@VOLVO-V70 and @PvtPublic, just ignore the post and have a happy holiday.
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Thanks, it helped me make a decision, Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Holidays to you too snd all!
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And the decision was ??
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See your state Farm Bureau for insurance. Here in Texas, it cut my rate in half.
With two 18 year old drivers at home $2,000 for insurance seems like a bargain but also a source of hope.
In a short time your kids will be “out of the house” attending college or trade school and while your checking account will take a dive paying for either, your insurance will also take a dive.
So instead of selling a fine, low mileage car for $5,000, maybe you should consider putting it “on the blocks” for a couple of years until your kids are off the policy?
And with MB switching their production from V8’s and V6’s to more efficient Turbo 4’s, this may be your last chance.
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We have both State Farm and farm bureau here. Different organization. I think the one is a coop.
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Im keeping the car, I still rarely drive it , although insurance is not much cheaper.
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My mercedes mechanic said if I took care of the car (which still smells like a new car inside) that is, to drive at least every week, etc… the German engine will last at least 300k miles.
The point I pondered was will I even last that long or be around until then.
One never know, do one? Favorite bumper sticker on an RV, I am spending my kids inheritance!
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Glad to hear you’re keeping it,
It’s a beautiful well made car and with MB’s international appeal, 3rd party parts should be available at a reasonable price for quite a while or at least until you decide to return it to MB for a full factory restoration. And with MB’s decision to switch their prior V6 models to turbo 4’s I suspect that the older “big displacement” models will become quite desirable.
$112 k new, then only $5000 22 years later? And just 60 k miles on it? In excellent condition. I wonder why the current value is only $5,000. Seems like it should be around $20 k in that condition. I wonder if OP put it on the market, what sort of offers they’d get? It seems like someone with a penchant for a luxury, or maybe just wanting to flip and make a profit, and some mechanical skills would scoop it up right away.
Perhaps it relates to the staggering costs when these cars need to be repaired?
You mean more than my 3 different sizes of crescent wrenches might be needed? 
I looked them up on EBay, $2000 is a bit on the low side, but not by much. One got bid up to around $5000. These are used cars with expensive repairs.
Various metric wrenches, plus an astoundingly huge expensive assortment of parts, would likely be necessary if you owned an old MB vehicle in need of repairs.
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Glad to hear your comments but really? $5,000 for a one owner luxury cruiser in great condition?
So $20,000 for an economy Hyundai, 4 cylinder with unproven CVT but long warranty vs luxury MB?
For the typical driver who’s priorities are mileage and reliabilty I’s agree that the Hyundai is the best choice but in this case it’s the MB.
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“18 year old kids” tells me that the driver is probably in their 50’s and looking at serious college/vocational training costs so does dumping the low mileage MB for an Elantra for $15,000 in debt make sense?
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Although based on the mileage it’s doubtful, maybe this is still a primary “commuter car” but even so it’s hard to imagine that the annual costs on the fully paid MB would exceed the annual cost of a new Hyundai.
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MB’s are international cars so replacement parts costs from 3rd partty suppliers are plentiful and inexpensive.
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Finally, 18 year olds have this habit of growing up, getting jobs and buying their own cars so, hopefull, within a few short years, the OP’s experience will see his insurance costs plummet.
Best wishes
After all, There is no replacement for displacement!
Joel, when i was in public accounting, i had a client who was looking to get more regular income from his investments. I suggested he go see a broker that specialized in municipal bonds. Client calls me the next day; “broker wants to know if i want bonds that expire before or after i do”.
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It’s worth little because it’s a 22-year old car and not a rare or collectible one
Full-size luxury sedans plummet in value very quickly
I’m just stating a fact
I really liked that model S-class . . . but I wouldn’t pay $20k for the car
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I bought this car for weekends, both wife and I drive electric cars to work (or did upto the pandemic) as electric cars get to drive on HOA lanes during rush hour traffic for free.
I got the $5k book value of the S-500 from Kelly Blue book.
At the mere 58k miles and maintenance done regularly by Mercedes mechanics, this car still drives like new and the inside still smells of new car. The mechanics tell me that these engines will easily last hundreds of thousands of future miles.
I bought the car cash, if you remember how it was in the late 90’s, I was senior management at Sun Microsystems so the price was no problem, in fact several of my engineers bought a couple of German cars too, have some regrets as I could have bought a condo somewhere in Florida with that money for sure.