Take a look at this article. Obviously not written by a person that is car crazy.


maintenance program write up

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Jim

Yep Jim, if the writer were more into cars he would know that "perhaps three" oil changes in a 2 year period was kinda long between changes for most cars. Also, a little more research and he might have quoted someone from this board rather than benzworld, oh wait...most anyone here would be countering his argument of maintenance schedules etc.

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Mike Tangas
'73 280SEL 4.5 (9/72)- RIP
Only 8,173 units built from 5/71 thru 11/72

'02 CLK320 Cabriolet - wifey's mid-life crisis

2012 VW Jetta Sportwagon TDI...at least its a diesel

Non illegitemae carborundum.

You can't afford a MB if you can't afford to properly maintain it. Simple as that really; you have to pay to play.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Of course you can. You lease it for three years, make the monthly payment, and do absolutely nothing to it. No brake pads, no oil changes, no wiper blades, no transmission fluid, nothing.

Then you give it back to the dealer after three years and he puts it out front as a Star-Marked vehicle.

When I bought my ML the maintenance being included was a definite plus. But I've found that in practice it really added little to the value. The maintenance intervals were too spread out for my taste, and the large ticket maintenance sessions (read that major tune ups) fall outside of the OEM warranty. So it worked out to be more a gimmick than a true addition to the vehicle’s value. I did get 3 free oil and filter changes, but did many more myself. I did get all the tires rotated and rebalnced once, but then found that the car suffers 0 ill effects from not rotating the tires. So......I have to guess that free maintainance was an experiment on the part of MBUSA to see if it they could puff up the purchase price and also would bring folks into the shop more. The change of policy suggests that the real value was in puffing up the purchase price. Oh, yeah, and they also dumped the FSS computer, so there is yet more profit for less effort.

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"