Last week I found this beautiful white-over-tan 2014 Mercedes CL550 with only 23,000 miles on it selling for $42,998. Here’s the link to that car. Seems that only a few hundred CL550’s were imported annually, making this a unicorn. And out of nowhere CarMax now has two more CL550’s, a bit older, more mileage, but far cheaper. The first one below is to whet your appetite – the second is a far better car and deal.
The first is a 2011 model with 58,000 miles. All the same features as the more expensive one, less adaptive cruise control. The 2011 model ran with a 4.6 liter twin turbo V-8 rated at 382 hp, a good 47 hp less than the 2014 model. Tradeoffs for $8,000?
I’m always fascinated when CarMax sells high end European cars that are almost a dozen years old and offers MaxCare warranties until the car is almost 17 years old. MaxCare is available for 60 months and 125,000 miles on this one. Find it here in Centennial, Nevada.
This 2014 Mercedes CL550 has been on and off the web for months, I believe. I’ve started to write about it and paused, either because I was including it in a lengthy blog about a bunch of cars and changed my mind, or it went into “Currently Unavailable” status. It’s been back for a few days so here we go. The CL class started way back in 1992, and this 2014 is the final year of the third generation spanning 2006 to 2014. The successor to the CL is the S-class coupe. As far as I can tell only 237 2014 CL550’s were sold. A unicorn?
From the B-pillar forward (if it had a B-pillar!) it would be the same cockpit as an S-class sedan and looks and functions the same as my S600. I’d feel real comfortable here. Not lost on me it’s the same color combo as the CT6 I just gave up. Grrrr. I’ll get over it.
The CL550 is AWD (4Matic), and has auto cruise control, seat massagers, heated and cooled seats, and a Harman Kardon sound system. The coupe is such a pretty car from the angle above. From the front I always thought it a bit porpoise-like.
The CL550 is powered by a 4.7 liter twin turbo V-8 rated at 429 hp mated to a seven speed automatic, good for sub-five second 0-60 mph runs. The car sold new eight years ago for probably $120,000 and is now depreciated to about a third of its sales price. I like that. MaxCare is good to 125,000 miles and the max of 60 months, and with the ultra low mileage on this car – only 23,000 – you could cruise 20,000 miles a year worry free. Not a bad deal for $42,998. Rare car and out the door for under $50,000. Find it here in Kearny Mesa, California.
Brace yourself. What follows is too much information about Cadillac seats and clots. And too many shots of my chicken legs. A few weeks ago I wrote this piece about buying a 2018 Cadillac CT6 and setting off the next day on a business trip to North Carolina. I was falling hard for the car and Super Cruise, the industry best Level 2 autonomous driving. Hands free for miles and miles of interstate driving on I-95 south. Made only one stop in Ashland, Virginia on the 300+ mile drive. I fidgeted with the seat trying to get better leg support but didn’t think much about it, until late the next day after a four mile run near Fort Bragg. The back of my knee hurt in an oh so familiar way. I’ve had blood clots twice, the first in 2014 and again in 2019, after which I’ve been on blood thinners. Thinking another clot unlikely I ran another pair of four milers that week unsure if it was clots or a muscle strain. By the time I drove back to Virginia I was pretty sure and headed to the emergency room, where I was diagnosed with another “acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT)” – a blood clot. Got a shot in the belly and changed blood thinners and made my 3pm music gig at a local brewery.
In between my 2014 and 2019 clots, with no blood thinners but getting up often, I’ve flown to India and back non-stop (each way, not the entire loop!), to Africa, and to South America. On thinners I’ve driven cross country twice in the Mercedes S600 and even knocked out a thousand mile day solo. I thought I knew how to manage. But on the 2018 Cadillac CT6 Platinum seat above, the intersection of the seat bottom bolster, the seat bottom, and the metal bar crossmember that should extend (but don’t) intrudes on the bottom of the leg just above the knee, and (for me) makes it impossible to get comfortable. And I’m 90 percent sure that pressure gave me a clot. Press the button and there’s a faint sound of a motor doing something, but movement is imperceptible.
The Dulles CarMax service folks were superb in taking a quick look at the car and sending it out to Cadillac for inspection. Sadly, per below, Moore Cadillac advised the seat is not supposed to extend despite the manual, the controls, and the infotainment graphics below suggested it should. They reported back that it works just like all the other Cadillac CT6’s. Disappointing. I even joined the Cadillac CT6 online forum to ask for help, and other owners confirmed that the seat bottom just don’t move. That despite the shot below of the infotainment display indicating extension and the owners’ manual confirming it should. Moore Cadillac just pissed me off. Pretty much offended me with their answer.
For comparison, I checked out a BMW X5 and Mercedes E300 seat, and both extended significantly compared to the immobile Cadillac seats. Below you can see what a normal Mercedes seat does. A cheap E300.
Unfortunately, the 2018 Cadillac CT6 Platinum with Super Cruise that I bagged after it dropped $4,000 one night had to be returned. And for what it’s worth, the Dulles CarMax business office processed the return in less than 30 minutes. Pain free (unlike my leg). A refund check for the car and a refund check for MaxCare are on their way. They had me drive it into the service bay to check the mileage and it was a wistful 100 yard cruise. It’s a really nice car with near Mercedes luxury at a decent price. The seats just (literally) came up short. I suspect for a less than six foot driver they’d never know. The car should be available again soon. Meanwhile, I’ll be driving the S600.
Here’s the link if you want to track the car – it’s not yet back on the market. Suspect there’s work to be done to clear the title.
Been writing novellas about multiple cars in (infrequent) blogs so here’s a simple one. CarMax has a total of 1,291 manuals transmission cars out of a 47,000-plus inventory, and only 173 V-8’s mated to manual transmissions. Most of them are Camaros, Mustangs, and Challengers (so resisting the urge to postpone this post to include the lone Cadillac CTS-V with a V-8 and manual!) this one comes across as a nice affordable unicorn to me. A 2012 Audi S5, with both a 4.2 liter V-8 motor and a six-speed manual transmission. The last year for the V-8 in an S5. “Only” $27,998.
The manual transmission was actually standard on the 2012 Audi S5. And the V-8 was also offered only on the 5-series among the S-line. The S6 and S8 kept the wonderful Lambo-ish V-10 until 2013 I believe, and the S7 was introduced to the US in 2013 with a V-8. The 5 started using a supercharged six cylinder in 2013 and you’d have to move to the RS5 to keep a V-8. The 4.2 liter V-8 only produced 354 hp and a 0-60 mph sprint in just under five seconds. But I’ve heard an S5 wail on an exit ramp near my home and it was a glorious vintage power motor sound. That was before I knew it was not a 450 hp motor and quite surprised.
Other than the motor and transmission there’s nothing all that special about the 2012 Audi S5. Bluetooth, parking sensors – not even a rear view camera, heated seats, AWD. It’s a lot like my 2013 M3 in concept (last year for an old school V-8). But it’s a nice 10 year old driver’s car and if you want to shift a last of its kind here you go. Sold new for maybe $55,000 and with relatively low miles and MaxCare available up to a full 60 months – but only 125,000 miles, this car could be used for 15,000 miles yearly until it’s over. That would make it MaxCare covered until it’s 17 years old. Not bad. Find this three owner New England car currently here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Stuck at home while my house is being painted. A bit cooped up (ha!) so did a quick run through of the fun coupes in my saved file and hoping to complete this before the fumes get to me. As I write CarMax has 1,679 cars nationwide officially listed as “coupes”. I could easily get wrapped around the axle finding Camaros, Corvettes, Mustangs, M3’s, Infiniti Q60’s that fit the bill but there are just so many of them. So I’m going with these three Audi TT’s, and this weekend perhaps a 1 of 1,418 model worthy of it’s own page. If you can guess what it is you win.
This 2012 Audi TT RS has been available for quite some time. The little coupe has a 2.5 liter five cylinder turbo pumping 360 hp. Car and Driver calls it a “mini-R8”. The dual clutch version tested in Europe sprinted to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds, and later the US model six-speed manual transmission TT RS hit it in 4.0 seconds flat – disappointing only in comparison to the dual clutch – still faster than my 911 was! Top speed was limited to 174 mph. The first gen RS only came to the US in manual mode. Only 641 were imported in 2012, and about the same for 2013 before the car was discontinued. The TT RS was reintroduced to the US market from 2018-2022, when it ended again. Even with the second generation, annually only a few hundred of the TT models were sold as RS. A unicorn.
Car and Driver panned the TT RS for highway drone, but otherwise loved the almost 1g of AWD lateral grip and rip snorting performance once past the turbo lag. The only other criticism? “The TT RS is so competent,” we reported, “so coldly immune to human clumsiness as to diminish the role of the driver.” I tried on a regular TT once, and while getting in and out was as challenging as any low slung car once inside I was surprised how roomy the cockpit was for my 6’4″ 225 lb frame.
The 2012 Audi TT RS sold new for almost $60,000. For a ten year old car with 71,000 miles it’s still a bit high priced. But it’s a bit unique with only a dozen or more for sale across the country. As with other older European cars, MaxCare is only available for 48 months and capped at 125,000 miles. I’d buy it, and enjoy this mini-R8 for 13,500 miles a year – plenty of space for a daily driver! Find this one owner, accident free Audi here in Garland, Texas.
