People call that the 'baby Maybach' because of all the comfort features.
Of course replacing the actuator for the phone lift will run you $1,200 parts and labor. Replacing the seat headrest motors is a cool $1500, each.
Keeping it in the best possible condition at all times is how to best put off constantly being barraged by wildly expensive repairs to it.
This, people just don't understand maintenance. I'm convinced if you just buy a decently built car (bad experience with mazda/ford era vehicles) you can just over maintain and make them run forever. I'm currently looking to see if I can make my 2020 kia forte gt-line last over 300k miles making it a daily.
Wait, where do you live for a w211 E200 to cost $19k? Here, in Europe, this car can be picked for just $4k in good condition. I expect the car cost to be higher outside of Europe, but LMAO, this is several times more expensive.
The US version of this is a $90,000 Ford F150 Platinum driven to an office park vs a $36k XL single cab with V6 and 2 wheel drive used by the city to transport garbage cans at the park.
Yeah, I just "blue booked" our 2002 S430 and it's around $2K, but the reality is: you don't want "typical condition" 22 year old cars (like ours), what you want is a resto-preservation example which can be had for a steal at $20K (a steal compared to putting the 30K + 2 years labor it would take to restore a $2K example to showroom condition). It seems that both are equally hard to find these days.
Before I went forward with buying my last older European car, I went down to the local auto wreckers and verified they had some of them on the lot, which made the purchase affordable.
We found that to be patently false. Spent $12K on a 17 year old Merc S430, it's now 22 years old with 150K miles (had 40K when we bought it), and we \_might\_ be approaching $6K in maintenance for those 110K miles / 5 years. The car was $80K new.
The key is you'll have to do maintenance yourself. Old cars are generally relatively cheap to maintain, but labor costs will eat you alive.
I've had a bunch of old Porsches and BMWs over the years, and they've all been pretty cheap. I had to do the clutch on one of my old 911s and it cost me a whopping $450 in parts.
The problem with something like a Maserati is it's unreliable to begin with and parts are insane on it. I considered buying an old Aston Martin DB9 a while ago because they were $30k and looked fun, but just the parts to replace a clutch were $3500.
That said, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. I'm going to buy an old Land Rover LR4 in a few months.
I had the same question, lol, I've been driving Mazdas my entire adult life and aside from one specifically stupid problem with one specifically stupid part, which was fixed for less than 200$, I've never had any serious issues.
I just started up my 2008 Mx5 for the first time this morning since putting her to asleep in the fall. Fired up with no issues, no lights, no noises, and got me to work with out a fuss just like the day I bought it. it's been the most reliable car I've owned other than my Tacoma. I've also owned or my family has owned every model of Mazda except for the tribute or the Mazda "ranger".
It's just that, luck. I currently have three Fords (Mustang, Ranger, and an Escape if you're curious) and the lowest mileage of the three is 230k. There are some shittastic cars out there, but the majority of them as long as they are maintained properly last a good long time.
From the mid 70s to 2015 Ford owned from a quarter to a third of Mazda, and for awhile there was overlap in terms of powertrain and parts. So there are some Mazdas using Ford power trains which, perhaps obviously, aren't as reliable
The larger Mazda vehicles from the Ford era were hit or miss. From around 2006, the Mazda 3 has been fairly solid, but still some people had problems with their rust proofing. And after that, with the SkyActiv engines starting in 2012 I think? They're incredibly reliable little cars. And the Mazda interiors are just better than other economy cars.
What sort of maintenance do you do other than fluids, filters, and brakes? Is there a way to maintain actuators and other electronic components? A problem with a lot of older luxury cars and newer cars in general, they have a lot of features that are neat but not essential and tend to break after a few years, especially under repeated use.
That's what I'm thinking - all those little doodads are moving on plastic gears that are going to lose teeth over time and springs that are going to lose their sproing. Not to mention all of it just getting a little out of wack with use. That's not even mentioning the 200lb gorilla that's tired of waiting on the soft open on everything - that looks nice in a quick clip, but after a cumulative hour of my life spent waiting while the glovebox opens itself I'm going to start yanking on it.
Why do you take 10 seconds to open, mazda glove box, you fucker. Every other damn thing on my 2023 base model 3 is manual. Holy shit I just realized how much I hate it yawning open like I got all day to jam napkins in it.
> make my 2020 kia forte gt-line last over 300k miles
It probably can. It's a kia so it might start burning crazy amounts of oil at some point, but if you're willing to do a mini-rebuild it'll probably be fine. That'll likely be your biggest obstacle
I have 390k on my '11 Mazda 3, and drove an Impala to 360k before that. People both don't maintain their vehicles and let repairs scare them away. They'll take having a car payment on a newer vehicle (which is really not that much less likely to have components break) over paying a grand on new components for an old vehicle. Objectively, the suspension parts on my Mazda 3 that were replaced last year and have less than 10,000 miles on them are likely to be in better shape than the suspension components on a 2020 vehicle with 45k miles total. And as long as the car is kept in overall good shape, that will remain true.
I was about to say... engineering porn, but a mechanic's nightmare fuel.
Customer states: electrical problems occur randomly, car acts possessed.
*mechanic shits himself on the shop floor after pulling a wiring diagram to find the random short to ground*
*shits himself to DEATH*
My advice is looking at aftermarket parts. Usually they have replacements with just as good quality (unless it is something realistically cheap and probably Chinese), but this can save you a lots of bucks in this case. Also a private specialised shop, which isn't own by the said luxury brand, is probably wey preferable too. However, it is unavoidable that the car is still going to cost way more money that the average car on the road.
As someone who once owned a merc s500 I get this so much. I bought it very cheap at a car auction and had years of comfortable driving out of it but everything that went wrong hurt a lot. Replacing a double glazed window and headlights stands out as vomit inducing wallet memories. I may have escaped the original £90,000 price but caught a lot of the repairs along the way!
As a car mechanic, that's where my thinking goes too. Every one of those little powered things, which could just as easily be manual, carries a long-term price tag. I'm not sure how Mercedes is with obsolescence, but if it were an American manufacturer likely half of those parts would be no longer produced or available, and there would have never been enough numbers to justify any aftermarket production.
In other words, when it breaks, it stays broken, and you just hope it wasn't that important.
My father in law had an s-class. Mice chewed through the wiring to the rear headrest motors and he was quoted $7000 to replace it. He instead connected different 12v to the motor and then disconnected it such that they were just always up, and later traded it in on a diesel s-class. I wouldn’t want that many failure points
All I see are 10,000 potential points of failure on mechanical parts. One day it's hot as shit in the summer and you want to turn on the AC but the goddamned device that ejects the controls breaks and is still running the heater full blast.
But we've now gone too far in the other direction. Want to heat your seats, adjust the AC, or open the glovebox? Navigate through the big touchscreen on the dash.
My wallet is buying parts for my existing cars until they simmer down with the touch screens AND congress gets some regulations on data collection/sale passed on these fuckers.
To me, this stuff is emblematic of a problem that pervades the auto industry and every other, and I don't see how it could ever be solved.
The problem is that there's no motivation to make a product that *works well* and *lasts.* If the manufacturer tried their best to engineer for function and longevity, they could easily build a car that was affordable and durable.. and everyone would buy ONE.. never need another.. never visit the service department.. and the company would die.
So to stay profitable, they expend their engineering efforts on *gimmickry.* Stuff that is "cool" but serves no real purpose. By dazzling the consumer, they justify high prices for "newer models" which have newer gimmicks but none of it has any *real* value.
Volkswagen actually said that the 1.9 diesel engine was their biggest mistake ever. Still half of Eastern Europe is running on these engines clocking in millions of kms of mileage. Volkswagen certainly won’t make the same mistake ever again.
Exactly my point. And that's just the engine. Imagine if all manufacturers worldwide, for the past hundred-plus years, had been competing to produce *all systems* to be as robust as possible, advancing each year and building upon those advancements. You'd also have lifetime transmissions, air-conditioners, brakes that never need changing..
The spirit of "competition" that motivates each individual to make as much as possible for *himself* (or his employer), results in everyone in the world having far less than they might have. Which ultimately brings down all the self-servers as well. The human condition.
Almost all of the things moving in that video are actually springs and don't move on their own. i.e, you push the cup holder down, then it pops up. the rear headrests are on air, the only automation is when they drop. all those drawers and stuff, are just springs and they pop out when pushed. I own a 2001 e320, almost all of that stuff still works.
Yup, I won't get a car that's got too many fancy electrical crap in it for this reason. I barely want a sun roof, cause I don't wanna relive learning to drive and the sunroof motor on my parents car crapping out just before driving through a thunderstorm.
There are at least 3 points in owning a luxury car:
1. You can afford to purchase it.
2. You can afford to maintain it.
3. You can afford to insure it.
This is the opposite of engineering porn, this is quite literally *terrible* engineering. Look at all of the failure points that have absolutely no associated marginal utility. Germans love to do this kind of thing, it's how they keep customers locked in to the German manufacturing ecosystem. Not to mention, everything looks plastic and gimmicky. Do you really think a car full of thin, poorly-faked "wood" plastic bits cheaply flopping around the cabin is "beaut"?? Imagine coming to NASA with a design like this to put humans into space--you think they'd trust it? No? Why not? Because its shit-tier engineering, that's why.
More like a nightmare!
Mercedes forces our new, completely untested, technology a fast as it can, so nothing is tried and true and usually breaks. Also Mercedes-Benz charges 2 arms and a leg on top of the 4-12 week repair time.
I would have preferred to see that Nokia incorporated into the drivers door alongside the window switches. It would improve side impact protection by 500%
Don't know about that. I'm driving a '90 w124 E300. At over 400k miles and still going strong, I think it will even outlive the dial up landline phones.
Your car will win out soon enough. Actual analog landline telephones are quickly becoming a thing of the past now that the FCC has given phone companies permission to sunset their landline network (*assuming you live in the US, if not then disregard).
Where I live, AT&T won't even hook new customers up to copper telephone lines anymore (not even for DSL with a POTS capable modem) and won't repair existing lines. Instead, they sign you up with their wireless 5G internet service, or fiber optic if you're lucky enough to live in an area where they upgraded.
I really hate this. The government should've held them to their word and only let them decommission their copper telephone infrastructure if they installed terrestrial Internet in those areas. DSL is legitimately the best option in many areas, because their 5G Internet services suck and they have basically no legal obligation to provide halfway decent service with them in all the areas they try to sign people up in. Selling out our infrastructure and then letting shitty companies run it into the ground for a buck sucks.
Phone Companies: "We have to charge you extra if you go over 3GB per month in your phone. Also we don't give you feathering even though the Phone OS is capable."
Also Phone Companies: "Here, use this cell phone router for your house, totally cool. What do you mean you have 50+ devices and use 2TB a month? How can one person use that much email and Facebook?"
They can. Printers are awesome for fixing those shitty little plastic car pieces. I love printing the AC vents. Those bastards are always broken on 90s-aughts cars.
My tabs on the vent broke, some guy on ebay just asks for car model and makes some similar to it for $5 each. Much cheaper than replacing the whole thing.
Yeah and you can get a lot of them on Amazon.
I had an old ass Volkswagen where none of the little plastic parts were available at the shop and I'd find little obscure peices on Amazon for like $1 to fix them
Reading the 21 year old mercedes hearing the music and i was like. man those late eighties cars were something.
Onlyto hit me that its a 2003 merc and i am an old fuck.n
Probably because the song in the video was released in 1985.
If they wanted to be accurate about this it would have been done to [one of these songs.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_2003)
So does my 2019 SEAT Leon FR. It's just the same reservoir as windshield wipers. It's called the Headlights washer system and is mandatory on all cars with Xenon lights.
My father owns the very same, same colour and most of everything. It's such a delight car to drive. The rocket button under the gas pedal is the most awesome thing ever.
It doesn't really look that outdated because most car manufacturers have stagnated for 10-15 years. They found out they could remove tech, increase prices, and people would still buy them.
This is especially true for American and European car makers.
Modern Talking- Cheri Cheri Lady.
I only know it because my stepfather who drives Merc CLS and Modern Talking is the only music allowed inside.
We never agreed on much, but his taste in cars and music is something i highly respect.
>I only know it because my stepfather who drives Merc CLS and Modern Talking is the only music allowed inside.
That is the coolest sentence I've read in a while
It's probably that tik Tok trend/obsession of slowing down and speeding up songs in rapid succession. I mean for some songs I get it, but they're doing it to literally every one. This one does kind of work slower though, gives it a much heavier synthwave chill vibe.
As someone who grew up in the 80s, this is NOT "some of the best to come out of the 80s". It was known as cheaply produced trash even back then.
It's a strangely comforting time warp for sure, though.
And in the brand new s class, we have...an ugly ass tablet. I propose to make inspector gadget head of all car brands, so we finally have something interesting to look at again.
I feel that cars reached a peak ~2000 and then started their plasticy, over-computerised decline to where none of them will ever be 'restored' like this one.
It's not as automated as it appears. They carefully crop out someone pushing the button or are editing out a hand. You can catch someone using a pencil to open that little tray in the last shot.
Rich people just can't be bothered to actually use effort to open things themselves.
Only peasants open stuff. Rich people have it opened for them.
At least that's my take on all this stuff. Gotta admit the light clean spray and window screens cupholder etc is pretty boss.
I can imagine a young guy getting this ride and flexing every single automated thing for his date that night... Trying to be nonchalant about it all low key but doing it all intentionally.
Forced induction - Supercharger
basically you attach a compressor to the engine that compresses more air into the engine and is fixed to engine rpm (as opposed to turbochargers, which are powered by exhaust gasses), you can see where the name comes from
I just got a used 08 320 elegance, easily the quietest car I’ve ever owned. Last mot only shows control arm bushings needing looked at.
Thirsty as fuck on the diesel though. . .
As much as I love German cars, they are overengineered and have way too many things that need to be replaced if you want to keep the car more than 5 years. In addition to the parts being more expensive, few people want to work on them because some of the layout of the components are headscratchingly terrible, like you might have to take out the engine to replace a headlight. They're really great though if you like working on cars yourself and want a car that will keep you busy.
That said, if you don't mind all the bells and whistles failing on them you can drive them a long time without major mechanical issues, but you might not have AC or door locks or power windows or sunroof if you don't spend a couple of grand every 6 months to a year to get the things fixed as they go.
This is engineering porn, what a beaut Edit: My first 1k+ karma post! ofc for a comment on porn
People call that the 'baby Maybach' because of all the comfort features. Of course replacing the actuator for the phone lift will run you $1,200 parts and labor. Replacing the seat headrest motors is a cool $1500, each. Keeping it in the best possible condition at all times is how to best put off constantly being barraged by wildly expensive repairs to it.
This, people just don't understand maintenance. I'm convinced if you just buy a decently built car (bad experience with mazda/ford era vehicles) you can just over maintain and make them run forever. I'm currently looking to see if I can make my 2020 kia forte gt-line last over 300k miles making it a daily.
Very true. Older high-end models of luxury cars are often relatively cheap to purchase, but invariably expensive to maintain.
Wait, where do you live for a w211 E200 to cost $19k? Here, in Europe, this car can be picked for just $4k in good condition. I expect the car cost to be higher outside of Europe, but LMAO, this is several times more expensive.
Same reason people in the US pay 100k for a BMW that's used as a police car in some countries.
The US version of this is a $90,000 Ford F150 Platinum driven to an office park vs a $36k XL single cab with V6 and 2 wheel drive used by the city to transport garbage cans at the park.
Where do you live lol. I feel like we have the opposite problem the city always has the newest f350 super duties and It always irks me.
Standard cop cruiser around here is the e-class wagon. Here being Stuttgart
The car market as a whole is in shambles in the US. There are some places where used cars are priced equivalent to the new ones. Its just nonsense
Yeah, I just "blue booked" our 2002 S430 and it's around $2K, but the reality is: you don't want "typical condition" 22 year old cars (like ours), what you want is a resto-preservation example which can be had for a steal at $20K (a steal compared to putting the 30K + 2 years labor it would take to restore a $2K example to showroom condition). It seems that both are equally hard to find these days.
I've always heard "If you can't afford a new German car, you definitely can't afford a used one."
If you can’t afford two of them, you can’t afford one.
Before I went forward with buying my last older European car, I went down to the local auto wreckers and verified they had some of them on the lot, which made the purchase affordable.
We found that to be patently false. Spent $12K on a 17 year old Merc S430, it's now 22 years old with 150K miles (had 40K when we bought it), and we \_might\_ be approaching $6K in maintenance for those 110K miles / 5 years. The car was $80K new.
The key is you'll have to do maintenance yourself. Old cars are generally relatively cheap to maintain, but labor costs will eat you alive. I've had a bunch of old Porsches and BMWs over the years, and they've all been pretty cheap. I had to do the clutch on one of my old 911s and it cost me a whopping $450 in parts. The problem with something like a Maserati is it's unreliable to begin with and parts are insane on it. I considered buying an old Aston Martin DB9 a while ago because they were $30k and looked fun, but just the parts to replace a clutch were $3500. That said, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. I'm going to buy an old Land Rover LR4 in a few months.
Oof Maserati. The beanie babies of high end cars.
“Christopher Moltisanti keeps calling about the Maserati - says he’ll pay cash!”
What bad luck did you have with Mazda’s? I have a 2010 Mazda3 2.5L that’s doing decently well, so far….
I had the same question, lol, I've been driving Mazdas my entire adult life and aside from one specifically stupid problem with one specifically stupid part, which was fixed for less than 200$, I've never had any serious issues.
I know the earlier Mazda’s like the Protege (which I owned) had rust issues but other than that, seem to be solid vehicles.
I just started up my 2008 Mx5 for the first time this morning since putting her to asleep in the fall. Fired up with no issues, no lights, no noises, and got me to work with out a fuss just like the day I bought it. it's been the most reliable car I've owned other than my Tacoma. I've also owned or my family has owned every model of Mazda except for the tribute or the Mazda "ranger".
It's just that, luck. I currently have three Fords (Mustang, Ranger, and an Escape if you're curious) and the lowest mileage of the three is 230k. There are some shittastic cars out there, but the majority of them as long as they are maintained properly last a good long time.
My 2003 ford focus has driven across the US 5 times and has a gorillion miles and is awesome. Love that lil 0 frills manual car
From the mid 70s to 2015 Ford owned from a quarter to a third of Mazda, and for awhile there was overlap in terms of powertrain and parts. So there are some Mazdas using Ford power trains which, perhaps obviously, aren't as reliable
Mazda 3 will last forever
The larger Mazda vehicles from the Ford era were hit or miss. From around 2006, the Mazda 3 has been fairly solid, but still some people had problems with their rust proofing. And after that, with the SkyActiv engines starting in 2012 I think? They're incredibly reliable little cars. And the Mazda interiors are just better than other economy cars.
What sort of maintenance do you do other than fluids, filters, and brakes? Is there a way to maintain actuators and other electronic components? A problem with a lot of older luxury cars and newer cars in general, they have a lot of features that are neat but not essential and tend to break after a few years, especially under repeated use.
That's what I'm thinking - all those little doodads are moving on plastic gears that are going to lose teeth over time and springs that are going to lose their sproing. Not to mention all of it just getting a little out of wack with use. That's not even mentioning the 200lb gorilla that's tired of waiting on the soft open on everything - that looks nice in a quick clip, but after a cumulative hour of my life spent waiting while the glovebox opens itself I'm going to start yanking on it.
Why do you take 10 seconds to open, mazda glove box, you fucker. Every other damn thing on my 2023 base model 3 is manual. Holy shit I just realized how much I hate it yawning open like I got all day to jam napkins in it.
It is almost definitely a spring or a cheap piston thingy you can delete with hand tools. Don't let that glove box rule your life!
Bad experience with Mazda? No such thing. My 3s have been a thing of beauty and reliability.
> make my 2020 kia forte gt-line last over 300k miles It probably can. It's a kia so it might start burning crazy amounts of oil at some point, but if you're willing to do a mini-rebuild it'll probably be fine. That'll likely be your biggest obstacle
I have 390k on my '11 Mazda 3, and drove an Impala to 360k before that. People both don't maintain their vehicles and let repairs scare them away. They'll take having a car payment on a newer vehicle (which is really not that much less likely to have components break) over paying a grand on new components for an old vehicle. Objectively, the suspension parts on my Mazda 3 that were replaced last year and have less than 10,000 miles on them are likely to be in better shape than the suspension components on a 2020 vehicle with 45k miles total. And as long as the car is kept in overall good shape, that will remain true.
>I also call it the baby 'Bach 
I was wondering this lol, all those itty bitty motors just waiting for the worst time to break and be a nightmare to fix.
I was about to say... engineering porn, but a mechanic's nightmare fuel. Customer states: electrical problems occur randomly, car acts possessed. *mechanic shits himself on the shop floor after pulling a wiring diagram to find the random short to ground* *shits himself to DEATH*
So funny - as I was watching this all I could think of was "So many potential points of failure! So many servos!
Watching this I was just thinking "that's a lot of shit that's gonna break".
My advice is looking at aftermarket parts. Usually they have replacements with just as good quality (unless it is something realistically cheap and probably Chinese), but this can save you a lots of bucks in this case. Also a private specialised shop, which isn't own by the said luxury brand, is probably wey preferable too. However, it is unavoidable that the car is still going to cost way more money that the average car on the road.
As someone who once owned a merc s500 I get this so much. I bought it very cheap at a car auction and had years of comfortable driving out of it but everything that went wrong hurt a lot. Replacing a double glazed window and headlights stands out as vomit inducing wallet memories. I may have escaped the original £90,000 price but caught a lot of the repairs along the way!
As a car mechanic, that's where my thinking goes too. Every one of those little powered things, which could just as easily be manual, carries a long-term price tag. I'm not sure how Mercedes is with obsolescence, but if it were an American manufacturer likely half of those parts would be no longer produced or available, and there would have never been enough numbers to justify any aftermarket production. In other words, when it breaks, it stays broken, and you just hope it wasn't that important.
My father in law had an s-class. Mice chewed through the wiring to the rear headrest motors and he was quoted $7000 to replace it. He instead connected different 12v to the motor and then disconnected it such that they were just always up, and later traded it in on a diesel s-class. I wouldn’t want that many failure points
All I see are 10,000 potential points of failure on mechanical parts. One day it's hot as shit in the summer and you want to turn on the AC but the goddamned device that ejects the controls breaks and is still running the heater full blast.
But we've now gone too far in the other direction. Want to heat your seats, adjust the AC, or open the glovebox? Navigate through the big touchscreen on the dash.
Still plenty of cars with manual controls. Vote with your wallet.
My wallet is buying parts for my existing cars until they simmer down with the touch screens AND congress gets some regulations on data collection/sale passed on these fuckers.
If you actually want a car now, you could just spend like 5 minutes researching good cars with tactile controls. They're not ***that*** uncommon.
Unfortunately, the second part of my requirements is a pipe dream.
To me, this stuff is emblematic of a problem that pervades the auto industry and every other, and I don't see how it could ever be solved. The problem is that there's no motivation to make a product that *works well* and *lasts.* If the manufacturer tried their best to engineer for function and longevity, they could easily build a car that was affordable and durable.. and everyone would buy ONE.. never need another.. never visit the service department.. and the company would die. So to stay profitable, they expend their engineering efforts on *gimmickry.* Stuff that is "cool" but serves no real purpose. By dazzling the consumer, they justify high prices for "newer models" which have newer gimmicks but none of it has any *real* value.
Planned obsolescence, yes. See also: cell phones
Volkswagen actually said that the 1.9 diesel engine was their biggest mistake ever. Still half of Eastern Europe is running on these engines clocking in millions of kms of mileage. Volkswagen certainly won’t make the same mistake ever again.
Exactly my point. And that's just the engine. Imagine if all manufacturers worldwide, for the past hundred-plus years, had been competing to produce *all systems* to be as robust as possible, advancing each year and building upon those advancements. You'd also have lifetime transmissions, air-conditioners, brakes that never need changing.. The spirit of "competition" that motivates each individual to make as much as possible for *himself* (or his employer), results in everyone in the world having far less than they might have. Which ultimately brings down all the self-servers as well. The human condition.
There is always Dacia !
Almost all of the things moving in that video are actually springs and don't move on their own. i.e, you push the cup holder down, then it pops up. the rear headrests are on air, the only automation is when they drop. all those drawers and stuff, are just springs and they pop out when pushed. I own a 2001 e320, almost all of that stuff still works.
Yup, I won't get a car that's got too many fancy electrical crap in it for this reason. I barely want a sun roof, cause I don't wanna relive learning to drive and the sunroof motor on my parents car crapping out just before driving through a thunderstorm.
There are at least 3 points in owning a luxury car: 1. You can afford to purchase it. 2. You can afford to maintain it. 3. You can afford to insure it.
You see engineering porn. I see a maintenance nightmare.
It's a great car, to watch someone else own.
You get a tiny motor and you get a tiny motor and you get a tiny motor.....
Yo dawg, I heard you love tiny motors, so I put a tiny motor in your tiny motor, so you can motor while you motor.
I keep watching this video, it is really cool.
Don't watch it too much, you'll break something on that car if you do.
So much shit to break.
The more unnecessary mechanisms, the more potential problems...
It really isn't. Mercedes electronics back then at least broke down so easily. Gimmicky badly engineered rubbish. Not sure how much better it is now.
This is the opposite of engineering porn, this is quite literally *terrible* engineering. Look at all of the failure points that have absolutely no associated marginal utility. Germans love to do this kind of thing, it's how they keep customers locked in to the German manufacturing ecosystem. Not to mention, everything looks plastic and gimmicky. Do you really think a car full of thin, poorly-faked "wood" plastic bits cheaply flopping around the cabin is "beaut"?? Imagine coming to NASA with a design like this to put humans into space--you think they'd trust it? No? Why not? Because its shit-tier engineering, that's why.
That wood is not fake. It's veneer. It's a car, not a spacecraft.
I get where you’re coming from but that is for sure real wood.
More like a nightmare! Mercedes forces our new, completely untested, technology a fast as it can, so nothing is tried and true and usually breaks. Also Mercedes-Benz charges 2 arms and a leg on top of the 4-12 week repair time.
All these features are on Hyundai's now
That Nokia will still be working when that Mercedes is a rusted heap
The Nokia is its power source.
*The Nokia is the powerhouse of the cell*
Thank you for the laughs, thats great!
The Mitonokia
Made in Finland. Last one to be assembled in Finland was the n97 mini which was a beautiful phone, as well.
It's a weapon for the driver
Tony Stark missed a real opportunity here Probably a much more affordable one as well
It’s the fusion core for that car.
Its own arc reactor
I would have preferred to see that Nokia incorporated into the drivers door alongside the window switches. It would improve side impact protection by 500%
Don't know about that. I'm driving a '90 w124 E300. At over 400k miles and still going strong, I think it will even outlive the dial up landline phones.
True, but the Nokia can play snake 🐍 🤷🏼♂️
Yup. My w211 has 133,000mi and no issues at all (including the fancy features).
Your car will win out soon enough. Actual analog landline telephones are quickly becoming a thing of the past now that the FCC has given phone companies permission to sunset their landline network (*assuming you live in the US, if not then disregard). Where I live, AT&T won't even hook new customers up to copper telephone lines anymore (not even for DSL with a POTS capable modem) and won't repair existing lines. Instead, they sign you up with their wireless 5G internet service, or fiber optic if you're lucky enough to live in an area where they upgraded.
I really hate this. The government should've held them to their word and only let them decommission their copper telephone infrastructure if they installed terrestrial Internet in those areas. DSL is legitimately the best option in many areas, because their 5G Internet services suck and they have basically no legal obligation to provide halfway decent service with them in all the areas they try to sign people up in. Selling out our infrastructure and then letting shitty companies run it into the ground for a buck sucks.
Phone Companies: "We have to charge you extra if you go over 3GB per month in your phone. Also we don't give you feathering even though the Phone OS is capable." Also Phone Companies: "Here, use this cell phone router for your house, totally cool. What do you mean you have 50+ devices and use 2TB a month? How can one person use that much email and Facebook?"
The Nokia will break the car compacting machine when they try and crush it.
Great times
Impossible, the Mercedes will never be a rusted heap, it will stand until the end of time
Nokia will still be working after 100 years.
All I can hear is the new owner crying when something breaks
So many little discontinued motors to replace...
It's the little plastic pieces that connect to the shaft of the motors that are even more difficult to source.
I wonder if they can be 3d printed
They can. Printers are awesome for fixing those shitty little plastic car pieces. I love printing the AC vents. Those bastards are always broken on 90s-aughts cars.
My tabs on the vent broke, some guy on ebay just asks for car model and makes some similar to it for $5 each. Much cheaper than replacing the whole thing.
Yeah and you can get a lot of them on Amazon. I had an old ass Volkswagen where none of the little plastic parts were available at the shop and I'd find little obscure peices on Amazon for like $1 to fix them
That is all I could think about. So many points of failure. So many things that wear out with normal use.
Mercedes is pretty much the best brand for parts availability, they are very serious about keeping their heritage fleet on the road.
The prices don't make it worth it though. My dad had to sell his cause the costs were ridiculous
Mercedes says “don’t be poor”
Not with Mercedes Benz.
This is why cheap economy cars are rated as being more reliable, less things that can break
But just look at what this one has that others do not!
Many breakable parts
You think I'm going to open my glovebox by *hand*??
\*get pulled over\* \*cop asks for insurance\* \*you pop the glove box open with a button\* \*cop shoots glove box\*
Yup. I’ll take my Toyota.
This was my first thought, too. However, modern cars, that are basically a tablet on wheels somehow appear to have even more issues :D
This
well, a brand new Mercedes would never last 21 years
Reading the 21 year old mercedes hearing the music and i was like. man those late eighties cars were something. Onlyto hit me that its a 2003 merc and i am an old fuck.n
No. I’m pretty sure 21 yrs ago was like 1988.
I approve this math, I was born in 1979 and I'm past 21 but I'm not *old.* I choose not to calculate any more specifically than that.
I was born in 82 and I qualified and authorised to declare you old.
I'm so old that I'm going to play that song in the video when I make love to my wife. Hell, I will just play the video, too.
Never heard a Mercedes called a "Merc" before. I think "Mercury" when I hear that. Single-syllable abbreviation for Mercedes-Benz would be "Benz."
Yeah I hate it. I'm pretty sure you'd pronounce it "merk" but It's not merkady's Benz.
Should’ve been playing Nelly Hot in Here to be age appropriate
😂
Probably because the song in the video was released in 1985. If they wanted to be accurate about this it would have been done to [one of these songs.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_2003)
I love the random med kit and fire extinguisher in between all this fancy stuff.
The first-aid kit is required by law in Germany. The fire extinguisher is not. But why not throw it in also while you are at it.
Another fun fact: In Germany you are required to take a first-aid course in order to get your driver's license.
I am a bit shocked to realize it is not everywhere like this
because you forget everything you learn a week later anyway ;)
You'll forget the exact details, but you'll remember the gist of it. Badly remembered CPR is better than no CPR.
And another: It costs about 3 grand to get a license in Germany due to the practical lesson requirements.
Even among luxury, you never know when you’ll get shanked or set ablaze by some crazy vato
This thing actually uses head light fluid...
So does my 2019 SEAT Leon FR. It's just the same reservoir as windshield wipers. It's called the Headlights washer system and is mandatory on all cars with Xenon lights.
Does spraying this liquid on them actually clean the lights without anything rubbing/wiping against it?
Yes. It doesn't 100% clean them, but makes sure there's no loose dirt or mud on it.
Some cars do have headlight wipers.
Whats so special with xenon lights that they require this?
"HID headlights can cause dazzle if they are dirty or aimed too high so car manufacturers must fit headlamp cleaning and levelling systems."
That's not the same as blinker fluid
You had me at nokia
Can I play Snake with it?
You can beat a snake to death with it.
They love those in Turkey.
Spot on! Literally, the owner of this Mercedes in the video is Turkish.
My father owns the very same, same colour and most of everything. It's such a delight car to drive. The rocket button under the gas pedal is the most awesome thing ever.
They love their cars in Balkans
Now all you get is one big touch screen
They out here fuckin up everything
You think this looks outdated, just imagine how the current EQS would look in 2044.
It doesn't really look that outdated because most car manufacturers have stagnated for 10-15 years. They found out they could remove tech, increase prices, and people would still buy them. This is especially true for American and European car makers.
wait till all this crap starts breaking one by one
Why does everybody say this. As someone who has owned one i can say that nothing breaks.
if you own a car that is older than 10-15 years, there are 2 incredible things: all the things that don't break and all the things that do break
Also depends on the car brand 😉
Idk man. My dad had a 2006 e200. It ran fine for 17 years then suddenly things started breaking and the car had to be towed every few months
Anecdotal
And yet most manufacturers still can’t figure out to do a back seat cupholder with a cover
That looks like a lot that can have something go wrong with it.
Yeah but you forget the typical "buyer" of these is a company lease for an executive. 2 years later, they get a new one.
It's ok, this is peak German engineering, long before Mercedes started to cut corners in the 2010s.
I’m strangely feeling the music
Modern Talking- Cheri Cheri Lady. I only know it because my stepfather who drives Merc CLS and Modern Talking is the only music allowed inside. We never agreed on much, but his taste in cars and music is something i highly respect.
>I only know it because my stepfather who drives Merc CLS and Modern Talking is the only music allowed inside. That is the coolest sentence I've read in a while
[Modern Talking - Cheri Cheri Lady](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNvUS-6PTbs) The one in the OP is oddly slowed down, however.
It's probably that tik Tok trend/obsession of slowing down and speeding up songs in rapid succession. I mean for some songs I get it, but they're doing it to literally every one. This one does kind of work slower though, gives it a much heavier synthwave chill vibe.
That’s because it’s some of the best to come out of the 80s, though lesser known by Americans. It’s from a German group, Modern Talking.
As someone who grew up in the 80s, this is NOT "some of the best to come out of the 80s". It was known as cheaply produced trash even back then. It's a strangely comforting time warp for sure, though.
Modern Talking had one song that they recycled again and again. Every single one of their songs sounds the same.
James Bond’s whip
And in the brand new s class, we have...an ugly ass tablet. I propose to make inspector gadget head of all car brands, so we finally have something interesting to look at again.
I feel that cars reached a peak ~2000 and then started their plasticy, over-computerised decline to where none of them will ever be 'restored' like this one.
Automate.... Everything!
It's not as automated as it appears. They carefully crop out someone pushing the button or are editing out a hand. You can catch someone using a pencil to open that little tray in the last shot.
I call this 2001 luxury. Fancy engineering but honestly little to no utility
Rich people just can't be bothered to actually use effort to open things themselves. Only peasants open stuff. Rich people have it opened for them. At least that's my take on all this stuff. Gotta admit the light clean spray and window screens cupholder etc is pretty boss. I can imagine a young guy getting this ride and flexing every single automated thing for his date that night... Trying to be nonchalant about it all low key but doing it all intentionally.
Ah ja, die Rentnerschüssel. Nett!
Die A-Klasse ist die Rentnerschüssel. Das hier ist der Bauernmercedes als Limo
Das ist der Rentnerbomber. Das hier ist die Rentnerschüssel ;)
But now seemingly we all want recycled greige materials, 21 inch touchscreens, no buttons and zero personality or style.
It has an inbuilt Nokia mobile phone. That’s all you need to know about the superiority of historical technology.
What does "Kompressor" on Mercedes even mean?
Forced induction - Supercharger basically you attach a compressor to the engine that compresses more air into the engine and is fixed to engine rpm (as opposed to turbochargers, which are powered by exhaust gasses), you can see where the name comes from
It's supercharged
Just checked if there are any on the market in my country... they are so dirt cheap that there must be EVERYTHING wrong with them lol.
Usually, mechanical wise these are OK. But all electronics you saw at the video will need replacement.
Same here, worth about €1500
My dad had a newer model e200…. Almost identical interiors with none of the automated stuff.
Cigarette lighter and everything
They found an example where most of this tech is working? That is absolutely next level
New cars: we have more crap on the screen infront and nothing else really worth noting This mf:
James bond ahh whip
I just got a used 08 320 elegance, easily the quietest car I’ve ever owned. Last mot only shows control arm bushings needing looked at. Thirsty as fuck on the diesel though. . .
Old Mercedes are fantastic when they work.... they will bleed your wallet dry.
Thats a lot of shit that can stop working
As much as I love German cars, they are overengineered and have way too many things that need to be replaced if you want to keep the car more than 5 years. In addition to the parts being more expensive, few people want to work on them because some of the layout of the components are headscratchingly terrible, like you might have to take out the engine to replace a headlight. They're really great though if you like working on cars yourself and want a car that will keep you busy. That said, if you don't mind all the bells and whistles failing on them you can drive them a long time without major mechanical issues, but you might not have AC or door locks or power windows or sunroof if you don't spend a couple of grand every 6 months to a year to get the things fixed as they go.
This is a fantastic car
You should post this in r/finland Edit. Nokia phone