well, what an education the posts to this topic have been.

it was difficult for me to gain enlightenment. there seem to be a lot of "rants" within this thread.

i was about ready to add a very immaculate, extremely low mileage 1997 w140c to my collection. a collection which tries to benchmark the design management of bruno sacco, whom i consider the premier auto design manager of the post ww2 era. but these posts have put me off a bit.

perhaps some of you would be kind enough to help me out. here is my story...

i have owned benzes since 1973. my first one was a 220. what a great car. i drove it to death. from houston to everywhere i could get to. in 1976 it had accumulated 140,000 miles and i replaced it with the first big car that i found to be as much fun to drive as my lotus. it was a 450sel. in 10 years, i put approx. 240,000 miles on it. i hated to retire it, but i supplemented it in 1985 with one of the first 300e's.

a fun car, more tossable than the 116, but it had some weird deficiencies, that benz did not want to recognize. so in 1986, i abandoned it for another sonderklasse, a 560sel.

there is no question that the 560sel was an improvement to the 116. more leg room. better seats. i quickly considered it the zenith of automotive design.

i still own it. it has 248k. it has been excessively well-cared for. few could guess its age or its mileage. and i still love to run it on houston rentabahn at speeds higher than a century.

in 1996, when i began to consider its replacement, family matters demanded a suburban. so i kept the 126 and added a gmc truck. i passed over the 140's and put in my future order for 2000 ML55 and S500.

in the interim, i test drove cars by renting them in the home of the stars, b hills. i tried e320cabs, xj8's, ml's, ls430's, gs400's. the worst car i ever tried was the ml320[what a rattling piece of junk]. the second worst car i ever tried was the ls430 with the lcd dash.

the lcd dash was so contradictory to safe driving. but at least lexus offered it as an option. which i took advantage of, i returned the lcd dash car back and exchanged it for the more analog one.

my conclusion was that none of these cars surpassed my 560sel. in any way shape or fashion.

so i awaited the 2000 benzes that i had ordered. the first one to appear was the ml55. as soon as i saw it after being advised that it had arrived, i refused to accept it. and then i was called to pick up my s500. when i saw its lcd display, i rejected it.

i said to myself, what i want is the command and control simplicity of my 560sel. and from that, i began to acquire benzes that met my design and driving requirements. i had never purchased used cars before, but now schremmp had forced me to do so if it was to drive benzes similar to the excellence of my 560sel.

my first acquisition was a very cherry 1979 450sel6.9. no miles. what a horse. unfortunately, the 126 sedan offered some things that the 6.9 didn't. more interior space, especially leg room. better brakes. less obnoxious bumpers. a more suitable tranny.

my conclusion is that the 6.9 engine should have been fitted in the 126 sedan body.

my next acquisition was a very cherry 1987 560sec. another great car.

last year, i found a e320cab. no miles. perfect condition. after pulling the passenger airbag and fitting a glovebox and removing the center console, i now have a 124 with driver features that i like...a center console that can hold any style coffee cup, etc.

anyway, studying on these cars, caused me to reflect upon the man responsible for their design - bruno sacco.

now, i want to add some of his other works to my collection. i don't go out of my way to do this, but from time to time, the impulse overwhelms me. this time, it was prompted by a classified for a 140coupe in the star. in my colors. but it was a 1994, 3rd owner in a snow belt location. priced right but a potential caution. so, i concluded that i should check the mbna starmark site to see if any low mileage 140 coupes were out there. there were.


and i have one 1997 on hold for the completion of my purchase. and then i tuned into this amalgam of ranting.

and so i have paused in this acquisition. i have been provoked to doing a real due diligence. my mechanic. a really good one, counsels me that the post 1995 w140c's are good. he says that he has never had one that required the evap replacement. but he also says that he thinks that there are better evap units out there than the ones m-b originally fitted. he also thinks that benz has secretly replaced scores of evap units in a secret warranty program. that may be excessively paranoid, but it would not surprise me if he has got it right.

on the subject of warranty, he tells me that i would not void the starmark if he/his shop does the fluid changes, routine maintenance. IS THIS CORRECT? he says that m-b dealer in houston only needs to get involved in the maintenance of this car when there is a real warranty issue under the coverage of starmark. IS THIS CORRECT? i want it to be...why?

because today i learned another lesson about using a benz dealer for service work. understand, i was one of the original customers of intercontinental motors when pennel opened it in 1976. i knew everyone. it was a conscientious shop.

and then the schnitzers and autonation badmintoned its ownership.

i have no hatred for those who have migrated north of the rio bravo, but the shop at mbna north houston would not be of my choosing today. i tried it today with my 560sec, just to find out if they were capable of servicing a 1997 w140c. and if i was a capable of tolerating their nonsense.

the answer to both is no. hell, no one there even knew what a 560sec was. i wonder what it would have been like had i driven in with the 6.9.

so, one of the questions about acquiring then owning a w140c is that starmark warranty work would require it going into this ring of hell. what do any of you think about that dealer service prospect?

LASTLY, I COULD ABANDON THE acqusition of the w140c and acquire another bullet developed by sacco and his team - a 500e. no starmarking option, but that would allow me to keep it in the hands of my freelance mechanic.

my freelance mechanic says, "buy the s500c. i haven't found them to be that problemattical. if warranty probs arise, the benz dealer can address it. and remember, you won't be without a car to drive".

as to the 500e, he says, "do that one too. but don't make it an either or proposition".

any comments?