I'm getting a bit expanded these days & smarter/lazy so now I drive the 300SD on a curb to change oil. Sure beats fighting ramps.
There are several issues for changing your own oil.
1. You know what the old oil looked like
2. You probaly have more experience wrenching than the 18 yr old testerone driven punk head at the speedy lube.
3. You can take a oil sample & test it just like the fleet folk do, to see how much metal & other nasties are in the oil ... when to sell/rebuild the engine.
4. You will (now?) know to never fill an MB to the full mark. See manual. Between the marks is fine.
5. you will know if the pan bolt is stripping. Very few lube joints will tell you this.
6. If your recycle site is friendly like mine, have them put a few rail road ties near the oil dump for you to drive on & change your oil there! Sure beats hauling oil in a MB trunk!
8. You will know to look at the 'o' ring in the bottom of the oil filter, right?
9. You will know to replace the power sterring filter? Most old MBs have never had this replaced. Every 100k miles or so.
10. Most important, you will look at the engine. This sounds stupid till you find a loose vacuum hose, loose belt, leaky injector return, dead cat (I know & yes it was the female's I was dating ... limp.) The trick to old cars is to find the problem before it finds you. That's called maint. or in this newspeak world PM.
11. Once a year take the MB to a service station, lift it up and do a walk around. Give them $15 and just poke around for a few minutes. Many shops will still let you do this unless you live in a snivillized city.
Now repeat: I will degrease & pressure wash all MB diesels before crawling into dark side.