The car is at 59400 miles and the rattling noise turned out to a broken catalytic convertor. Replacement cost is around 2k USD. The warranty with the certified Mercedes Benz program is covering this repair so thats a relief. The car will be in the shop for two days while they overnight the part.
Good outcome.
The car now has 59400 miles and it was time for new tires. I bought a set of Continental Extreme Contact tires and these were mounted yesterday. They feel fine on the car, they are noisy under reasonable braking which makes it sound very dramatic but thats probably new tire squeal which should diminish over time. They feel softer for me on the car than the old tires but the old tires were probably, well, just old.
We noticed yesterday that there is a noise that sounds related to exhaust gases. When we rev the engine then we can hear something moving in the exhaust system. Something has broken off. It's dealer time. Now, we'll find out what mercedes certified ownership is good for.
The tires we got with the car are cracked now. We noticed when we were going to rotate the tires mid service interval. I bought Continental ExtremeContact tires to replace them. They have good reviews and are reviewed as having good snow traction which is useful in Minnesota in the winter.
Price was good, 77 dollars each from tirerack. Total cost is about 350 bucks shipped.
I drove the car to Minneapolis and back today, about 180 miles and the car averaged almost 30mpg which for such a large car is awesome. The car is very quiet to drive, an awesome cruiser and daily driver and it's growing on the family more and more.
The cup holders in an s-class are a pain. They are mounted in the rear of the center console between the front seats but they are too far to the rear of the car making it very awkward to get to a drink in them. They are also small. A can of coke fits ok but anything bigger and it doesn't fit.
The car is awesome. The kids love it, my wife likes it and I'm enjoying driving it. It's no Porsche but for driving around every day, man is it comfortable! It just glides along. You can stiffen the air suspension if you want but whats the point? I didn't sell a 911 to buy an S class for handling.
Braking wise it's ok. It's no where near what a 911 can do for stopping power but I suspect the continental tires are the problem. They let go very easily. Sticker rubber would be a good thing but I'm not changing them until they wear out.
But, so far, we're enjoying it. It's a nice change from a sports car.
I traded my Porsche 996 for a 2002 Mercedes S430 yesterday. The car starts with 51k miles and cost me 27.3k. I have 3 years warranty on it, a year because it's certified and 2 years purchased by me for 3.7k.
I'm planning on driving it for 3 years and then upgrading it hopefully to a newer S-class.