Originally Posted by Jeremy5848

As babymog says, belly pans are hard to come by. The dealer will have them for several hundred apiece, I bet (having had to buy one for my W210 car). If your dealer offers a discount to MBCA members (usually 15%), you could pay for most of a year's membership in the savings on just the two belly pans for your car. (Be grateful – the W210 diesels have three belly pans – "noise capsules," the dealer calls them.)

The EGR valve is a smog device and allows part of the exhaust gas to enter the intake. This lowers the percentage of oxygen and makes the engine run a little cooler, thus reducing oxides of nitrogen. In a gasser, this is tolerable. In a diesel, the soot in the exhaust is combined with oil vapor from the turbo and from the crankcase breather for form a black crud that coats the inside of the intake and, in extreme cases, clogs it up. The solution is to completely disassemble and clean the intake annually. A better solution is to block off or remove the EGR valve. Since California does not inspect diesels, the legal risk is minimal. (Besides, it was that way when you bought it, right?)

Jeremy