes on the chance of purchasing one. In my grade-school experience, I never wanted the V8 CL500, or the V8 AMG CL55 version, but I did yearn for the V12 CL600.
There are numerous reasons for wanting the CL600 over the others, but most importantly: the smoothness, the cylinder shut-off mode (only available on the 01 02 models), and of course V12 bragging rights.
In any event, I went to college, got a job, and then proceeded to buy a W215 2002 CL600 for only $30,000, a great deal at the time (the car had about 50,000 miles). Boy was I in for it, and thank God I purchased an extended warranty.
Do not get me wrong, I still think the 00-06 W215 series is the most beautiful car ever produced by Mercedes, and looks better than anything they produce today.
The only car by Mercedes I may like better is the 1.5 Million dollar Mercedes CLK GTR; like I’ll ever be able to afford that unless I’m Bill Gates rich.
In any event, I need more than two hands to count the number of problems I’ve had with this car. I’ve gotten all the famous problems with the exception of wind noise, add to that some not so talked about problems, but lets get into the depressing subject on exactly what problems I’ve had, their cost to repair, and the cost to maintain this vehicle (I’ll estimate):
-B service: $500. Also, go figure when I take it in on vacation in Miami, the V12 is leaking oil all over the place. It’s the dreaded oil intercooler, go figure, and it’s located right in the middle of the V12, another go figure. It’s a $7000 repair ON TOP of my B-service, oh, go figure. At that moment, I’m thanking God I purchased the extended warranty, and I lucked out of only having to pay $700 that I was originally planning on using for vacation. My first repair with the car, it was bound to happen some time as the oil intercooler problem seems to be popular with this car. You want to know another popular problem, coil packs, like the one that failed upon picking the car up. Another $1000+ part, and lucky me for the warranty.
-A couple moths later I’m driving around, Bam, ESP failure, ABC failure, ‘turn off your radio before the car dies in the middle of the road failure.’ Oh geez, I better pull off to the side of the road and turn the car off. I do so, and out of curiosity, turn the car back on to see what would happen. No errors, ok, maybe an electronic blip. My wife and I drive down to Nashville the next day and get bombarded with the same errors, but this time my car stops for me in the middle of the high way. The battery is …, and at this point, I’m assuming the alternator drained it for me. After I have my brother-in-law bring me a new $100 dollar battery, I hobble the car over to the Benz dealership. The alternator IS busted, and I knew it was not going to be as cheap as the $35 alternator for my 1966 Pontiac GTO. Nope, it’s roughly $2000, only a $1900+ difference. I pay about $400 and warranty covers the rest.
I make it for about six months without any problems; I mean pop open a bottle of Champaign and celebrate because making it six months without a problem with this car is something to celebrate. I go to detail the car thinking about how good it has been to me, then proceed to notice coolant all over bottom of my engine bay. I guess my lucky streak is over, let’s take it down to the Benz dealership; I mean, it needs a B-service anyway, I might as well fritter away a couple thousand while I’m down there, right? Turns out the water pump is about to fail. Let’s do another comparison test: $12 dollar water pump for the ’66 GTO, $500 water pump for the CL600 (let’s add about $1000 in labor to that). So, $500 dollar B service, $1500 dollar water pump, some odds and ends, warranty will cover most of the water pump.
Mercedes-Benz CL 600 C215
Ok guys, brace yourself for this repair, the mother of all repairs, as it cost more than my mom’s brand new Chevy Malibu. I take it down to the Benz dealership less than a week after getting it back for the water pump repair. The valves/lifters started to tap horribly, it’s like my $125,000 dollar car turned into a $500 dollar piece of junk. Maybe they shorted my car a couple quarts of oil when they performed a B-service, if only I was that lucky. The dealer needs me to dish out $1500 to rip the motor apart and see what the problem is. The conclusion is this: I need to essentially replace every component in that engine right down to the crankshaft. My car only has about 60,000 miles on it when they tell me this. Also, a couple of electronic components have failed including one $4500 dollar gadget, whatever the hell it does. How much is this? Why only about $22,000; I’m not mad, and I’m not sad, at this point I’m laughing because I’m about to go insane. They keep my car almost three months and I pay a $3000+ deductible. At this point, the warranty is worth its’ weight in gold even though they tried to weasel their way out of it.
Now, at this point I’ve had every popular problem with this car except an ABC failure! Yay for me? Hell no! I want that thing to break before my warranty expires on May 10, 2009. I don’t want to pay 4 grand for a suspension repair. My prayers were answered when my car’s ABC system took a dump May 1, 2009. Add to that, my ‘low-oil’ light also came on upon me driving it down to the dealership, so I guess that means, it’s leaking it, burning it, or the electronics are lying to me. It also need a $500 dollar B-service.
I swear, if the car didn’t look so beautiful, I would have dumped it a long time ago. My cost of ownership just for maintenance repairs with warranty without warranty: $7000 with, 35,500 without (excluding the pending ABC and ‘low oil’ light problems). This also excludes a lot of minor problems such as a stereo cover issue, reclining seat issue, washer-fluid cap issue, electrical shorts, etc. I guess I should also include the $1000 for new tires. The car basically costs more to maintain than I purchased it for (I paid $30,000 for it).
In conclusion, maintenance repair on a CL600 is for those with warranties, and for those who have an endless supply in money. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, then you should not be in the market for a car like this unless you want to sell you house to maintain it. And you can guarantee yourself it’s going to be expensive, I mean, it was on the Forbes top ten most expensive cars for its’ model year; the prices you see on ebay are a deal in disguise. Any vehicle that costs more than a new vehicle to repair is probably not the vehicle for you. Do I love my car though? Yes I do.
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