Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Merc GL450

[LS (lashdeep]

Indeed, this is the kind of stuff that I hear from two friends who broker 
highline imports. They do about 10-12 MBs a week (after not having done much of 
anything Q4 2008).

You guys must have a high tolerance for pain. 

I would never, ever put up with the electrical (or maintenance) mess that a lot 
of the German car fanatics put up with. My Honda Odyssey daily driver is on 
another planet with regards to reliability.

Then again, if an Audi S4 was my only car, I'd probably want it to satisfy a 
bunch of desires (fun, practical, etc.)

But I don't need that for a daily...just need it to start every morning. And 
the Japanese (and *some* V8 powered domestics) are much better at that.

I currently have seven vehicles to maintain...the other six are 
not practical daily drivers and, thus are hilariously fun. The last thing I 
need is for my daily driver to require anything beyond oil changes and air 
fresheners.

Jim, is your wife looking for some extra effort for a daily driver? Or does she 
just want it to work right?

LS




________________________________
From: "JAshburne [at] aol.com" <JAshburne [at] aol.com>
To: lashdeep [at] yahoo.com
Cc: ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 4:56:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Merc GL450

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.  The 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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