I hope he considered the cost of insurance too before he buys a car.
If you can’t afford premium fuel, you can’t afford a Lexus.
amen
About a century ago, someone asked Commodore Vanderbilt how much it cost to buy and to maintain a huge yacht such as his. The Commodore’s answer was, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford one”.
It really bothers me that a person buys a high priced car that requires premium fuel and uses regular. I like to run premium fuel in my old car–I’ve set the timing way up. It really gives me a pain when I visit Midnight Oil and Gasoline and siphon fuel from a car which should use premium only to find the owner has put in regular and then my car knocks! (I hope nobody takes this seriously.)
Carlos Cockburn, at EuroMotor Cars in Bethesda, is one of the exceptions to that rule. He knows Mercedes specs, or knows where to find the information.
I do have a funny story, though, about another sales rep that supports the rule.
Way back, when the earth was flat, my roommate wanted to buy a used Porsche from the local dealer. Because I owned an Alpha Romeo Spider, he asked me to accompany him.
We test drove the car, which included my time behind the wheel. It was fun to drive, but the clutch clearly was worn badly. It slipped terribly between shifts, and once in top gear, slipped continually.
I mentioned the slipping clutch to the sales rep, trying to phrase the issue politely … after all, we were in a Porsche showroom.
Without loosing a beat, the sales rep said, “Yeah, that’s a special feature to smooth out the manual transmission during a shift.”
I almost spit trying to hold back a sudden belly laugh.
I suggested to my roommate that he continue looking.
LOL, the standard “they are supposed to do that” reply is a classic.