A45 AMG Reliability?

Dominic-Toretto · 26 Jan 2020 at 12:25

Recently had my head turned by the A45 AMG's, they look absoloutely lovely. Needless to say I am very tempted to grab one as a daily. How ever, how reliable are these as cars compared to BMW M cars. or even N54 cars?

Not looking for something super high maintainance ideally, I have read that AMG engines are usually solid, what about all the peripherals around it?

Nasher · 26 Jan 2020 at 12:32

It's hard to find much info on issues which is usually a good thing

But if it does break, it won't be cheap.

jimmy321 · 26 Jan 2020 at 15:20

I've owned a 15 plate from new done 70k miles just service cost and disks will need replacing soon. Some damage on the drivers seat but no faults. Earlier versions needed the turbo replaced and the 380 bhp version may have a problem with the gearbox which should have been fixed under warranty. A thud going in to 1st or reverse when cold is normal but a grinding noise is not. Damlier have stated that a properly maintained vehicle should be good for 250 000 km approximately 150000 miles before any major repairs.

chaparral · 26 Jan 2020 at 15:29

Nasher said:
It's hard to find much info on issues which is usually a good thing

There don't seem to be many of these cars on roads that could be why

Or Maybe the reason why there not many on the road is that there all struck in the main dealer garages being fixed..

233 · 26 Jan 2020 at 16:05

Tbh most modern cars will happily do 1/3 million miles before major issues

we run a fleet of modern diesels up to big miles and they get driven hard nothing really breaks other than wear and tear stuff and the occasional bits and bobs.
Mixed fleet but the only thing we’ve replaced in the last 12 months was an egr valve on a vivaro at around 170k miles

my advice modern high output turbo engine be it petrol or diesel is ignore any silly high service intervals and stick to 10-12k miles servicing at least for oil changes. Fresh oil never goes amiss

Nasher · 26 Jan 2020 at 18:56

It's NOT being used which kills cars.

Psycho Sonny · 27 Jan 2020 at 14:30

Nasher said:
It's NOT being used which kills cars.

i don't think you can pin it all on one thing.

i would say servicing at least once a year or every 12k miles is also mandatory.

i do like 1K miles per year. it still gets a service and full filter/oil change.

so mine doesn't get used but it's still working fine.

wingman · 27 Jan 2020 at 16:11

Psycho Sonny said:
i do like 1K miles per year. it still gets a service and full filter/oil change.

In isolation though... that doesn't tell us much.

Is that circa 3 miles per day? Or 20 miles in a day but once per week? How many cold start ups roughly? These are more important than straight up miles.

One is much, much worse than the other.

This is why I think we need more info than mileage alone. I'd much rather a car on 150,000 miles where I could see it's been warmed up and used for regular long journeys, than an 75,000 mile car which has been used on a lot of short trips.

Rroff · 27 Jan 2020 at 16:21

233 said:
Tbh most modern cars will happily do 1/3 million miles before major issues

we run a fleet of modern diesels up to big miles and they get driven hard nothing really breaks other than wear and tear stuff and the occasional bits and bobs.
Mixed fleet but the only thing we’ve replaced in the last 12 months was an egr valve on a vivaro at around 170k miles

my advice modern high output turbo engine be it petrol or diesel is ignore any silly high service intervals and stick to 10-12k miles servicing at least for oil changes. Fresh oil never goes amiss

Similar experience here - service every 10-12K miles seems about optimal and the most common thing is EGR valves for some reason - people fret about DPFs but I don't think off the top of my head we've had any work needed on those (that is like ~17 vehicles over the last ~3 years or so that I've been involved with it). The rest comes down a lot to the driver - we've got one van that has needed quite a bit of work on the gearbox and clutch but I'm pretty sure that is down to the person who [used to] most regularly drive it.

wingman said:
This is why I think we need more info than mileage alone. I'd much rather a car on 150,000 miles where I could see it's been warmed up and used for regular long journeys, than an 75,000 mile car which has been used on a lot of short trips.

Yeah

my truck the last owner for the previous ~20-25K miles had been doing like 2-3x ~2 mile trip and back per day (I'm guessing the school run from the limited info in the trip history) that hasn't done a 3L V6 diesel any favours! but I bought it aware of that factor.

Psycho Sonny · 27 Jan 2020 at 16:35

wingman said:
In isolation though... that doesn't tell us much.

Is that circa 3 miles per day? Or 20 miles in a day but once per week? How many cold start ups roughly? These are more important than straight up miles.

One is much, much worse than the other.

This is why I think we need more info than mileage alone. I'd much rather a car on 150,000 miles where I could see it's been warmed up and used for regular long journeys, than an 75,000 mile car which has been used on a lot of short trips.

Weekends only and only once every other weekend or possibly once a month for a half decent journey like an hour each way.