So my wife now says she likes the Mercedes R350 and wants one....

[EuroBoutique]

If you think finding the right NSX is hard, just try looking for a clean one under a set budget!

I thought this was going to be easy but after a week of contacting people on Craigslist, Autotrader, Ebay, etc I got very few call backs and many stories along the way including a few who changed their minds and didn't want to sell...wtf

Any R350 owners here?

Our criteria is pretty simple, we just want a clean 2008+ no accident one owner car with some basic options:
a) Theater package
b) Pana Roof
c) Xenons
d) 4-matic would be nice and 7th middle seat would be nice but don't even need NAVI


So far, a week out still have not found the right car!

 

[cmc140]

My wife has an '06 R500. We bought it 3 years ago and have been pleased with it. It took me over 6 months to find what I wanted and I flew down to Hilton Head Island to pick it up and brought it back making sure to check out the Tail of the Dragon. I was certainly the only minivan on it that day. It was a one owner non auction car and the carfax had all of the scheduled maintenance recorded. It has almost every option but backup camera. Not sure if that was available in '06. So far "knock on wood" it's been pretty reliable. I had to change the front air shocks and the air pump bit the dust this winter. They really weren't very hard to do and I will probably get replacement air springs from Arnott for the rear, later this summer. I knew the air suspension was a weak point before I bought it. However, I really like the ride in sport mode as I do not enjoy floaty cars.

My only advise would be to drive them before you buy. I wasn't totally sold on the 350 and probably would have bought the Blutec if I hadn't found this 500. It's an incredibly heavy car at 6300 lbs and the gas mileage on the 350 wasn't much better, but the performance was far worse. Although, I'm not sure what year production stopped with the 500's. Something else that may or may not be worth a look at is the new Hyundai Santa Fe. It looks like direct competition for the R. Not sure I'm willing to buy a Hyundai yet, but I'm sure the warranty is better.

Oh and I guess the other thing to mention is chicks dig them more than an NSX. Haha go figure. :smile:

 

[EuroBoutique]

That is an awesome picture! thanks for chiming in

In the past week I've learned more about the R350 than I care to know. One of the reasons my wife is swaying towards this car over a Sienna SE is that she likes how solid Mercedes builds their cars. We have a workhorse ML I use to haul things around and the few times we got hit, we barely felt a jolt. They bent our tow hitch and mangled their cars but our ML is still original paint all around.

My wife is very big on MPG after our CT200h purchase so she won't let me get a QX56 which is what I really want for the family. So we have narrowed it to a 2008+ R350 as Mercedes has fixed some known issues with the suspension and rear door mechanism. They made the R500 and R63 AMG model only up till 2007 but I do not want a gas guzzling minivan with 500hp! haha

here's what I learned from an expert:

All 08-10 R have the AMG bumpers standard.
AMG pack on 08+ cars only gives you 20" AMG wheels- nothing related to suspension. (so this could be added after the fact without too much trouble)
Optional suspension pack on R Class cars gives you air suspension with adjustable height and sport and comfort modes.

Keep in mind that the 7th seat option can be retrofitted (for about $950) on 06-07 cars. Only get the 08+ if you don't want/need the V8 as they only made the V8 versions (R500 and R63) in 2006-7. If you don't care for the V8 then get at least an 08 or newer as that's when MB made a few changes (for the better/ some for the worse) from those years on. One small negative I've observed on 08+ models is the third row armrest is hard plastic vs. stitched vinyl/leather (depending on model) on the 06-7 models. But they made some adjustments to the power trunk which had issues on the earlier models and some other stuff that most won't notice.

Anyways finding a low mileage one owner car with documented history is not easy as I found out. Few people mod them but I have found a few very cool looking rides on the forums, my favorite being this one: (also my favorite color!)

 

[Yinzer]

Something else that may or may not be worth a look at is the new Hyundai Santa Fe. It looks like direct competition for the R. Not sure I'm willing to buy a Hyundai yet, but I'm sure the warranty is better.

I rented a brand-new Santa Fe for work this week. Woefully underpowered and full of blind spots due to the stylized & thick pillars, giving a very disconcerting feel even after 5 days to try to get used to. Strange new-agey wind chimes that sound off during start up and key-off, which felt out of place from the start and got more annoyingly unnecessary as the days passed. When I had to run out from the airport while carrying a heavy bag to get the car's mileage, upon key-on, the dash's LCD used the entire display to show a "door open" graphic and refused to show the odo or any other info until you got in and shut the door, with no clear indication of whether it was showing the trip or total odo. Features that seemed more like the result of busy-body designers and non-car-people marketing types than things that customers would wish for. Temperature selection via rocker switch that was hard to press assuredly with thick winter gloves and didn't provide a clear indication of temp setting until you played with things and figured it out. I guess this is what happens when your favorite car was designed nearly 30 years ago and the last time I shopped for a new car was 2002.

Are some of these features typical to Hyundai's nowadays?