Margate330

How much money are we talking?

Toys4RJill

cuz its a German car. They are expensive to run.

Striker223

Stupid amounts like $1800-2400, I'm fine paying that for a fast car but not a brick of an SUV with a somewhat powerful engine lol!

Sucks since the rest of the parts are fairly inline with the Jeep for costs, brakes all the way around are $215 and it has fixed calipers up front etc....nothing alarming needed other than the 16 spark plugs. Everything I saw consumables wise is cheap enough to be compared to domestics and much cheaper than Lexus other than the tire size. Spare transmissions for example are $600-800 for a sub 100k mile unit and a conductor plate and fluid change is under $250.

It's a cool car but I hate expensive tires on non-performance vehicles

Striker223

That's not true in this case, it's actually cheaper than the RXs I had parts wise. It's only the tires that are out of line with the rest of the costs due to the insane size

Margate330

Yikes, yeah that's a little steep.

If they were under $1k for a full set and you could get 30-40k miles out of them, cool.

That's clipping your wallet for two thousand dollars if that car you're looking at has tires run down to the tread bar. Haha

Toys4RJill

the tires are more expensive in the Mercedes. The fuel is drastically more in the Mercedes. The Lexus I think has a timing belt, so that is a drawback.

Striker223

My RXs never got more than 19 average so it's not gonna be enough for me to care. The fact the engine in the ML points the right way is a big selling point for me lol! The sideways RX engine is a pain to work on....plus the cars you linked are totally different generations vs what I had/am considering and that 4.7 is so much more powerful than any Lexus engine ever it's not a fair comparison.

Only reason I'm even looking is because I want to go back to a BOF vehicle and I like the M113 engine a lot

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

oh the irony that this is completely the opposite of so called 'reliability surveys' (with toyota/lexus on top and chrysler dead last)

sounds like savannah is trying to send a message.

bmw and mercedes both use larger tires the competing vehicles... i think part is for looks, part is traction. and ml55 has a lot of grunt.

Striker223

If it's for looks I guess I understand being an AMG and all but damn it seems excessive at times. Even the ML320 has freaking 255s!

Yeah I swear it's a curse, the 430 needed towed 3 separate times somehow! Walked out 4 times to it having eaten it's battery as well.....
The 460 blew a tire
Sequoia blew a tire and locked a caliper up
Totally the opposite of what "should" happen.

Meanwhile the 03 truck was bought new by my family and while my dad normally ditched cars after 60k he drove it 120k with zero issues and I put another 40k on it with also zero issues. He also had a 1st gen Durango and a 04 WJ that was maxed out and both also never had problems, his ML500 had to be towed out of the garage 3 times though. I still remember that for whatever reason but I don't remember much at all about the actual car.

My old Jeep was bought as a temp beater while I took the cab/bed off my truck for the build but I ended up keeping it with the mentality of "I'll sell it when it breaks"........124k miles and 10 years later it still refuses to actually break. I swear it's doing it out of spite now since it knows I won't get rid of it at this point since it's endeared itself to everyone in my family and friend group, everyone has driven him for a while or on off road trips for a segment etc. We've shot .50 BMGs out of the back and done countless drill out of it as well, hauled over 20 engines in it etc etc, and it's just been a unusually good car.

The Audis have been perfect other than that one freak rich code on the 4.0 from my mistake with the tune file.


Back to the ML55 an other reason I am considering one is because they are actually able to replace my Jeep in terms of function, they have comically good off road ability for their class and have all the other useful features I want in a work type vehicle. The front suspension also uses torsion beam springs and I find that nifty since my truck also uses those.

TangoRed

Only thing about the W163 is there’s not a lot of suspension travel. Otherwise yes, quite durable vehicles with more off road capability than usual. I don’t love that the ML55’s spare is in the cabin.

Toys4RJill

Yes, the awful heat.

I get all that. But the ML55 will be significantly more costly to run. That is what I was referring to earlier

Doesn’t rely on turbos. I read that the M113 is one of the better Mercedes engines

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

skoda is now part of vw.

nice. that's where the cruise liners head out from.

ha, yes i get the temptation. then you drive on american roads... not the same, although i had a blast in my 2007 miata here, even in florida, on back curvy roads.

not really... it's to make the proles think they're driving something a 'step above' (superb, lol).​

haha... it's a smaller airport for london on the south side, but it's not bad at all. heathrow is humongous on the west side.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i prefer to the 'awful' cold.

at least i don't have to put on hat, gloves, coat, sweater, scarf etc. to go out.

Carfan94

RX 350 has had a timing chain since 2007. My 2007 averaged about 20 Mpg mostly city/suburb driving

Yes 100%! I suffer from raynauds syndrome, I’ll take the heat anytime over the awful cold.

link13

My AE86 left me stuck once. Once. I was headed south on I95 at 75 mph and the car just died. I got it to the shoulder. I hoofed it to a pay phone and called my Dad. I was 27 and my parents were in Richmond. We tugged the car into a Golden Corral parking lot. I told my brother something hit my left foot right before the car crapped out. My brother is a smart guy. He assumed that the kill switch the previous owner put in is what hit me in the foot. He was right. A $.79 butt connector got the car back on the road.