V12 twin turbo? Here I come!

Cotton said:

Sonic said:

I had some front end popping noises in my CLS63.  I replaced ball joints and front forward LCAs and a wheel bearing and checked everything many times.  

 

It ended up being sway bar bushings that were binding up a bit and needed to be lubed.   At least I have new ball joints now.  

lol,  that's exactly the type of thing that would happen to me.  The ABC cars don't have sway bars,  but I wouldn't be surprised if I go through all this work and it turns out to be something else.

BTW I really like the CLS and have been tempted many times to move from V12 to v8,  whether a CLS or E series, especially after comparing engine bays and seeing the additional room to work.  How do you like the CLS63?

 

 

It has been great.  In size on the inside it is probably an even split between your two, more room in back than the CL, but a bit less than an E, way less than an S.  For the two of us it is more than we need in space.  We did One Lap in it and had a great time, always arriving at the end of the transits refreshed from the comfortable drive.  It does well enough on track, holding its own though it is still a bit on the soft side.   The motor is a beast with a few well known and solvable issues.  Suspension is a perfect sporty/comfortable mix for daily driving.  It is quiet, comfortable, and a nice place to be.  It also looks great.   Working on it has all been straightforward, thought I haven’t had to do much.  Parts are generally reasonably priced, except for things that are AMG specific, or even worse things like the performance package brakes that I have, cheapest rotors are about $600 each if you can find them, OEM are $1100.   If it was totaled tomorrow I’d probably find another. 

In reply to Cotton :

Thanks.

Jeff, I emailed you a lead on some potential parts cars about 4hrs from me. 

In reply to yupididit :

Thanks for the heads up.  I’ll reach out and see if he has a good fan assembly and a few other things.

I’m in the middle of doing upper and lower control arms on the CL,  but work travel is slowing my progress.  Anxious to wrap that up,  so I can get back in the CL as my daily.  I love that car as a DD.

In reply to Cotton :

No problem man. Good luck! 

Wow this thread is hugely reliant to my life at the moment.  I have been shopping s500 s550 and the equivalent CLS's.  I even test drove an E500.  I have also looked at A8s and 7 series as well.   Driving the BMW and the Audi helped cement the fact that I want another Merc.  After test driving about 7 Merc's  I have narrowed it down to a s550 4matic.  I found a 2010 with 57K for a bit less than 20K with a full dealer service history.  I am going to test drive it either tomorrow or over the weekend. 

The reason for the 4 matic is we have winter up here.  I also have done a bunch of reading on these cars and it turns out that the 4mattic driveline was not actually built by MB.  It was farmed out to another company and it turns out that it is all but bullet proof as compared to the driveline in the RWD cars.  This was a big selling point for me as I want an AWD car.  The 500 versus the 550 is a styling thing. You will on average spend between 5 and 7K more for one as they are generally newer and with less millage but what sold me is the styling of the 07-13 cars versus the s500's that are pre 07.  Then there was the CLS.  It is by far the best looking "standard" Merc made.  However the rear seat room is less than good for anyone over about 5'6" tall.  Where as the S class a person well over 6' tall has more than enough room.  The biggest difference is the amount of leg room there is probably 8-12 more inches of leg room in the S class than in the CLS.  So although I would really like to have the CLS the reality is that the S550 is a better car for me.  My son is 13 and is almost 6' tall and I take clients out in my car every now and then so having an ample back seat that is equal to or better than the front is important.  In short you are sacrificing nothing by riding in the back of a S550.  Another side note to the S550 is that it flys a bit further under the radar than the CLS.  The CLS really is a spectacular looking car and it definitely gets noticed where as the S550 is just another Merc in the sea of them that seem to be on the road in my area. However 99.9% of then are E350 4Matic's.  

So if the car checks out I hope to finally have my Jag replacement and I am actually excited to be going back to the "dark side" of the big brash no apology necessary car that the big motor S class Merc's are.  

The s550 is a very nice car!  Just be warned you will ALWAYS be the guy driving your co workers to lunch.

The 08+ S550's are pretty reliable cars. more reliable than the facelift w220's. They are solid! The interior design is so sharp in my opinion and they remind me of the w140 when it comes to isolation of noise from outside. I think it'll be a good buy. I've been looking at them too as they're getting cheap. Just don't get a 2007 lol 

I mainly want an S600  Jeff...

Cotton said:

The s550 is a very nice car!  Just be warned you will ALWAYS be the guy driving your co workers to lunch.

I own the company so it goes with the territory.  

yupididit said:

The 08+ S550's are pretty reliable cars. more reliable than the facelift w220's. They are solid! The interior design is so sharp in my opinion and they remind me of the w140 when it comes to isolation of noise from outside. I think it'll be a good buy. I've been looking at them too as they're getting cheap. Just don't get a 2007 lol 

 

I mainly want an S600  Jeff...

That is great info.  I did not realize that the 07 was just a face lift of the early cars.  I thought it was the same as the 08-13 cars

In reply to dean1484 :

The 2007 s550  has an engine defect that is well known. There was a class action lawsuit.

2009 was the w221 facelift I believe. 

Yeepers I went and looked up the problems with the 07 cars and that is a big fubar on Mercedes part.  Looks like the class action was settled.  So if you find an 07 is it safe to assume that by now it ahs been fixed? or was it one of those 1 in 10 things that could still be out there waiting to go wrong with these cars.   It also puts a huge bargaining chip on the table for purchasers of the 07 cars even if it has been fixed as the stigma is there.

Long time no update.  So I did the upper and lower control arms on the CL,  plus brakes pads while I was in there.  With the wheels off I noticed the inside of both front tires were wearing rapidly,  so time for an alignment.  Well, I get the car together and still have the dreaded popping noise I had been chasing,  so decide to have the alignment guys take a look while it’s there.  Thankfully they found the issue,  the cradle bolts had worked loose and the cradle was shifting enough to cause the noise.  They tightened those up,  did the alignment,  and it has been fine since.

Next I need to do the drivers side valve cover gasket.  Eventually I also need to do the rear main seal,  but right now I add just a quart between oil changes,  so it’s not a huge priority.  If/when I do the rear main I’ll go ahead and add a set of performance downpipes since the trans will be out,  so they’ll be easier to get to.

Today at work.  Right at 198k miles on her.

Damn, I still want the S600!

Lovely car 

really digging the wheels 

never owned a v12. It’s in my bucket list. Don’t have the balls/pain threshold for it, and Toyota Century v12 isn’t in the cards for CA registration 

reliable v12... is there such a thing ? 

mr2s2000elise said:

Lovely car 

really digging the wheels 

 

 

never owned a v12. It’s in my bucket list. Don’t have the balls/pain threshold for it, and Toyota Century v12 isn’t in the cards for CA registration 

 

reliable v12... is there such a thing ? 

It’s definitely a good idea to have a backup car!  I love the v12 cars,  but they are very complicated.  My 85 300sd with over 300k miles was more reliable,  but not near as much fun or as comfortable.

In reply to Cotton :

sadly I already have too many back up cars 

mr2s2000elise said:

Lovely car 

really digging the wheels 

 

 

never owned a v12. It’s in my bucket list. Don’t have the balls/pain threshold for it, and Toyota Century v12 isn’t in the cards for CA registration 

 

reliable v12... is there such a thing ? 

Outside of a few things, the V12 in the old BMW 850 was just two 2.5L M20s spliced together. Each bank ran it's own ECU and such. 

IIRC, the only nasty part is the electrically controlled throttle body motors that I think now are NLA. You'd have to check around though.

In reply to z31maniac :

Appreciate the info. I love the 8 series, but hoovies garage and elsewhere all they talk about is how ridiculous the maintenance is and what a nightmare car it is :( 

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

People say the same thing about the Benz V12s, but with the right tools,  mechanical ability,  and patience they are very DIYable.  My CL had A LOT of pretty major problems when I got it,  but with a $600 cloned Star Diagnostics setup,  some patience,  luck,  and  internet forum knowledge it’s now my DD.  Edit: well I have several DDs,  but it’s currently the primary.

I'm coming back to read more about this later. Only made it through page 2 so far.

In reply to Cotton :

Cotton: Maybe you would know this - with the Star Diagnostics setups, can you edit the VIN associated with Mercedes parts? I'm looking at getting into parting out a modern-ish (2011 or so) Benz here or there, and it looks like I could quickly made my investment back on the Star setup if it can do that. I would like to be able to put the buyer's VIN into the parts prior to shipping. I guess that would require keeping a functional car around to do it?

Okay, all finished catching up. All in all, considering the original price and complexity, I'd agree that it's not too bad for someone that has a lot of tools and a lift, but even then it does seem like the cars at that age have a number of issues that can cause frequent downtime.

Kind of a trade off on the price of entry there, but it hasn't put me off of them entirely. Problem is I wouldn't want to pay the $10k+ people want for them around here even with high mileage if I'm going to be doing major work on them right off the bat.

dculberson said:

In reply to Cotton :

Cotton: Maybe you would know this - with the Star Diagnostics setups, can you edit the VIN associated with Mercedes parts? I'm looking at getting into parting out a modern-ish (2011 or so) Benz here or there, and it looks like I could quickly made my investment back on the Star setup if it can do that. I would like to be able to put the buyer's VIN into the parts prior to shipping. I guess that would require keeping a functional car around to do it?

Hmm that’s a good question.  I’ve coded several VIN specific parts while in the car,  but not sure if you can force a vin.  Let me poke around STAR later this weekend and see what I can find out.  I wouldn’t be surprised if you can do it.

In reply to Harvey :

I think the supercharged or twin turbo v8 cars are a good compromise.  I love the v12s,  they are so smooth and just so much power,  especially with a tune,  but they are difficult to work on for a lot of things just because there is no room.  I have waffled on selling the v12s and buying a forced induction v8 Benz,  but I have grown really fond of the v12s,  so haven’t been able to make that swap just yet. Another option is a w216 cl63 with the NA v8, which sounds incredible,  but I’m partial to forced induction unless it’s in something like an SLS AMG.