Opinion Please !

From what I've heard Mercedes engines are not too good, I'm sure others with more experience will give more info on it.

 

Stay away from Mercedes.

 

Yep yep yep what speedemon said is true bad mercedes especially for long haul!

 

Ditto: stay away but if you MUST......compare equal trucks but one powered with Detroit......give at least 10k off the Detroit price for yours. Also remember no matter what the HP rating of the one you want that Mercedes is only a 12.8 liter. There is no substitute for cubes!

But personally I would pass unless it were a smokin hot deal...

JMO

 

First, are you sure it is a Mercedes in a Western Star? The Western Star is an upscale truck and the Mercedes is a budget motor. Why you see them mostly in Columbias. Very strange combination.

In terms of motor. What I know from researching motor life from people who track this independently they get just slightly better mile life than a Cat. But none of the benefits of owning a Cat.

 

Lots of starcars with merc engines. I have a friend that is running a W/S with merc doing canadian tridem work on a weekly run from winnipeg to edmonton back to winnipeg via calgary. It does the job for him but he says its not too good on power, doesnt do too well in strong head and cross winds in the praries. Plus his doesnt have a compression brake (jake). There are many westernstars for sale in canada with the mercedes engine and they are allways cheaper and dont seem to sell, allways see the same trucks advertised for a long time. They lack power and are apparently very expensive to fix.
What type of hauling are you intending to do with the truck?

 

The merc would pull that no problem. My friend hauls 115,000 lbs Canadian tridems with his so it would pull your loads no problems. If you do a search on here you may be able to find more out about it. I think there have been a few discussions about them in the past.