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Comment by froggertoaster | Hacker News Reader

Very nice. Still not buying their cars until they get their long-term reliability and depreciation issues worked out.

Buy the latest year of a body style you can, each redesign means new modules and reliability problems are fixed with each new yearly revision. Then buy one that has depreciated most of the way already. 7-10 yr old is a sweet spot. C classes are kinda rickety imo. An E or S class is ideal. Lastly, if you get one that actually was maintained well, it shouldn't have any issues waiting to bite you.

Currently rocking a 2010 S400, immaculate interior and exterior. I'm all in for about 12k after repairs, would be closer to 16-18k if I paid someone to do the repairs. This vehicle won't depreciate more than $500 a year at this point. It's MSRP in 2010 was 113k.

I drove a 2022 Volvo S60 t8 recharge for a little bit earlier this year, the 13 year old s-class drives better and has nicer features...

Of course this is all moot if you're trying to buy very new models, in that case, you gotta love blowing money. Hah

Im happy i live a life without the need of a car and without needing to spend this mental energy

Those are precisely the sources of revenue that allow bonuses to be paid out to workers.

Won't support a car company that can't make good cars.

Family has been long-time Mercedes owners since the mid-80s. Our MB diesels have been phenomenally reliably over that time period and the last one I owned (a '98 W210 E300D owned from 2005 through 2016) was by far the lowest maintenance car of my life until I bought an electric. The only non-routine repairs in twelve years were three window regulators (absolutely a part that should ~ never fail) and one preheater ("glow plug") that failed, so I replaced all six.

Depreciation issues are great; it means that (in normal times) I can buy a 4-6 year old MB for a fraction of the new price and enjoy it for a decade or more, because of its good long-term reliability.

Good thing you have not bought a recent one with the OM651 diesel engine.

I'm passively looking a om642 320cdi. They're incredible cars and a decent one can be had for less than 8k.

I don't know, but just tried to find some stats about which are the cars with the highest depreciation. Of course, the lists you find on various do not agree with each other, but what seems to be common across the board is that there is a pretty strong mix of all kinds of different car brands. It's not like Mercedes is standing out in any way on the lists I was able to google.

With reliability lists, it's slightly different, in that you see the name Toyota multiple times towards the top of the lists. Mercedes is nowhere to be found in that area, but at the same time, it's not like the bottom places are all taken by them either. It's a mix, again.

Dont worry bmw and audi are in the same boat i dont understand why people think these are good cars.

Because historically they have been, comparatively to other brands.

They're getting to be far too complex to be reliable, and too much attention is paid to short term profits (IMO), so we get what we have now.

Historically they have been but most innovation at least from bmw comes from slapping extra turbos to chase ever increasing bhp. Interiors are mainly the same but with updated instrument clusters and redesigned exteriors. Not groundbreaking i think what is happening is too much attention to short term profits and forcing customers to refresh their cars every few years. Literally after they out of warranty bmws fall apart not to mention mercedeses that fall apparent even within warranty (the m and s class do).

BMW has never had great longevity. They're mostly fine for 100k miles, but people expect cars to last much longer than that now. Old BMWs have solid reputation as a money pit.

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