I wrote about Bertha, our 2007 S550, in a prior installment. After four years and almost 60,000 miles (206,000 on the odometer total), we reluctantly went our separate ways.
Our 16 year old had been driving her. The driver power window quit suddenly, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone (it was shut all the way, fortunately). However, she developed a tendency to have a “locked” steering wheel upon starting.
This seemed like a concerning safety issue, though it had thus far only happened in parking lot situations. Of course, this had been going on for a few weeks before he thought to mention it. One day, he backed out of a space at Chick Fil A (he had gone in due to the power window issue) and Bertha’s wheel would not turn, at all. So there she sat, blocking the parking lot.
Usually, turning Bertha off and restarting cured this issue, he said…..but not this day. She sat like a beached whale for about 30 minutes, diverting traffic, while he kept turning her off and restarting. Finally, the wheel would turn, so he left and drove home to tell me about it.
I drove her for a week and it never did this to me. But, we had that steering concern, the driver window wasn’t working, she was due for an oil change, and there was a vibration in the steering wheel that I had never noticed before. So I made an appointment at a local dealer to at least pay the diagnosis fee and see what was going all with all these issues.
I got the call from the dealer, and it wasn’t great news….it would cost about what Bertha was worth to properly fix the problems. The oil change was completed, no problem there.
The driver window defect was not the switch or the motor, but a computer of sorts in the door, near the A-pillar, which talks to the all the door panel switches (windows, mirrors, seat, seat heating, etc.) and carries out the requested function. If this was a switch connected to a motor with copper wire, it would still work. But that would be too easy. Labor and parts on that would be $800 or so.
The vibration in the steering wheel was the motor mounts, which had all failed. $750 or so parts and labor for that.
The steering issue was the sensors built inside the steering rack, which call for more or less boost depending on conditions (lots of boost in the parking lot, less boost on the highway). They are internal and not a serviceable part, so the rack has to be replaced. Which means most of the front suspension comes apart, and you can’t put it back together with rubber bits with 200,000 miles on them. So, parts and labor for a remanufactured rack would be $3000, give or take.
While you could pass on fixes one and two, and still drive the car just fine, the steering concerned me. The dealer explained it wasn’t “locked” per se, there was just no boost when the sensors decided to take a nap. So in a parking lot especially, or around town speeds, it would feel locked. If they napped going down the interstate, you might not notice.
I didn’t want a 16 year old driving it with that potential safety problem. I mulled what to do for a couple of weeks. Our older son wanted to take his Jeep to college after all, which the 16 year old started driving when Bertha got sick. Maybe I could drive Bertha for a while, and my son could take the ES350 to college.
We all still liked Bertha so much, but there was little sense in making all these repairs at those prices. And while you could get into junkyard steering racks, etc., I just wasn’t up to finding one, finding an installer, and going through the motions to still have a 12 year old car with over 200,000 miles that I didn’t trust to put my kids in. But certainly, that’s a viable path, especially for someone who wants to work on it themselves.
As we mulled her fate, she refused to start for my college son when he was home on fall break. He cranked her 4 or 5 times, and she never started. So he took the Jeep instead. Then she did the same thing to my wife at the grocery store, though she did finally catch after a few tries.
Now, we were seeing that we might be stuck with a car that wouldn’t start at all, which of course we would be unlikely to be able to sell or trade. And the idea of putting her at a local lot for consignment was off the table as well. If she continued to deteriorate, she might quit running (or have power steering) altogether while we awaited a buyer.
So, it looked like we needed to trade her, and I started searching online. After a couple of weeks of surfing dealer sites near and far each night, I finally narrowed in on a 2015 BMW at CarMax on my watch list, but it was a few hours away. They could transfer it for a fee, but you don’t get credit for the transfer fee, even if you buy. And I didn’t want to pay to transfer something, wait for it to be moved, not like it in person, and just waste that money and time. So, I decided to drive the 250 miles or so to that particular CarMax.
The trip on a nice Fall morning started off great. Bertha started right away that morning, and loved the empty interstate, with the cruise on 82. She was smooth and silent at that speed, and I thought “What am I doing this for? She runs great. Maybe I’m being too hasty.”
After a couple of hours, I pulled over for a restroom break, and that’s when Bertha started fighting back. She wouldn’t start, at all. Just crank and crank, and no effort to catch. It was getting zero spark or zero fuel, I’m not sure which. With the pushbutton starting, it would crank for about 6 seconds, then stop if there is no success.
I tried this about 20 times, allowing the starter to rest a little between tries, and then called Mercedes roadside assistance. Mercedes has changed their policy over the years; currently, you have free roadside assistance if you are under factory warranty, or, if you have had a dealer service visit in the past 18 months. So, I was covered for a technician to come to me, and a free tow to a dealer if they couldn’t fix it on site.
Fortunately, I was only about 20 minutes away from a dealer. The local dealer mechanic called me after getting dispatched by Mercedes, to see what the symptoms were before he left the shop. He seemed stumped by what I was telling him, which wasn’t a good sign. I wanted to hear him say “oh, that’s easy, it’s a relay” or something to that effect. He said in general if a couple of gallons of gas or a jump won’t get it running, they will have to tow it into the shop.
As I waited for him to make his way over, I kept trying the start button, out of boredom really. And she started! Just like normal, no chugging, no rough running, just perfect. So I hightailed it back on the interstate, thinking I will just have to skip lunch because the window won’t go down for a drive through, and I’m not turning it off again.
We made it, with no further issues. I met the salesman I had spoken to, and seated at his desk we did a preliminary review of the car I was there to see, as well as my trade.
“My appraiser will need to go drive your trade, you don’t mind that do you?” Well of course not, but good grief Bertha, please behave!
I’ll finish the trip, and the trade, in the next installment!
»edge of my seat«
That’ll be a relay.
That’s what I thought. Really? What is this? A 1970s Quinn-Martin production? “Stay tuned for part 2, in next week’s episode of, ‘Big, Bad Bertha’.”
These are the kinds of cars that makes me wish that I had developed the skills of a good professional mechanic, so I could fix the car myself at home. One of my buddies from my Ducati Richmond day’s is that kind of person, and what I’ve watched pass thru his garage over the past twenty years would have the average CC’er drooling. His mid-80’s Nissan Skyline is probably the most mundane car of the bunch. Currently he’s driving a VW Westfalia van that he dropped a Subaru WRX motor into it. Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
This article is a wonderful caveat regarding ownership of an old German luxury car, however. It does make me wonder how many of them will survive long enough to make the antique car circuit.
+1
Depending on how old the German car is…
W116 and W126 are one of the easiest German cars to diagnose and repair even though they require lot of time and labour to get done. Our 1977 450SEL never visited the official Mercedes-Benz or independent service centres during the time we owned it. We perused the trusty Haynes repair manual (long before the Web became a thing) and excellent tool sets.
When my father got W210 E280, we relied on lot of YouTube videos and forums to help us diagnose and repair the car most of the time, saving us hundreds, if not thousands, of euros.
You gotta love those complicated German machines.i love my 1979 280 SE(5spd).
Is that lovely old barge hard to keep running in your part of the world? (Apart from fuel, obviously). Such things are a bit of struggle to keep functional here, not impossible, but certainly expensive.
Not really there is still tons of E class and S class from 60s&70s are on the road down here and also tons of Peugeot 504s from the same Era.Unlike North America Germany and France have good relationship with us and A lot of business going on between Europe and IRAN.best of all gas is 10 cents per Litre.
But your 1979 280 SE 5-speed comes from before Mercedes deliberately decided to cheapen their vehicles circa 1990. Yours was from the “best-engineered” era of M-B.
I’m just dipping my foot into older European car ownership (relatively simple B5 gen V6 A4 Quattro) having grown up around generally reliable and simple/inexpensive to work on Japanese cars. I’ve always been the guy that’s heard all the anecdotes and poked some fun from the side at the masochists keeping older German iron on the road, but a few months into owning one myself, I think I’m starting to get it. As old and as worn out as it is cosmetically, I look forward to getting into my Audi at the end of a work day, and cold morning commutes in the rain are a complete non-issue (a pleasure, in fact) as I’m cruising into work with heated leather seats and a car that sticks to the road like glue. They’re just plain nice to drive. Now, I understand it’s quite a leap from an older Audi into one of the newer Germans with their 70+ black box modules that all seem to cost about $800 and like to randomly crap out. I think I want to try a mid 90s Mercedes next, or possibly a 2nd gen Volvo S80(?)
I’ll just drop in a few anecdotes about my recent BMW experiences with integrated electronics as sort of a
prophecy of doomsubject for contemplation.First, the power mirrors fold. Okay, so what? Well, they are connected to a sensor somehow that automatically unfolds them above 10 mph or so. Oh, and the heater fan won’t come on until it can blow warm air. Next, as I was pulling into my driveway one day, for some reason(that seemed like a good one at the time) I reached down and popped the button to open the trunk. The car refused, sensing that the car was still moving. Then there’s the fact that there’s no dipstick and if the car requires service it automatically phone the dealer, who then phones you. So, everything is integrated…apparently everything.
Last and best anecdote – some guy bumped my rear bumper in a parking lot and caved in left corner of the plastic cover. No body damage. Had the cover replaced at BMW’s chosen shop, and they didn’t even need to paint the replacement since the car was new. So: unbolt old, and rebolt new- that’s it. However when I picked up the car, my AC and radio didn’t work. “Oh”, said the shop owner, “my guys must have left some electrical connection loose. Have the dealer fix it and send me the bill.”
First: remove the rear bumper cover and the AC and the radio quit working?? Second: the dealership charged him $1100.
Be careful: your car knows you posted this and is keeping a suspicious eye on you from now on. 😉
Aaaaaaaugh!
Every time I start to get seduced by the “if you do the work yourself these are quite economical to own” I read something like this. The words of my long-deceased car-mentor Howard come back to me: “Never buy an old luxury car.”
Modern electronic-age stuff is complex enough but the high-end European stuff takes it to another level. I have no doubt that these are simply fabulous to drive but I am best-off sticking with simpler cars.
All that said, this is a lovely car and it is sad that it has progressed into something impossible to keep (unless you want to effectively buy it all over again).
since virtually all options are available on most cars these days a true luxury car is one that rarely sees a dealer
that rules out most German “luxury” cars, which often seem to be the choice of people who really can’t cope well w/ the dealer “experience”
people used to marvel at the quality of old Mercs – engineered like no other car in the world – now people marvel that anyone would take one on after the lease or warranty is gone.
once admired for high resale value, now remarked for lack of same
I was going to slag on this machine in the stereotypical way until I read that it had 200K miles on it. I’d be pretty happy about hitting that venerable mileage mark before all the overcomplicated idiocy began to fail, reminding me that these are meant to be leased rather than owned. Beautiful machine, though, kudos on putting some serious mileage on her.
It’s not a W123, but what is anymore?
BTW, a 16-yo rocking an S550?! All I got was a sky blue Cutlass Ciera!
Keep in mind that all of these issues that arose are not mileage related, just age related. It could have 40k miles on it and these would still have failed. Which is pretty representative of modern car. How many engines or transmissions fail before 200k miles? How many electronic parts fail after about 7-10 years? Or sooner.
Making the major mechanical parts last 200-300k miles seems to be the easy part, and something most manufacturers have mastered. But the electronics, and their interfaces? Not so much.
Bertha don’t you come around here anymore.
LOL… not a huge fan, but definitely one of their best!
The suspense was killing me. I own a 2013 E350 BlueTec with 45k miles on it. No troubles so far, love the car. But I always have that knowledge of the potential for very expensive repairs looming in the background.
If my past experiences are any indication, you are probably OK to 125,000 mi. or so. I bought Bertha at 150,000 mi. She was a one owner car, always dealer serviced, so the CarFax was pretty detailed and complete. Looks like A/C compressor, multiple coil-on-plug packs, and a variety of high ticket items like that crapped out (and were fixed at great expense) between 125,000 and 150,000. So then I got a few good years out of her that the first owner, in essence, had paid for.
I’m stumped as to why the first owner kept her that long, that has to be an unusually long first-owner hold for an S Class, 7 Series, etc.
Sounds like you should be ok, IF you keep it the heck away from anything other than straight diesel or up to b5. Its been a huge problem in the US depending on the state as MB will not cover you if you stick the wrong fuel in it. Logical, but costly to some as b20 will kill the thing, and problematic too are the Def and exhaust emissions systems. Crossing my fingers, with an extended warranty on our ’14 GLK 250 Blue Tec. Love it too, hoping for the best!
What’s the best time to leave a party? Fifteen minutes too soon.
It seems the same advice applies to selling older luxury cars. What’s the best time to sell an older Mercedes? A few months too soon… before this sort of thing starts happening. I know that sinking feeling of selling a trouble-prone car, so I’m anxiously awaiting the next installment.
I guess this isn’t a purely modern problem, though, since twenty-some years ago I bought a used Saab 900 (terrible car for a young, financially-strapped driver) that developed a similarly complex maze of problems. For that car, I sold it to a Saab salesman; he did a lot of work on Saabs himself, and also could get cheap repairs for other things at his dealership. A perfect buyer for such a car.
Very engaging tale! Eagerly waiting on the next installment.
Two questions for the CC commentariat…
1: Any chance that Bertha’s maladies were loose/corroded connections rather than faiilures of the actual parts?
2: What kind of engineer designs a power steering system where the failure mode for a sensor is “no boost” instead of say, “full boost?”
It’s potentially safer to have no boost at low speed than full boost at high speed. If you are going slow going to no boost allows you to likely stop and not proceed without getting it fixed. If you are at speed you don’t really need any boost but if it all of a sudden were to default to full boost and you make a minor correction at 80mph that could become an issue right quick. I’m no expert though, just my off the cuff thought.
“What kind of engineer designs a power steering system where the failure mode for a sensor is “no boost” instead of say, “full boost?”
Answer: a German engineer, because he knows the parts he designed vill never fail!
Quite seriously though, I do believe that confidence and complexity are cultural characteristics. For example, in World War II German artillery was far superior in accuracy to American artillery. However, if I recall correctly the breech of a German artillery piece had something like 42 moving parts, with tight tolerances, which had to work correctly in order to fire the gun.
An comparable American artillery piece had sloppy tolerances and something like 14 moving parts….and it would keep right on firing. Not as accurately, true, close is good enough in horseshoes and shrapnel.
I think the power window situation is a prime example. In my 2016 ES350, it is a rocker switch connected to the motor with a copper wire. It is a somewhat clunky plastic rocker switch, and it is the same switch in probably every Camry and Corolla made in the past 25 years.
Bertha has an esoteric brushed metal switch which you barely touch to activate the window….and it responds with a gentle click. So it’s nice to touch and almost watch-like in it’s action and precision. But it is sending a little signal to the door module, which then tells the motor what to do…and you know the rest of the story.
If Bertha was a 2007 Avalon with 206,000 miles, the window would still work.
As an owner of an ‘01 Highlander with 232K trouble-free miles – only tires, brakes and recommended maintenance at the dealer – I can’t disagree.
I was raised in an area full of Americans of German descent, and I understand the engineering question perfectly. To do it your way would be wasteful. The sensor could fail but most people would never know it had failed. Therefore the system would be putting out full boost all the time, thus wearing out other components (albeit ever so slowly.) Better to have it fail in a straight up way so that you know it fails, so that you can immediately get if fixed and make everything right again. I’m only half kidding. 🙂
The Irish-American in me asks why there needs to be a stupid sensor to begin with. Just set the damned boost level and be happy with it. Or do you want it to be variable? Install a dial. As you can see, two very different ways of thinking.
As the man said: “You gotta know when to fold ’em.” You got a great run out of the old girl. I think you’re probably right with the point you made above about when to get out, I did so a little on the early side with the GL450 but no real regrets.
There is nothing less dignified than driving a relatively new luxury car (i.e. one that still looks fairly current) where the bits don’t work right as the Camrys, Tauruses, and Cavaliers chug on by. In other words, what’s the point, nobody is fooling anyone.
I’m looking forward to the next installment as I’m guessing you successfully offloaded it to Carmax – that last picture is the same one I have with my GL in its place. I don’t think they pull it in to the bay until a deal is made…
When I sold mine to them I was pretty sure but not 100% that I got the best price I could for it. But after coming across it a month or so later on a dealer’s lot that they in turn sold it to priced at about 10% more than I let it go for I felt very good about it. They buy almost anything but auction off a lot of them that they don’t want on their own lot for whatever reason (age, mileage, etc). In my case I did not trade it in, just sold it to them outright, no pressure, fair deal, zero hassle.
I have never bought or sold anything at CarMax prior to this, but I have taken two prior trades there for a “second opinion” on the value. Both times, they were within $250 or so of what another dealer was offering me. So I think their prices are fair enough.
They were about $500 less than I was hoping on Bertha, but, I knew that wasn’t a car they would ever keep on their lot either due to the age or miles, or both. It was headed straight to auction and if they could get what they gave me at an auction, I’d be surprised.
Back in 2010, I sold my then-12-year-old Contour SVT to CarMax… at the time I was skeptical and thought that they’d offer a low-ball price for a car that they clearly wouldn’t sell on their own lot. But I was pleasantly surprised. I felt I wouldn’t do better elsewhere so I sold it there.
A month later I Googled the VIN and was surprised to see it on a Ford dealer’s used car lot advertised for more than twice what I sold it for, so I hope whoever bought it from them didn’t get a rude surprise later on.
Interesting read. I have an ‘88 560 SEL and this car’s problems seem very minor compared to my car’s…, random stalling, driveline vibration, HVAC and intermittent ABS issues. Age seems to be the culprit for most of these, as the car only had 125kilomiles.
I will say that my 1990 BMW with similar miles has none of these problems, and no electrical problems.
A splendid vintage you have with an ’88 SEL. I had the privilege to drive one for a week, when it was new, and nothing ever compared to it since, including other S classes. The balance, the armored-tank feel, the sense of invincibility inspired by the view over the mile-long hood. The Lexus LS 400, and the world’s response to it, ruined everything. All those sensors seem to have somehow numbed out the driver’s connection with the soul of the car.
On one hand, I get the appeal of European cars. ( I’ve owned two) On the other hand, why, just why do people continue to torture themselves with European cars? Don’t care what you think about Ford, GM, or FCA products, they are a thousand times more reliable, and if/when they break, so much cheaper to repair. It has to be the more money than brains syndrome…
I’ll reinforce the prevailing opinion by my experiences with Euro cars, The electrics WILL get dodgy after a few miles or years! And ownership of TOL German cars, particularly superannuated ones, is, I believe, one of the most highly advanced forms of masochism known to mankind. While great to drive, they are best bought or leased brand new and be disposed of at the 3-4 year or 100k mile mark, whichever comes first, and preferably sooner. As was once said of another car, or was it a boat, if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it. Status, for those to whom it matters, does come at rather a price.
True story: 2 years ago the across-the-street neighbors at our summer lake place simultaneously bought 2 low mile recent model S-class Benzes, one silver, one navy, and both absolutely gorgeous automobiles. Both of them had been driving Japanese vehicles for a number of years prior, and I have no idea what precipitated this rash act. Upon greeting them at the beginning of the new lake season in April I complimented them on their great good taste, while biting my tongue regarding experiences sure to come. Sure enough within not much more than a year both were replaced by 2 new Japanese vehicles… sometimes lessons must be earned the hard way!
Sorry to hear of Bertha’s issues and sorry to see her go but I think you made the right call. Older European cars are expensive to maintain, and the costs and problems generally keep rising the older the car gets.
But there’s no denying the emotional feel you get from driving one, particularly a large German sedan like the S-Class. I’d choose a 10-year old Mercedes with issues any day over a brand new Corolla that costs the same. The key is knowing when the maintenance/repair costs are too steep to justify the car.
Brendan, not everyone has the resources to fork out several thousand dollars several times a year.
Sounds like you made the right choice, a car this complex and with pricy parts and labor rates, over 200k miles and weird electrical issues multiplying is telling you its done. The Mercedes gave you good service.
That just goes to show you: as these $100K cars get steadily cheaper to acquire, the parts and maintenance don’t get any cheaper. It’s whats kept me from buying an F01 7 Series, which I really like.
I just got through looking at the Flikr album that was linked from Rui’s Hershey Meet posting. Off all those hundreds of older cars, how many would have been preserved if critical operating systems had been managed by unobtainable, non rebuildable, unfathomable, electronic modules and controls? Up until the late 1950s most controls were by direct mechanical, hydraulic, or hard wired electrical systems. Pretty easy to understand and they could be repaired fairly economically. Even twenty year old cars have quite a few electronic “brains” running them. Engine management, fuel injection, and ABS. Newer cars can add adaptive cruise control, auto braking for collision avoidance, lane control and of course fully autonomous vehicles are only a few years away.
I’m not going to say that this progress hasn’t led to safer cars, with more lives saved. Because it has. But I think that these newer cars will become unrepairable over time. I guess all that really matters is that the original buyers obtain an adequate service life for their investment.The older cars will be broken down and recycled. As an old car fan I find it kind of sad.
That’s what’s going to happen to all these highly complex high end cars: they’ll start demanding large chunks of system get replaced.
I’ve got an A8, and the minute that sucker goes out of warranty, she’s gone. She’s been marvelously dependable for 70,000 miles so for. But she’s gone when the warranty runs up.