John.....I love the way you put things...I'm serious. You wrote:

"However, take our nearly 15 year old 190E. It costs a couple thou a year to keep in good shape. The AC blows cold, everything works, and it's in good tune."

Let's take it one step further. How long do you keep this up? When does it stop? My '86 300E (now at 18 years old) is a fabulous car with now 205K miles on it. The engine seems as strong as the day it was built and uses no oil at all. The paint is almost showroom condition and people who don't know MB think is nearly new. But, it's "book" value is somewhere in the area of $4000 US, and I am looking at some hefty maintenence this year in the neighborhood of $1200 (again, USD) or so for both mufflers and blower motor replacement. When does spending 30% of book value in a given year begin to give diminishing returns? Or is this a MB owner's thing where economics (or other opinions for that matter) have no place? Just curious on your thoughts. Do you think that keeping a car running in pristine condition is model-dependant (ie: S-class should be kept going longer than C-class) or is it something other than pure dollars and cents?

Interesting concept/thread going here.

__________________
1996 SL320 97K miles
1996 C220 130k miles
1992 500SEL 170k miles <---sold
1986 300E 216k miles <---sold