S Class opinions - petrol or diesel?

Ant84

Ant84

Ant84

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20 Feb 2007
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Looking to pick a few brains about the W221 S Class here. My dad and I have a small private hire travel business and are currently in the process of looking at potential cars to purchase for executive travel/chauffeur driven transport/weddings and the like.

Budget is around £15k and, having had a decent look already, the LWB S Class stands out as being probably the best choice in terms of prestige, comfort and quality. Seems like for our budget it's going to be between an S320L CDI or an S500L. Now I know the V8 will absolutely hammer the wallet in terms of fuel consumption but I've also read it's a bulletproof lump, unlike the seemingly hit and miss diesel option.

Most of the driving will be on the motorway and a quick skim over the Mercedes forums suggests the V8 is capable of 28mpg on the motorway with a gentle right foot, as opposed to around 40mpg in the diesel. If that's accurate, the diesel would save around £650 in fuel for every 10,000 miles the car is driven. That looks like a lot, but if that saving would be quickly eaten up by the usual modern diesel gremlins like turbos, injectors, DPF etc then the S500 starts to look like a no brainer.

Budget would likely achieve a pre-facelift 07 plate with around 60-80k on the clock, but I don't know an awful lot about them in truth so hopefully a few knowledgable guys on here can help me out.

Thoughts?
 
I'd think that you'd still probably be better off with the diesel due to lower servicing costs, lower tax and probably lower insurance. Also, it's not like it's guaranteed that all the diesel specific worries will occur and if they do, I'd have thought that you'd probably not meet them for quite a long time having had them fixed. Slightly better residuals in the diesel too?

Then there's the S350 somewhere in the middle ground, although this seems an uncommon engine.
 
Have you looked into leasing, finance a brand new one or something ?

I'm not 100% confident on a £15k S-Class from a business perspective...

LS460 with those reclining rear seats?
 
People hiring a car like that want to waft along. You'll be able to achieve reasonable fuel economy in the petrol.

Personally, I'd be going petrol, especially as you might want to drop 100-200k miles on the car dependant on use. You want simplicity in the mechanics.
 
All the S class private hire cars I see are diesel, which would make me think there's probably a good reason for that. Having said that, I'd probably get the petrol, but my love for large petrol barges is well known. :D
 
Conanius said:
People hiring a car like that want to waft along. You'll be able to achieve reasonable fuel economy in the petrol.

Personally, I'd be going petrol, especially as you might want to drop 100-200k miles on the car dependant on use. You want simplicity in the mechanics.
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This is exactly the reason I'd be going diesel. It sounds like you're likely to do decent miles and so there will be a very significant fuel saving. The people in the back won't care what fuel is in it unless it shakes on idle (which I'm guessing it won't). Any extra maintenance costs are likely to be more than absorbed by fuel savings.
 
What about a 5GT? Its probably going to be cheaper to run, I think you can get them from around £16k up.

Its based on a 7 series so its the same class of car, they all have a panoramic roof as standard and the rear seats recline a little. The boot is huge and there is a massive amount of head room in the back. If you buy it with under 60k mies on the the BMW warranty will not be too expensive.

Pictures here.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...arlynew,new/usedcars/model/5_series?logcode=p

Or even a 7 series
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif.../used,nearlynew,new/postcode/s105tz?logcode=p
 
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miniyazz said:
This is exactly the reason I'd be going diesel. It sounds like you're likely to do decent miles and so there will be a very significant fuel saving. The people in the back won't care what fuel is in it unless it shakes on idle (which I'm guessing it won't). Any extra maintenance costs are likely to be more than absorbed by fuel savings.
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But surely they won't be. We aren't talking about a Skoda Fabia 1.4 PD diesel engine. The cost to repair the injectors/turbo/etc will be huge.

I'd also be interested to know if the petrol was chain driven, and the diesel belt driven. That alone will be £hundreds to take into consideration.

When I bought my Discovery, I did the maths and the Petrol 4.4 V8 was a cheaper option than the Diesel 2.7.

The diesel might have got slightly better fuel economy, but the increased purchased price, more expensive fuel, requirement to do cam belt changes, difficulty in swapping out turbos, etc etc etc meant actually, the petrol was just about cheaper.
 
Conanius said:
But surely they won't be. We aren't talking about a Skoda Fabia 1.4 PD diesel engine. The cost to repair the injectors/turbo/etc will be huge.
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But assuming this car does what, 30k a year for private hire work, it's saving him almost £2000 in a year in fuel, £6000 over 3 years. Will the diesel specific repair work equal £6k over 3 years?
 
I'd forget the petrol, business is about profit and the burble of the V8 (albeit muted) would soon seem hardly worth the fuel saving.

A large ish diesel is in its element trudging up & down motorways, I would expect it to be - in this sort of useage - utterly reliable.

There is a very good reason you see diesel S Class cars doing this kind of work, its the same reason similar such cars turn up for sale with huge (for a car) mileage.

Whilst the petrol is the nicer drive, business sense surely dictates the diesel.
 
Dr House said:
What about a 5GT? Its probably going to be cheaper to run, I think you can get them from around £16k up.

Its based on a 7 series so its the same class of car, they all have a panoramic roof as standard and the rear seats recline a little. The boot is huge and there is a massive amount of head room in the back. If you buy it with under 60k mies on the the BMW warranty will not be too expensive.
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I think most of his customers would refuse to get in the car when it turns up! :p
 
Dr House said:
What about a 5GT? Its probably going to be cheaper to run, I think you can get them from around £16k up.

Its based on a 7 series so its the same class of car, they all have a panoramic roof as standard and the rear seats recline a little. The boot is huge and there is a massive amount of head room in the back. If you buy it with under 60k mies on the the BMW warranty will not be too expensive.
Click to expand...

njHLNE.gif
 
LOL, ok its not the best of looking cars but the 5GT give you S-Class / 7 Series luxury and more space for less money and probably cheaper servicing (assuming a S-Class is expensive to service)
 
Would you have a 5GT representing your business?

I can understand from a your own car pespective, but from a customer perspective it's just gonna be that GIF.
 
The whole ‘OMG the 5GT is a 7 Series’ thing is not really quite how people seem to portray it.

The 5 GT is a 5 Series hatchback – this is why it is badged as a 5GT and not a 7GT.

It is completely true that it platform shares with the 7 Series but this is because the 5 Series does as well. At the time the 5GT was released the F10 5 Series was not yet in production, the 5GT was the first of the new generation of 5 Series. Therefore, at the time, it sat in a model range which included the E60 5 Series and the F01 7 Series. At this point it was of course entirely true to say the 5GT was closer to the 7 than it was to the then current E60 – there didn’t yet exist the 5 Series it was truly based on as this was still being designed.

But once the F10 arrived in April 2010 this was no longer the case – the 5GT was now where it was intended to be all along, a hatchback version of the 5 Series. It is not a 7 Series class car and it never was – yes it component shares with the 7 Series but only because the F10 does as well.

Bottom line – the 5GT is an upmarket, hatchback version of the 5 Series. It is not a 7 Series or S Class segment car.
 
Fox maybe you are right, I compared it to the 7 because of the size which is around the same as a 7/S-Class and the quality of the interior which I felt was closer to a 7 series than a F10.
 
Dr House said:
Fox maybe you are right, I compared it to the 7 because of the size which is around the same as a 7/S-Class and the quality of the interior which I felt was closer to a 7 series than a F10.
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Even if it was up there with a 7-series, the 7 F01 is not the car that the W221 S-Class is, even though it is newer. I certainly wouldn't buy a 7 over an S, unless the market was such that the car was significantly cheaper.
 
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