Pls help...6 cyl or 8 cylinder Luxury autos ?

Pls help...6 cyl or 8 cylinder Luxury autos ?

My sister in California is thinking of buying a "used" Luxury car / sedan around 5 years old like a Mercedes or Lexus.

She is confused as to the gas mileage for 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder luxury cars and the related cost of gas.

I was told that for normal driving say 10,000 miles or so in a year, the cost difference wasn't much on a weekly basis even with these high gas prices.

Is the story any different with 6 cyl and 8 cyl SUVs ?

Pls educate us on this as we are NOT all knowledgeable

Thanks Anna

Reply to
anna
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"anna" wrote in news:1165157461.923634.271620@

16g2000cwy.googlegroups.com:

You will lose more in depreciation of your luxury vehicle than the difference in fuel costs between a six and an eight.

Plus, as the car ages, repairs (*especially* with the Mercedes!) will dwarf gas expenses for either.

Nope.

Check the mileage of the vehicle you're interested in, then do some calculations.

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These numbers aren't trustworthy as absolutes, but are good for comparison purposes.

Reply to
Tegger

If you just look at the milage estimates, you will see that the penalty for the V8 might be 1-3 mpg. However, that assumes that you drive both cars very conservatively. If your sister has a lead foot and/or drives a lot of city miles, it could be significantly worse. OTOH, at least she might be appreciating the benefits of the bigger engine. If most of her miles are done with the cruise control on, she probably won't notice much difference, good or bad, between two engines.

The above is pretty hypothetical since few cars are available with a choice between V6 and V8. There may be large differences between different cars and different engines of the same configuration. If the V8 is a super high-performance engine in a top-end Mercedes luxo-barge, it's going to suck fuel like the Queen Mary.

Reply to
Gordon McGrew

Cost of ownership wise a good used Lexus is likely to be much cheaper to run than a similar Mercedes based on maintenance and repair costs alone. V-6 vs. V-8 is probably 1-4 mpg depending on the vehicles in question.

John

Reply to
John Horner

FWIW, I used to drive a Jaguar XJR (a very heavy car) with a supercharged V8 and it got about 15-16 mpg. A friend drives a Chevy Trailblazer with a V6 and gets about the same mileage. As another poster wrote, it varies from car to car and person to person. At the end of the day, it's not so much the savings from gas mileage, but whether the added premium of paying for a V8 is going to be worth the benefits a V8 confers. A good example is the Lexus GS350 vs. GS430. Substantially identical except one has a V6 and other a V8 and one costs about $6000 more than the other.

When in doubt, I go with whatever has more horses (eg, I drive a Type-S TL as opposed to the regular TL) but that's a personal preference. Most drivers with today's cars (especially higher-end cars like Lexus and Mercedes) will be just fine with the acceleration that a V6 will provide.

Reply to
truegrit

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