Maxt

I am looking at buying a MB GWagon, its got a 3.5 liter inline 6 Turbo diesel. Is this a good Merc motor or a Turd? I wouldn't mind the gas model for the power, but apparently they are hard pressed to get more than 10 mpg real world mileage.

I also didn't know the Gwagons were so damn expensive either. But I do like it more than the Cayenne or the Srt8 Jeep.

1988RedT2

I doubt many people here are going to have any firsthand experience with the Gelandewagen. I thought the 350 was a V-6? And the 2010 review I just read said it was "new", so reliability is a crapshoot.



Congrats to you if you're considering a new one. I see they start north of 100 grand.

phinsup

The gas ones I heard around 10, the diesel around 15 to 17, but I haven't owned one so I don't know. Those things aren't exactly designed for milage. In general it's safe to assume a diesel counterpart will get about 50%+ more miles per gallon then the gas counterpart.



I'd browse around www.benzworld.org or even make a post and ask them.

Maxt

The one I can afford is a 96. The engine is inline 6, 3.5 litre that after some reading I found out is called the Rod bender and head gasket eater.

The Gwagon is a pretty rare bird up here so not much to even go look at.

phinsup

Don't buy any mercedes from the mid to late 90's, gas or diesel. Build quality was horrible. Even though the chrysler merger didn't happen until 1998, they had been exchanging information, etc, etc... like the ford/mazda situation.



Unfortunately rather then chrysler becoming more like mercedes, mercedes became more like chrysler. It was a total disaster. Mercedes engineers should have ignored everything chrysler said.



Things improved significantly in the early 2000's and are back to what they were in the 70's and 80's for the most part now.

Maxt

Its kinda funny, the worst vehicles I have had in the last decade for work were genuine Mercedes and the best were Dodges.. I had a 2005 and 2007 MB sprinter, the 05 first generation, the 07 second Generation, both complete pieces of ****. While the Cummins turbo diesel Dodges, have been nothing but 100% reliable. It seems MB should have learned from Dodge when it comes to trucks and diesels.

A mechanic friend of mine I talked to does somewhat reiterate what you said though, but basically says everything up to 2011 is bullshit, and MB was the best PRE 80. He really does not think much of them as a brand anymore saying Yugo quality with Cadillac price tags.

Hmm, I really like the G wagen though.. Maybe I should just build my own, Jeep wrangler with a cummins 4BT swap..

phinsup

Quality of the 2008-current models seems to be pretty good, keeping in mind that they are at the most only 3 years old at this point. If you are looking for something jeepish and diesel the old toyota land cruisers were available in diesel. One of the guys here at the marina has one, the thing is ******* awesome, I would buy it in a heartbeat if the price was right.

TYSON

Chrysler and mercedes was not a merger. Daimler was in charge.



No one was taking advice from Chrysler on how to build things, I know one of their factories that did not have anyone who's job it was to lubricate machinery.



All the chrysler employees here suddenly had daimlerchrysler emails addresses, in germany they were still just daimler. All the chrysler managers i had to deal with suddenly seemed to be making as much noise as possible to justify their existence.



i've been told by my colleagues out of germany mercedes build quality can't touch BMW build quality anyway when you go into the factories and see for yourself.

phinsup

You are correct it wasn't a merger it was a buy out. However I don't agree on the lack of information exchange, Daimler originally stated the reasons they bought chrysler were due to some of the technologies that chrysler had, most specifically their minivan success, which benz had yet to crack that market. Unfortunately minivans were out and SUV's were in.



If they shared no information at all then how did the Chrysler 300 end up with so many mercedes systems???? More then 50% of the parts on the Chrysler 300 had mercedes part numbers....... So there was obviously some exchange of information.



The engineers did work in some form together as the LY platform was developed in both Auburn Hills and Stuttgart. Granted Chrysler took more from mercedes and mercedes had already begun their slide prior to the chrysler buy out, but to say they didn't share any information isn't true.



The reality is Mercedes issues were due to rapid expansion which started in the early 90's and really came to a head with the Chrysler buy out...no matter how you slice it the Daimler-Chrysler years were a disaster. Whatever the reasons a regardless of whether or not any info exchange took place, it wasnt a good decision on daimlers behalf and whatever their intent it was a miserable failure which ended in Daimler selling the Chrysler arm and by all accounts the product improved since then.

phinsup

As far as BMW vs Mercedes I really don't know. I've never owned one and I don't follow BMW. I've never toured either factory and I doubt I'd be able to tell which made the better car if I did.



The only peeps I know that owned them now own different cars,