Congrats on the car...did anyone mention that buying a diesel Mercedes automatically enrolls you in the Smart Sexy People Club? Look for your lapel pin in the mail in the next week or so! I'll always be in love with the old ones, but I'll agree a modern Mercedes is one sweet ride. Have fun!

LOL, that must be why my wife has been all over me in the past few days...kinda wearing me down
I'll keep an eye out for that pin.
I will never loose hope in finding a good (hopefully beige) TD. Always loved W123 cars, grew up around W115 and W123 (all gassers) and always had a soft spot for the wagon.
I am already having a blast, and can definitely see myself keeping this one for a long time.

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W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

New tires are on, continental extreme dws. I like the ride quality so far. I did some highway and some city driving. They feel very nice and seem to have a very tight grip.
This week it is off to MB for alignement. Also replaced the B-Pillar trim panel and added a DIY thread link to my signature. A very simple repair with very few tools required.
$157 for the part, job took about a half hr from start to finish.

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W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Got all the air filters as well as the oil and tranny filters today from Pelican. Now I just need a break in the weather so I can do the service.
Also got me a set of MB allweather ruber mats, unfortunatly I ordered the wrong type (4Matic) and the passenger side fits short agains the transmission hump
I'll try to send them back and get the correct ones.

Got an appointment at my local MB dealership to get the car aligned on the 30th. These people must be making money hand over fist, 8 days to the closest apointment, wow. With my truck all I need to do is show up at the dealership and wait.

Finally tackled the marker light bulbs under freezing temperatures this afternoon (message was showing on the dash when I purchased the car) Drivers side was burnt and replacement went in with out much problem. Passenger side had a melted socket -the bulb was good to my surprise- and the ground wire was broken at the base by the front fog lamp so I had to perform a bit of surgery to repair it. The marker light message is off but now I need to go to the dealership and order me a new socket to repair the bad one. No biggie

It was too cold to be taking the bottom covers off so I did the surgery thru the hole next to the foglight (popped the cover off) Lost a good pound of skin but happy to see the marker light shine!

Happy to report that I drove the car on snow (we got 12" of snow yesterday) and the new tires passed the test with flying colors.
I can see me buying these tires again in the future.

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Nice looking car there. Continental tires, eh? I may need to check them out and see if they have a size that fits my car. My tires are a low-end Goodyear model. Competent enough if you're on a budget, but I ran into a snowstorm while driving in North Carolina two or three days ago--same one that later went your way, maybe? And then I had a Close Encounter of the Ouchy Kind with a guard rail. And now I need a new taillight lens. Sigh. Oh well, nothing touchup paint won't fix--that sheetmetal feels like it must be two inches thick compared to a modern car. But you're not the only one working on your lights in the cold.

I had to have my 300D aligned when I bought it, too. And the old Camry I bought before that. And the Savana cargo van I used to have, too. How come no one ever aligns their freakin' cars?!? I know it happens gradually so they might not notice, but you'd have to be blind to miss some of those tire wear patterns.

Glad to hear you're DIYing the maintenance on your car. If my local dealer is any example, then...yes, yes they are raking it in. But I suspect Mercedes owners generally have a higher dealer-loyalty factor that most other brands. All the people I know with a Chevy or a Ford generally don't even think about taking it to the dealer when it has a problem. That's my suspicion, anyway.

Keep on truckin' !

^^^ Sorry to hear about your close encounter, hope you can fix it cheap.
I had some better weather today so I decided to replace the marker light socket. $21 at the dealership, $13 on line but I didn't want to wait
Besides I was there this morning doing the alignment. Dealer had quoted me $240 over the phone. 4 wheel alignment ended up being $128 tax inlcuded. Very happy about that, plus the front and rear suspension/steering components checked out good.

Here is the bulb socket repair, 10 minutes later, as good as new

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Another righteous victory for DIY! Your car thanks you, sir. I wonder why that first socket went out, though? Any signs of what happened or is it just one of those things?

Careful shopping netted me a used, OEM taillight lens for $55 dollars including shipping. The condition is excellent. I'm all smug about that right now just because it sparkles so nicely in the sunlight. Touchup paint is just gonna have to wait until some nice spring day in the future...time to find that paint code, I guess.

Victory indeed
I do know why, though I was able to figure this out by putting together some pieces of info. During the pre-purchase inspection, I noticed the passenger side headlamp was new, on closer inspection I realized the fender had been painted, hard to notice though. I bought the car from a lot, not from the original owner so they had no history.
Carfax showed no accidents and there was no sign of a major smack. Everything pointed to a fender bender so I decided to bite the bullet and buy the car.
Funny thing is, while playing with the navigation, I found the PO's address stored, I did a google reverse address search and found the guys phone number, called him the next day and spoke with him for a while. He was the original owner, gave me the whole rundown and history of the car and the info of the indy who took care of servicing the car after warranty was gone.
So, winter of 2013, he parked the MB in the back of the drive way (he also drives a Hummer... he is 75) and during a snow/ice storm he was trying to back the Hummer in the driveway and smacked the MB with the Hummer. He never reported the accident and fixed it out of pocket. I think that the shop pinched the wire at some point AAAAND, left the bulb and socket hanging, as in disconnected from the marker. My thinking is the pinched wire caused a short and melted the socket.

Glad to know you were able to find a good tail lamp, nice price BTW.

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Wow! Excellent stroke of luck finding the previous owner's info like that. Rolling the dice on that car seems to have paid off quite handsomely.

Perhaps it's a case of automotive kharma...you put your own time and love into the car, and you are rewarded in turn. Continue to put love into the car (in the form of maintenance) and it will continue to return love (in the form of reliable running...or, who knows, saving your life in an accident).

Of course, that means if you don't maintain your car, someday a malfunctioning door latch will fly open and the rusted seat tracks will break, thereby tipping you sideways and throwing you into the middle of traffic. It could happen! You were warned!

Since I was not able to obtain any written info from the independent mechanic that was servicing my car before I purchased it, I decided to do all the fluid changes. I begun today with the following:
-Oil change
-Fuel filter
-Air Filter
-Cabin air filter

I had been smelling a rather strong diesel smell around the front of the car for the last two weeks, but since I was already prepping to do the service, I figured I'd wait to look into it. Quite a surprise, I found a major leak from the fuel lines going into and coming from the filter. I don't know if it was due to a bad clamp but the fuel was puddling both on the filter top and the belly pan.







After installing new filter and clamps, I used my handy dandy hand pump to prime. Engine started on the first crank with no hesitation



Cabin Air Filter



Air filter







Oil change





At the end of the day, aside from the cold weather, my only complain was a filthy engine bay. I guess I shouldn't expect much in this regard from a 75 yearold guy, but I was very surprised to see how much filth there was under the plactic covers. Maybe I am too anal with my cars and for now this one will have to wait for better weather. I took some time to clean what I could today as I was doing the service, luckily this will be a once a year thing so once I have the engine bay looking the way I want to, all I'll have to do is maintain it.

Much cleaner engine bay, still a long way to go



To do list:
-SBC system bleed (scheduled at local MB for feb 19th)
-Transmission service (waiting for nicer weather)
-Rear differential fluid replacement (to be done with transmission)
-Engine coolant

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

I will be using this thread to log all maintenance and repairs/ improvements made to the car since day one. It may become boring for some, please bear with me. Any and all advise throughout is apreciated.

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

I'm wondering how it got that filthy under there in so few of miles too. Geez! It almost looks like it was driven only on dirt and gravel roads, to get that aged looking and filthy with grit, grime, dusty and discolored/tarnishing metal - probably from winter salt/chemicals on the roads. My car looks night and day different under it's hood and cowling covers. Guess I'm either lucky or because it was cared for differently and perhaps only driven in Texas.

FYI you don't need to manually prime the fuel filter like you do on the earlier engines, the CDI's have in tank electrical fuel pumps. All you need to do is install the filter and turn on the ignition for 30 seconds before starting. And your engine will start on the first compression cycle

Just another reason why the CDI is better than a 240d.

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98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (123k)
13 GLK250 (135k)
06 E320CDI (323K)
16 C300 (62K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

Yep, not everyone cleans and cares for cars as some others do, of course salt and such does not help either. A car driven in NJ for 69k miles vs a car driven in dry weather will most definetly show a difference. I clean my Tundra's engine compartment as well as I did my Ram since new, but some metal components still discolor no mater what, and one can only be so crazy about cleaning. Some TLC stating this spring should bring it back to normal, but yes, I agree with you, it is unacceptable behavior. Some owners will go tens of thousands of miles without ever opening the hood on tier vehicles.


Didnt know that, thanks.
My 06 Ram had to be bled after filter replacement or it would have to crank a few times to fill the filter so I used the hand pump to avoid the strain on the batteries. Different designed I guess.

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Actually, the '06 Ram does not have to be primed either. Just bump the starter without starting the engine and the fuel pump will continue to run for a short time. If you start the engine the first time out, it will momentarily run out of fuel.

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'83 300D, 126K miles.