Hi, my name is James and I just totalled my '91 560 SEL, and I am thinking about buying a very clean '93 S600 with less than 60k miles on it. I have driven the car and its really a dream to drive... power, torgue and comfort. Wow, it was incredible!!! I'm not naive to buy on emotion, and I would like to hear about known issues with these big beautiful cars. Please advise... I have seen a number of comments instructing buyers to stay clear of the S600. Could someone please elaborate... I understand these cars need maintanence which I am certainly willing to do, but I don't want to have to work on or service my car every week, nor do I want to work to own a 600. Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.

James

Do a search on 140, or 600 and bring a lunch. There are TONS of information on those cars here, and it ain't pretty.

__________________
95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

You're thinking about buying one of the all-time money pits.

Your insurance man might be negatively impressed at this next move after totalling your present car.

__________________
Kent Christensen
Albuquerque
'07 GL320CDI, '10 CL550. '01 Porsche Boxster
Two BMW motorcycles

Be prepared to spend lots of time and money on it. Look through my webpage for a taste of things to come...

__________________
1995 S600, 1 of 618 (sold)

"Speed is just a question of money...how fast you wanna go?"

LONG LIVE THE W140!
Visit my Web Page at www.v12uberalles.com

So what would you say the annual maintenance cost is on your S600. Please be mindful that I'm not a gear head, but I can do things upto a medium difficulty. Any information would be helpfu

James

Are there warranties on S600s? I think its too dated for 1993 but I thought I would ask.

A warranty on a car that is nearly 15 years old? Surely you jest, sir!

Even if such a thing did exist, the expense would be positively crippling if it covered anything at all.

Buy an S600 at your own risk. You have not given nearly enough information for your questions to be answered. Can you do any work yourself? Do you prefer an indy mechanic, or would you rather take your car to the dealer?

For an S600 I would budget a bare-bones minimum of $3,500 per year and that would be me doing all of the labor. I might get lucky and spend $2,500 but then again something might happen that I can't fix myself and now I'm looking at $5,000.

This is NOT a car to go into blind, but there is plenty of info out there - I would suggest you search this board and search it thoroughly.

Good luck.

I know of an S600 that was sold locally at a euro used-car dealership, and the lady didn't buy a warranty. Came back crying 2 weeks later when it needed an unspecified $12k, engine repair. These cars are getting cheap for a reason. It's a beast of a car, but as has been stated before, if you're buying a 140, it better be 97 or newer. Even then, when you're talking ANY MB with low miles for age, expect it to need more work than a well-maintained hi-mile example. Lots of dry rotting and leaks.

__________________
former: 83 300D, 97 C230, 93 400E

current: 08 C300 Luxury , 92 500SL

I was going to certainly recommend his page. Also look at this other excellent page: http://pages.prodigy.net/jforgione/MB_S500.html

Basically, the S 600 is an expensive car to run and maintain!

A good rule of thumb is to assume you are mantaining two S 320s at the same time. Sometimes worse, as engine access to most parts on the S 600 are twice as difficult than on the S 320s, hence double or tripple hourly rates.

Most magazines always say the S 500 is more than enough, that the S 600 is actually to nose heavy to overturn the marginal performace gain over the 500.

But, if you are still fixed on the S 600, then PLEASE get a late production model (97-98-99), not a 93!!! Early production W140s have to many issues to deal with. It gets even worse with an S 600.

__________________
A. Rosich
CL 500, 1998
S 500 L, 1998
E 320 T, 1995 [Sadly sold ]

as long as they sell you the S600 '93 at a bargain low price, still it would be best to check on what needs to be done with that unit and what has been done.
Primarily, the engine harness, electronic throttle actuator and its harness, climate control module (check thru code reading, should be version 25 or below)caue version code 62 from that year model was a deffective software program.
These are the primary major problem that you will be facing, but on the other hand if these things have been addressed already, your going to have fun everytime you take the S600 out for a drive (except fuel milage) by far the best riding comfort and drivability in an MB model.
I've enjoyed mine up to this date, why should you not?