From an allroad to an ML? The allroad has every expensive to repair part that Audi could think of (except UFO brakes) wearing out now, ... should be looking at a used Range Rover to keep up with that type of maintenance hunger!

I too have been on that path, the little-history Italian turbodiesel in the Grand Cherokee, ... don't want to be on the learning curve of that at high mileage, the car itself has a bad reputation for quality, ... Colorado probably better, but a pickup, Nissan's new truck you can't even buy yet, ... but that Cummins V-8 is a great engine, again only pickup. I narrowed it down fairly quickly to VW/Audi/Porsche or Mercedes in the diesel SUV market. All seem to have their warts, but all have good reputations and support the likelihood that they will still have some value and demand at 200k miles, if diesels are still legal to sell. So I gave up on a diesel mid-size SUV. The price that used ML and GL diesels get is hard to swallow, but I looked at "ordering" a new one and found them almost impossible to get, which of course supports the scarcity and price of the late-model used ones.

Service and maintenance costs I didn't really get into, you're ahead of me there. If Nissan would put their Cummins in a mid-size SUV and stop competing with Cadillac and Buick for the ugliest chrome and fake vent vehicles I'd be buying my first Japanese (badged) vehicle. Otherwise, I'm finding that the numbers support buying spark-ignited vehicles, more selection, lower price, and cheaper to operate. Consider buying a new gasoline ML and amortizing it over 7 more years (the '09 is 7years old), having warranty for most of that, getting exactly what you want, and having a more valuable (newer) vehicle in 10years and I believe that you'll find as I did that for long-term ownership buying new can make sense.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff