Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Merc GL450

[JAshburne (JAshburne]

I have never had a GL450 but I have had 4 ML versions going back to 1998 (2  
V6s and 2 V8s) and, while I have been happy with all of them for the most 
part,  I would not want to own one that is not covered by a warranty.  I just 
get  
the feeling that the complexity of the electronics would get expensive very  
quickly if something goes wrong.  A friend of mine has an E Class car that  
needed a new climate control unit and it was very expensive to replace as the  
entire dash had to come out.  I don't know if that would apply to the GL  but 
Mercedes-Benz vehicles are sophisticated and complicated and this is one  area 
where their reliability has suffered in recent years.
 
Another example, both of the V8s went through rear, that's right, rear  
brakes very quickly (less than 10K miles), which was very annoying to me as 
that  
was on my dime.  This was only on the V8s, the V6s were fine in this  area.  I 
have no idea whether the larger GL series (all V8 only) has  the larger rear 
brakes that the V8 ML series seems to lack but I would guess  that it does 
given the larger size of the vehicle.
 
Other than that, the ML series is very comfortable to drive, has good  
performance and has an outstanding traction control AWD system in my  
experience.  T
he Benz seems to lag behind the Japanese in terms of steering  wheel controls. 
 The safety ratings in a crash are very good.
 
I would guess that most of the pluses and minuses of the ML also apply to  
big brother GL series.
 
As a serial owner, I guess that means that the pluses have outweighed the  
minuses, but I can't say that I haven't been tempted to look at the Lexus  
version.
 
John
 
In a message dated 2/24/2009 4:22:43 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
lashdeep [at] yahoo.com writes:


Buy  an extended bumper to bumper warranty...



----- Original  Message ----
From: "jimshadow [at] verizon.net"  <jimshadow [at] verizon.net>
To: LS <lashdeep [at] yahoo.com>
Cc: The  FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24,  2009 4:17:11 PM
Subject: [Ferrari] Merc GL450

Anyone own one or got  an informed opinion?  Used prices are very attractive 
and its time to  replace my wifes Honda Odyssey......

Jim 
Sent from my BlackBerry®  smartphone with  SprintSpeed
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