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Over the last 24 months, the Mercedes R-Class has motivated a mere 6,469 Americans to plunk down $50k+ for a Mercedes-badged non-minivan. Now that it’s received a much-needed facelift that removes most of the slug-inspired design cues, will it sell any better? From the ash heap of history, the Chrysler Pacifica has recorded a “no” vote. What say you?
42 Comments on “Ask The Best And Brightest: Does This Car Have A Chance In The US Market?...”
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Not sure about the US, but in Canada, the Pacifica is a hot seller on the used market. Though I don’t see a ton of R’s on the road.
That is because the R is not a very good CUV. It has wierd Benz ergonomics, and wierd looks. Plus the huge doors are a pain in the parking lot.
That said, it’s a decent buy on the used car market, but you’d need to get your head checked if you were to buy one new…
I really liked the Pacifica, and the wife and I had our hearts set on one two years ago, but alas, Chrysler discontinued it.
Now it looks like a “Mercedes Magnum” which in my mind is a good thing. I like both the Magnum and the Pacifica and both would be on my used car buying list but it seems like it’s damn hard to find a Magnum with the 3.5 instead of the crap-tastic 2.7 (Hemi’s a little thirsty for my tast and most of them have been modded out within an inch of their lives.)
The Pacifica I like (AWD, no thank you on the FWD version) it stradles the line between station wagon and SUV well, giving both my lady and I something to like in it’s styling. We both do think however, that the Pacifica looks like Moby Dick when painted white, but then so does a Chevy Traverse.
My prediction R-Class sales up! But at the expense of Mercedes wagon sales.
+1, as much as I am not a fan of anything Daimler, I actually kind of like this one for the reasons stated above.
This is a droopy a$$ dud.
Probably not. The last R class was not only unloved but also consequently suffered from terrible depreciation. MB doesn’t need it – the GL and M cover CUV family duties and there is always E wagon for those that don’t like CUVs.
Or the GLK which seems to be doing well and seemed nice enough when I drove one.
I don’t think it’ll pick up…
Which is sad, honestly, since I see the Traverse/Acadia/Flex have gained a LOT of ground in the last year. Pacifica/R-class were ahead of the curve on that entire segment, IMO–people who sort of want wagons or minivans, but can’t quite let go of the SUV notion.
Unless you absolutely need 8 seats (instead of the 6 nice sized ones in the R), I think spending an extra $10k for a Mercedes over an Acadia is a solid value proposition.
For the same money, I’d get the Enclave. *Vastly* superior build quality and engineering on a far better-proven platform, along with standard driver ergonomics.
I’ve always thought that a luxury manufacturer (Lexus, Mercedes, etc.) would do well selling a true luxury minivan, but I don’t think this is it, mainly because it doesn’t have sliding doors and isn’t really marketed as a minivan. Why Lexus doesn’t just tart up a Sienna with extra luxury features and a new front clip and mark it up 100% is beyond me. I wouldn’t buy one, but I bet a lot of people would.
+1 cirats,
I briefly considered an R-Class, but the lack of sliding doors (and Mercedes reliability) killed it for me.
All Lexus has to do is bring over a rebaged Vellfire or Alphard. If they can get 3000 sales in the USA, that would probably be a profitable offering without diluting the brand.
“It’s the Cadillac of minivans!”
= Chili Palmer
Toyota already sells a Lexus-class Sienna – the XLE Limited. With the super captain’s chairs and all that. Given the Lexus image, and the transaction price of a XLE, I don’t know why they don’t rebrand the thing as a Lexus
I agree, cirats. I’m the target market for this car, I would think. Test drove it and found it to be wholly underwhelming. It really didn’t drive any better than a minivan, had less space and didn’t feel particularly “special”.
We got an Odyssey. It does everything well and expectations are less up front so there is plenty of room for it to delight and impress. I would love an honest Lexus/Mercedes minivan rather than these half conceived ne’er do well tweener cars. They drive like minivans but suck at car pool duty.
I was seriously looking at one of these, lightly used, until having a pretty severe business setback — I’ll probably be looking at one again.
With the fall-off-the-cliff depreciation on them, off-lease used models are in pretty much the same price category as late model used Flexes.
The sales will still me abysmal just because the market does not see this as a “true” Mercedes. There are too many CUV’s in this price range that fit the bill and don’t scream “mommy mobile”. If Daddy is opening his wallet he does not want to lay down 50 large for a flying vagina that he won’t want to be seen driving. And BTW have you seen how LARGE those rear doors are on this thing – good luck with the kiddies dinging the doors in the Nordstrom parking lot.
+1 on the rear doors. We seriously considered one of these, because it does a lot of things well, but those rear doors are massive. A deal killer.
The worst part? Those stupid, oversized doors have about 4″ extra length that isn’t even used for ingress/egress. It’s just extra metal for looks. Idiocy.
My brother has a Chrysler Pacifica. He likes the car but it has been terribly unreliable. Every few weeks it’s in the shop for another repair. He seems to be buying a new car, one part at a time. Could be why Chrysler is bankrupt.
Surprisingly, the R-class isn’t a rebadged Pacifica. It’s a supersized E-class.
Pearlie: IIRC, the Pacifica was represented by DC as comprising an E-Class foundation with some ‘Daimler-engineered’ minivan bits for extra space up top. So what’s the diff?
Also, re driver ergonomics: do the Enclave and sibs still come with the front seats designed exclusively for hunchbacks? That was a deal killer for me back at launch time.
Real luxury, faux utility? Nein.
We had a Chrysler Pacifica as a rental one year for our road trip to Indianapolis for the 500. It was by far the best, most comfortable long distance cruiser I’ve ever traveled in.
<blockquote>”Will it sell any better?”</blockquote>
That depends. Will it finally have sliding doors or is it just going to be a less useful ML?
Agree with carguy. Too much in house competition just like Ford
I really like this car…. used. Cliff depreciation is your friend.
/AGREE+++
This is AFAIK the only diesel minivan available in the US. Apparently the taller GL is more popular, and the resale values seem to bear this out. Frankly, I’d be happy with a RWD R-class with a diesel, but they all have 4matic IIRC..
Maybe next year a 2007-2009 R-class diesel with memory seats will show up on ebay or autotrader under $30k..
I’d really like to see the new one beside a Merc wagon for comparison. I’ve seen a few of the original R-class Mercs. Not bad. Not compelling enough to shop for one new or used. Would like see the Merc Marco-Polo come to the USA. Have been watching the Merc wagons. Can be had for a reasonable price around here. Have not gotten to the part where I begin to research how reliable they are and what if anything fails. Been happy with my late 90s VW which is considered a reliability dud but then it has been cheap to fix. Surely the Merc is better than that.
We have a R500. Here are some thoughts
1) We bought it used (thank god!) because the depreciation is by god ridiculous:
2) It is really the minivan for folks who don’t want to admit they need a minivan – the back doors on the thing are as big as my 750il, which means the kids ding the doors of the cars next to us every time;
3) it rides great on the highway, but gets lousy milage and the storage space compared to a real minivan is for shit
4) it is one of the most cheaply built mercedes I have ever had (and I have had several); plastic parts fall of the thing with amazing regularity;l
4) no old person is going to buy this; if you want to carry another couple, you’ll buy an S or E class sedan
Other than that, its a fine car…
It’s the horrifying offspring of a stationwagon and a minivan. I saw the two vehicles copulating in a Stuttgart parking garage when I was and I said, “What the f&*%!?”
And now we know. It’s something that won’t sell.
We finished up a 39 month on a 2006 R-350 this past December. In some ways it was an excedllent family truckster. Plenty of room, great on the highway, 24mpg at 80 mph. But OMG! After the first year I was trying to figure out how to get out of the lease because I was sick of having to get everything fixed. What an unbelieveable POS. And of course with the depreciation there was no getting out of it. Funny thing. At the end Mercedes Financial offered to sell it to us at $33k. The sticker, new was $65k, market value from what I could tell was something around $20-23k. Never, ever again.
In a word, no. You took away my dream of an E63 wagon to try to give me THIS?
Maybe
The MB faithful can be pretty blind to the faults of the lineup
The fundamental problem is that rich people who need a minivan buy a SUV instead. This doesn’t leave much room for a luxury minivan–see GLK, ML and GL sales
If BMW enters the market with the 9 or 10-series high-performance minivan, then Fonzi has jumped the shark
You mean a BMW X7, right? The X5 is a Pilot-class CUV with the foldaway 3rd row, so the only thing left for BMW is to go full bore with a full-time 3rd row.
Personally, I think BMW would get more mileage out of a 9-series, particularly in China, where personal limousines sell well.
But when you consider Benz started with an AMG R63, I guess a X7 M would be possible, to be followed by an X8 M fastback “coupe”.
I drove a new 2008 model at the MB dealership a few years ago.
I’m a middle class professional and come from a life of driving big vehicles; ’88 Chev Caprice, ’96 Impala SS, ’99 Tahoe, but this thing was even bigger than any of those.
The seating was great, and the interior volume was large enough to punt on first down. My wife even parked this thing backwards into a grocery store stall with incredible ease.
However, somethings turned me off: The slightly funky look. The 1970s retro red LEDs on the dashboard. The MB $200 / hour labour rate. The bizarre MB warranty that only covers things lubricated by oil or grease.
Your stereo blows a speaker, your power door lock actuator goes south, your tire pressure monitor falls silent. In all these cases you’re SOL and into $200/hr and BTW were booking jobs for three weeks from now. My answer to MB was to buy elsewhere – a Cadillac DTS. It’s a shame, because I wanted to do business – but MB didn’t.
Nevertheless, I will look at this updated version of the R. Maybe MB has also updated some of its business model.
If you have enough kids to fill an R, you don’t have time to worry about impressing anyone. In addition, the smell of spilled food and diapers cancel out the brand cache, so might as well buy a Sienna or a Caravan.
1. Over the weekend, both the GF and car friend both talked about the R class. GF liked it b/c it says benz but hates it for being a minivan. car friend said reliability was terrible. In any case, people are talking?
2. Is it a Pacifica?
3. I always thought MB bought Chrysler to sell more mini-vans in Europe. The number in Madrid staggers me.
Well, if there is a market for it anywhere it’s going to be the US. These things aren’t sold at all in Europe (I believe we get a slightly shorter version which is still humongous, but essentially the same car).
Things that it doesn’t have going for it in every market:
It’s one of these Mercs that suffered from Merc cutting costs too much, instead trying to max out the value of that star on the grill. You can see this again by looking at the refresh, which still incorporates the old dash/command system and doesn’t include a refreshed one with the newer NAV unit.
It’s also huge, not very goodlooking (looks kinda like a Sprinter from the front), not that practical and generally, people just rather have an M or GL for the same kind of money.
In Europe there’s another couple of things like taxes and subsequent price that make the product unloved, also relatively speaking since people are willing to spend a lot of cash on their SUVs but not on a van. Also…People are less christian so they don’t have more than 3 children tops and usually less. In the Netherlands we have only 1,3 child on average, so if you’re spending R-Class money you could also have a C63 AMG.
I’ve seen 2 with Dutch plates in the wild that I can remember, and I would remember.
“These things aren’t sold at all in Europe.” It is on the German website; same length.
http://www.mercedes-benz.de/content/germany/mpc/mpc_germany_website/de/home_mpc/passengercars/home/new_cars/models/r-class/_w251/facts/technical_data.0003.html
As an owner of a 2007 Silver R320 CDI I can tell you these cars while practical are simply not reliable. I serviced the vehicle at every maintenance rec and still after only 3yrs 70K miles the car needed 12K worth of repairs from speed sensor in transmission failing ($3400) to failed parking sensors ($900). I loved the vehicle hated the reliable (or lack thereof). Rather than spend 12K in repairs on a vehicle that only had trade in value of 18K I decided to get a landcruiser. Never again will I purchase another Mercedes and I have had all of them from E320 to S500. The quality and reliability is simply not there.
This thing is not selling despite having a lot of air cover in the form of high prices on the wagon (which I much prefer). I think they should ditch this, and sell lower priced wagons without all the extra stuff, like 4matic.