The prices I quoted were MSRP from the build your vehicle pages and I clearly stated that I wasn’t sure how much the Nissan and Infiniti dealers will discount at the moment. I’m not expecting to have to pay full MSRP for a Land Cruiser either, but probably wouldn’t get as much of a discount.
Thoughts on the current generation Armada / Infiniti QX80
- Thread starter greynolds
- Start date
No, but it certainly would be nice if the Armada got the Patrol running gear aka beefier diffs and lockers
My local dealership (Olympia, WA) is running a little over 10% off MSRP right now on their Armadas.
vintageracer
To Infinity and Beyond!
Interesting you speak of the exorbitant prices for Mercedes parts IF you have pay for them yourself.
A neighbor of mine recently knocked the driver's mirror off their 2019 300 series Mercedes by hitting the mailbox.
Replacement of the mirror cost them almost $3000!
There are no complete mirror assemblies available through Mercedes parts and no repo's available. You must buy all the mirror parts from Mercedes separately and assemble the parts to make a complete mirror assembly for replacement to the tune of $3000.
They have been Mercedes owners for years and have had enough. They traded the Mercedes this weekend vowing never again to own a German Star!
Sometimes it's not the price you pay for a vehicle it's the price you pay to keep the damn thing legally running and driving!
A neighbor of mine recently knocked the driver's mirror off their 2019 300 series Mercedes by hitting the mailbox.
Replacement of the mirror cost them almost $3000!
There are no complete mirror assemblies available through Mercedes parts and no repo's available. You must buy all the mirror parts from Mercedes separately and assemble the parts to make a complete mirror assembly for replacement to the tune of $3000.
They have been Mercedes owners for years and have had enough. They traded the Mercedes this weekend vowing never again to own a German Star!
Sometimes it's not the price you pay for a vehicle it's the price you pay to keep the damn thing legally running and driving!
Yup (and ouch!). They really are wonderful vehicles and the pre-2019 G63 is something truly special, but they're expensive to keep running. Part of the high initial cost of the vehicle is for covering the warranty repairs which they know are going to be expensive if/when something breaks. The new style (2019 and newer) G-class is nice, but they've turned it much more into a luxury vehicle now rather than the rugged go anywhere vehicle it used to be (sort of a stock Jeep Wrangler on steroids). The new design has a much classier interior, but forfeits around 15-20% of cargo space and costs a lot more, comparably configured to the old style. It's still quite capable off road, but has lost a lot of what drew me to it previously.
So it sounds like there's some truth to what that person told me. I had initially had the impression that the USA market Armada and QX80 were Patrols with fairly minor changes (different rear bumpers, a different mix of interior options, not much else different). But different running gear is a pretty key difference.
calicamper
Expedition Leader
Interesting in February I had to replace the turbine speed plate which up till 2020 was a common 7spd issue became classified as a security part in 2020 resulting in many hoops to jump through for my local shop thats done several over the yrs. I had to fax my registration documents and ID to Mercedes before they would allow my shop to order the part. This was for a 2006 SLK350. My local shop owner said Merc has really changed their parts process clearly to control who is selling what for how much etc. This is a sensor plate that sits in a ATF bath in the 7spd. My guy said he suspected mileage/ wear was always the link to this failure that is till my 06 with 21,000 miles had the textbook failure. He now is 100% its time soaking in ATF fluid which eventually causes sensor failure via time.
If you don’t break your Merc and do indy shop service I found my Merc was cheaper than my Subaru via Subaru dealer service costs. Which is a factor for selling my Subaru. My local leo will service my Merc Transmission with a factory kit no problem, he is not overly happy about a drain fill on my Subaru CVT because Subaru has had a number of faulty parts issues with various CVTs and will bail on addressing them if you had a non Subaru shop service the cvt. So he will do it with a extra document signed saying you understand this risk. My Merc no big deal factory service kit $300 plus labor and fluid.
The last time I talked to my Subaru dealer no joke they Quoted me $800 for the cvt drain fill. I had it done in the same shop different owner 60,000 miles ago for $180! Now its more than my Merc with a $300 pan kit.. Yeah Screw Subrau... lol
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MarcusBrody
Active member
If OP likes to buy new, loaded, and doesn't keep his vehicles that long, he should also consider depreciation. The Armada is 20k cheaper than the Land Cruiser now, but I'd in 3 years he wants a different vehicle, I suspect that the gap in value will be larger than that (or at minimum similar). Kelley Blue Book values the LC at ~58k and the Armada in Platinum trim at 32.5k.
So if you are buying new and will be changing it out in the short/medium term, the price difference isn't all that great. Picking up 1 kid hauling mega SUVs coming off lease seems to be the sweet spot for saving money on potential expedition vehicles on brands like Nissan.
So if you are buying new and will be changing it out in the short/medium term, the price difference isn't all that great. Picking up 1 kid hauling mega SUVs coming off lease seems to be the sweet spot for saving money on potential expedition vehicles on brands like Nissan.
Yeah, depreciation is definitely a consideration and is an area that Nissan/Infiniti loses the battle with Toyota. However, my goal IS to keep the vehicle for a while. In hindsight, the move I made from my 2006 LX-470 to a 2008 Toyota Highlander because of the huge increase in gas prices at the time probably wasn't a good decision as even though I didn't lose a ton of money trading in the LX-470, I probably didn't really make up for it in using less fuel in the Highlander and I definitely liked the LX-470 quite a bit more.
The only concern with keeping the G63 is the long term cost of ownership; I've decided that I won't be buying another G-class as the price increases put it way out of my comfort zone. Since my warranty is up at the end of the year which means that any future repairs will be out of my pocket, I'm considering my options.
It's sort of frustrating configuring most vehicles or looking for them on dealer lots. There's almost always at least 1 "must have" feature that forces you to get 22" rims or a bunch of other packages or features (such as rear seat entertainment) that you really don't want. If you want the nicer leather seats, it ought to be possible to build that vehicle with 20" rims, for example. I fully appreciate most of the reasoning behind that - it avoids custom orders for every vehicle sold (custom orders raise costs and increase the frequency of mistakes), the add-ons are high profit so the dealers tend to prefer to order fully loaded models, etc., but it's still frustrating. That's one nice thing with the Land Cruiser - the options are pretty much exterior color, interior color, and the rear seat entertainment package (this year has the Heritage Edition option, which deletes the 3rd row seats, and has a few other changes). It had been similar with the Mercedes where the bulk of the choices centered around color choices, but the vehicle was otherwise fully loaded - that's changed somewhat with the new model.
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