I've had a lot of Mercedes and since I buy them used, my costs are always initially high as I try to catch up on needed/unknown maintenance, but then they level off to near nothing. As with any car and especially Mercedes, it's well worth the money and peace of mind to do your own work, at least the basics like oil changes. BTW, instead of doing 3000 mile oil changes with petro oil, you and your car would be much better served by going synthetic and extending the mileage interval to at least 5000 miles.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL