Reliability Reliability Reliability
 

Hi all,

I recently graduated college and am starting a new job this Monday. I was planning on purchasing a new car in about 2-3 months time and have been doing some light research lately. My budget is ~$25,000-30,000 and so I have been checking out the 05-07 M-B C55 AMG. It seems like a great car on paper and all reviews have been fantastic. Unfortunately, I have also been hearing poor things about M-B reliability as a whole.

How does it translate in the AMG models? Are they any better, or even more prone to equipment breaking due to the extra power, tuning, etc? I can afford to do the regular maintenance on the car, but I definetly don't want to spend thousands of dollars on my car just to fix equipment that would last for over 100k miles on another car...

-Andrey

I'd like to know also.

I just posted a similar question in the SL forum.

What years are the worst?

for the most part the c55 is just a 203 with a n/a 5.5 crammed in it. its still a mean car for what it is but it still has a lot of usual mercedes problems like rear main seals and suspension bushings tearing and trans connector leaking. oh also the headlamps sometimes go out and there like $1k. i prefer the c32 being that it is much more a sleeper since the supercharged v6 is much quieter. both great cars that wont cost a whole lot to maintain. the number one thing i recommend, being a benz tech, is trans service every 30-40k miles. if your going to keep it for a good while keeping your transmission healthy is going to save you big money in the long run. of course there's still the likelyness that a speed sensor could go out on the electrical plate. but i could go on all day of what COULD happen to it. just buy a GOOD extended/aftermarket warranty and you'll be fine.