Your story about what drew you to Merc ownership

[psbbst]

New poster here....

Mine's a long'ish story but will attempt to shorten it....

Been with BMW's most of my adult life since early 1990s with E30s - still love 'em - please, don't kill me yet!

Then had a fling with a X plate SLK 230 Compressor in that funny light blue before it became fashionable - not Linarite, the other one - can't remember its name....

Got the **** taken out of me for about a year by my Boss - obviously he wished he could get it for his wife but couldn't so took it out on me :lol:

I couldn't take the jibes anymore and sold it, and got an E46 Conv for a while, before moving to Porsche from about 2002/3 till last week.

Still love Porsche and will go back to it one day....BUT

My beloved 550 Anniversary Spyder didn't get much use over the last 4 years and I only did 4k miles in it....most of the other 20k+ miles a year were done in the Grande Punto 1.2 and 1.4 cars....

This summer, went away for a month (golf, holidays, see family etc) and came back and decided to sell the Porsche. It went last week :cry:

So as the Grande Punto was meant to keep miles off the Porsche and the Porsche is gone, there was no need to keep driving the Punto so I looked to consolidate into a do-anything, go-anywhere car that was solid, frugal, cheap on RFL, and with a good image.

BMW sucked on the last point, and also didn't have any decent deals. Always like the W204 since it came out and so the decision was made for me!! Considering my mileage each year, I went for the C250 Cdi

So new car awaiting collection as its just landed - haven't decided when to collect yet! :Oops:

Will sell the Grande Punto once I collect the new W204

PS: Anyone want to buy a Grande Punto Series 2, 1.4 GP, 09 plate with 25k miles, excellent condition for £5995 in a couple of weeks time??

 

[Alex M Grieve]

PS: Anyone want to buy a Grande Punto Series 2, 1.4 GP, 09 plate with 25k miles, excellent condition for £5995 in a couple of weeks time??

"never been further than Tescos"!

 

[television]

"never been further than Tescos"!

Is it this points thing Alex

 

[Alex M Grieve]

Is it this points thing Alex

I think you've got the point Malcolm ..............

 

[television]

I think you've got the point Malcolm ..............

I will check

 

[Rob_N]

I absolutely loved the Rover 75 diesel auto that I once had. Unfortunately it was plagued by electrical gremlins and when the ECU started kicking off it had to go.

Two cars later I was still hankering for something similar but whilst I really loved the surprisingly affordable Jag S type diesel I was a bit concerened by the reliability and in the end settled for MB. Not the E270 that I fancied - the running costs would have been outside my budget, but settled on a much more modest C200 Cdi

But who knows what the future holds.... the Jag XF diesel looks rather tempting... let's just hope it depreciates like the S type did!

 

[hawk20]

Jags had awful residuals and if you did well over book mileage as I did, it was often hard to find a dealer who would buy them even in part ex, three years old with big miles.

Ford wrecked the residuals on the Granada and Scorpio by over-producing them and doing absurd discounts to companies.

Rover were driving the big Rover round the car park and selling them in the auctions with 20 miles on the clock -just to keep the production line going. Wrecked residuals again. And mine had a complete brake failure in the first 2,000 miles and nearly killed me.

A few sums showed a Mercedes was the most economical car to own if you did 30k to 40k miles per year. I'd run mine for three years and then pass to my wife to be the family car for the next three years. And so on. Worked well. But at three years old, if you wanted to, you could always sell a Mercedes, even with big miles, and at sensible money too. Only the Volvo competed and I had a couple of those too at various times.

 

[whitenemesis]

Friend had a top of the range Jag, £50k new. First MoT failed on brake efficiency, repaired at £800.. Decided to trade in for a Mazda for his wife. Was offered £6K!!

 

[hawk20]

Friend had a top of the range Jag, £50k new. First MoT failed on brake efficiency, repaired at £800.. Decided to trade in for a Mazda for his wife. Was offered £6K!!

Same happened to friends of mine -£6k. And another friend couldn't find a Jag dealer who would buy as over book miles and very hard to sell three years old.

 

[Bobtail]

I came to MB ownership by pure good luck

Ive always had Classic range rovers as i use them for what they were built for

Still have one now

But sold a rather troublesome late model Classic

While checking out ebay i saw a 98 CLK 230K and placed a bid

But was at work when it finished and so missed out

I emailed the seller saying if he had problems with the buyer to get in touch

lo and behold week later he emails saying buyer was from italy and wanted him to ship blah blah you know the score

so went to see and agreed to buy handed over the money and was very pleased

as i got out on the main road the car kept cutting out as if hitting rev limiter at that time i did not know the problem so took it back and got money back

thats when i joined this great forum, and put a post on which Malcolm kindly answered telling me the simple fix MAF sensor

so i called seller offering lower price and he declined or well never mind better luck next i thought

Six weeks later get phone call from seller offering me the car for £650 so i snapped his hand off as i were

Unplugged sensor to drive home, next day removed cleaned and replaced car has not missed a beat since

looking though paerwork and have full service history ,every mot and tax disc

I am loving my First ever MB

cheers
Jim

 

[st4]

I always wanted a Mercedes since being a small boy...

I would have had one earlier but the times MB were having major quality issues was when I was able to afford/have a nice car. I ran a couple of BMWs and some dross before I found I could afford a 2005 211 E class.

I liked that so much I bought another.

 

[Alex M Grieve]

I emailed the seller saying if he had problems with the buyer to get in touch

so i called seller offering lower price and he declined or well never mind better luck next i thought

Six weeks later get phone call from seller offering me the car for £650 so i snapped his hand off

Jim

A triumph for "walking away" Jim. Well done.

It always works in my experience, and a follow up e-mail or phone call to confirm that your offer is still on the table does the rest.

 

[television]

thats when i joined this great forum, and put a post on which Malcolm kindly answered telling me the simple fix MAF sensor

Unplugged sensor to drive home, next day removed cleaned and replaced car has not missed a beat since

cheers
Jim

Good news and thank you
I need a few post like this as my spirits are very low at this point in time

 

[Supercharged]

I actually went to buy an SLK and came out with a C Class after my last 3 cars were 2 seaters (Audi TT and 2 911's)

 

[peppiB]

Back in 1988 I wanted to add a wedding car to my business. Traded a 3 series BMW for a 230E. 6 months later it was written off, with me inside Police said that if it hadn't been the Merc i would have been killed, so next in line was a china blue Merc 280SE. Kept that one for years and eventually got a 190. In a very big mistake 4 years later I traded that for a Jaguar Sovereign and over the next 2 years spent £15000 on repairs for the thing. Went a few years without a Merc then 1 night whilst a bit tipsy bought a fabulous 500 SEL (126) After 5 years it bit the dust recently so replaced it with another 190E

 

[turbopete]

my story is a simple one. i wasnt really that keen of the older stuff, 190's and 123/124's etc. dad bought a 202 and i had to drive it to carlisle (lived at home at the time) for a warranty job (i worked just down the road from MB in carlisle)
it suited me better than the older cars, went well, good economy etc, so 4 years later when he was going to part ex it for his current 203, i jumped at the chance to buy it and have never looked back!
what do i want next? a manual 202 250td, a 203 with a cdi engine (manual) or id love a manual 204 250cdi sport! unfortunately, thats just a dream at the moment

 

[The Pan Man]

1 I drove my old boss's E Class
2 I drove his E300 T D one of the first
3 I then needed a large estate and the E S210 ticked all the right boxes, not looked back since.
4 Next car might not be MB but watch this space. Going to look at an E 320 CDi Sport.

 

[admiral]

My parents had a C-class in the 90's which I always loved -I was a teenager or a student at the time.

I had a few cars in my late teens and early twenties including Fiats, MG Midget, VW Polo's, Golfs and an Audi Coupe. I also for a brief period had a late 90's CLK as a work car which was enough to convince me that I would buy a Merc in the future if I had the chance.

I had the opportunity to purchase a couple of year old low mileage CClass Coupe c220d which i kept for a period and was only okay. I certainly wouldnt buy another one, However, my parents bought a clk 320 which convinced me that i had to have one! - so shortly after bought a nearly new 2004 clk 240 which I still have and have thoroughly enjoyed. (Apart from the recent service bill!)

The clk was the car that sold me on mercs, plus I obviously trust my parents judgment!