Found this listed on ebay. It's a CD from ALLDATA.
(see below)
Seller won't send me a page (says if he opens it has protection software and will only apply to one vehicle) so I have no idea what's in there.
So has anyone tried it/know it. It's only $20.00 so I was wondering...
Thanks as always, Patrick.

http://cgi.aol.ebay.com/aol/ebaymotors/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=601972930

p.s. how do you get the link to show in the middle of the page?

Patrick
If you can get a written manual go with that. I have one of those cd's and the photos are of poor quality . It's much easier to bring out your book when working on your car then going back to your computer.

So you have the ALLDATA CD? Not the MB CD? 'Cause I was wonderng if maybe it was an amazing combo of the MB, Mitchell's and the Haynes in one or something.

Patrick
I have the the alldata cd. I think it's just a copy of the mb cd.

Twenty dollars and you wonder if you should buy it.If you get one solution out of it that is worth way more than twenty dollars.Michael Rybikowsky.

Sounds very fishy to me. The eBay description says NOTHING about it being an AllData-brand CD. He makes it look like the factory Mercedes manual. The factory manual has no silly protection stuff that will make it "apply only to one car." I think it's deceptive advertising. Plus, the bid price is over $50 now. I've heard the AllData manuals are pretty useless, but I don't know for sure.

I wouldn't screw around, just get the factory manual. You can get them new from mail-order MB sources for ~$100. I doubt that AllData could copy the MB manuals w/o getting into copyright issues. Also, there are folks on eBay that sell bootleg copies of the factory CD-ROM, you could always get one of those if you're lucky (CD-R's aren't as reliable as real "pressed" CD-ROM's.)

If you get this one, let us know what it's like. It would be nice if someone who actually has the All Data CD could post and let us know...


Regards,

__________________
Dave
Boise, ID
Check out my website photos, documents, and movies!

I purchased one of these CD manuals for the 126 series. Mine appears to be a bootleg copy: albeit a good quality one, of the official MB CD manual. My copy is a CD-R with the CD printed, no stick-on label that came in a jewel case with the insert printed by an inkjet printer. The info on the CD appears to be an exact copy of the MB CD info. Essentially the paper manuals have been scanned into PDF files that are veiwable and printable there is an animated intro hence the need for the included Shockwave veiwer.

If you don't have qualms about the possible copyright issues it seems to be a good deal, a digital copy of the factory product at 1/3-1/2 the price. As far as the long term quality of the CD-R media you can down load the manual to a harddrive or make a duplicate copy with a CD burner.

The $10 shipping charge is a rip off but you should just calculate that into the cost and mine took about three weeks to arrive. I had watched these items being auctione for a couple of months before I purchased. During the time I watched it appeared that inspite of the "No Reserve" and low starting price no final bid was lower than $70 suspiciously it appeared that someone would always bid it up at the last minute! I have noticed that lately these auctions are "Private" therebye preventing anyone from learning who is actually bidding and preventing anyone from determining if any type of shill bidding or other fraud is taking place. Caveat Emptor, and good luck.

It looks like buddy is using the private bidder thing to crank up the price. If he's going to jerk it up to $80.00 I'll just get the MB CD. Thanks to everyone for the input.

after the auction ends you can always contact the seller and make an offer for what you are willing to pay. This seller is selling bootleg copies anyway so they are only out the cost of a cdr disk. There is no such thing as "wholesale" software, there is OEM software sold at a discount to computer makers and included with a machine as a bundle, but it is NEVER on a CDR disk.
Also while there are copy protection disks and or ways to limit what you can use on a disk per serial number "keys" (one car only claim) there is no way that a CD is going to be made useless as claimed if he was to send you a printed page. If there was a way bootleg copies of Windows would not exist