It won't help you with this oil change, but many of us use some form of suction apparatus to pull oil up and out of the dipstick tube. MB has made every model since the late '70s with this in mind. The oil filters are conveniently located up top, too. There is ongoing controversy of the use of these "Topsider" type devices vs. gravity draining oil, but someone once did a little experiment and found you can actually remove more oil via the dipstick than from below, due to the raised area around the drain plug.

Mr. Swinford has invented a fine, home-built suction device which is less expensive than the commercial varieties -- if interested, do a search on it.

__________________
Steve
'93 400E