Mercedes Benz Ownership Doesn’t Have to be Expensive
Freddy Hernandez proves it doesn’t take a fortune to own a Mercedes S-class, but just a little mechanical and market know-how. It’s unfathomable to many to drive a luxury car on the regular as a day to day car to get you around to where you need to be, but Freddy proves it’s possible with a 16 year old S-class that he got for $3000 and has piled on 20,000 miles on since his purchase a few years back.
His secret is in the Mercedes Benz S500 which has a plethora of amazing features making it an excellent luxury car, but due to one easily fixable problem the car has plummeted in price over the years to be a ludicrously affordable car that will give a Civic a run for its money in almost every single category you could put the two in.
The only reason it matches the average aftermarket Civic in price is due to a critical fault that can cause the entire car to become water damaged in some ways you’d never heard of in modern cars. But this fault can be fixed by following simple online guides, and every other issue can be solved by buying replacement parts by clicking here and reading up on maintaining your Mercedes model.
Whenever I see a 1998 Acura Integra with a cursive decal on the front window saying “Daily Driven,” my reaction is a curt “Yeah, no shit.” However, if you own a heavily depreciated and insanely complex luxury car like I do, the prospect of driving it daily on a shoestring budget becomes exponentially more interesting, if only to outline how many things have gone wrong over the years.
For the last two years, I’ve owned a 2000 Mercedes-Benz S500. When it was new and Y2K was deemed a legitimate threat for people who didn’t understand how computers worked, it cost more than $100,000 in today’s money. It had more than 200 patents filed in its development, had a fiber optic audio system, double-paned windows, massaging seats, and it served as the flagship for the Mercedes-Benz brand, taking over the mantle of the tank-like W140 chassis.
Fourteen short years after its build date, I purchased it for a miserly sum of $3000. Continue Reading
image via Jalopnik
