Any repairs outside of maintenance since purchase? Lower Ball Joints, injector seals, SBC system all untouched?

__________________
1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

All the above untouched, as per records and my usage started 6/'13.
One GP failed before I bought the car as per records.
Ribbed V-Belt changed as per records.
Numerous brake pads and rotors changed before buying - this is normal. These cars eat both pads and rotors X 2 what my other MBs have.

Under my 6K driving since buying:
Plenum gasket needed R & Red - it was leaking oil.

Elected to install (6) new glow plugs.

Fuel tank door locking pin device needed R & Red.

Blower motor replaced. Original was ticking at low RPM, and bothersome.

I changed out both engine mounts myself - one was leaking - spewing brownish hydraulic liquid. The pair of engine mounts were just over $300.00 - even @ MBCA Member pricing.

Have had fuel filter/ oil/oil filter replaced.

If anyone is buying one of these thinking they'll never need to spend time and money (at times a lot of both!) keeping them up-to-snuff, I think they're going to be very disappointed.

I got my 2005 E320 CDI in October from an MB Dealer near my home. Cost was just shy of $15k.

It has 90k miles and has Pewter (Cubanite) exterior with charcoal nappa leather interior.

Options that I wanted were Dynamic seats, Active Bi-Xenon, and folding split back seats. It also had power closing trunk, HK stereo, cd changer, DVD Nav., rear sun shades in side windows and powered shade on rear window.

Vehicle has good service history at Mercedes Dealers except last two service visits which were at indies.

Car drives really well. I am still keeping my '95 E300 as this is a tank. The E320 is more refined but I am uncertain about giving it a "tank" designation yet.

One item missed and I did subsequently was a brake fluid flush.

Transmission had a plug changed under warranty (common issue apparently) and ATF was changed at that time. This was 60k miles and 7-8 years ago. I will do aff change when I do next oil change.

Other common maintenance issues that cropped up on this example from the VMI were:

glow plugs, glow plug controller, battery controller and thermostat. TPM (air pressure monitors) on wheels went out also. These were all fixed by previous owner in and out of warranty.

__________________
-- Chris

'95 E300, 216k miles, Silver Surfer
'05 E320 CDI, 138k miles
'07 S550 4matic, 69k miles

Gone but not forgotten:

'76 300D, 350k miles?, SOLD in 1995
'75 240D, 300k miles, SOLD in 1991

At the risk of being a bit of an interloper (I don't own a CDI yet), I am interested in people's thoughts as to how to balance the mileage/price issue. Assuming well-documented maintenance in all cases, where is one likely to get the most bang for the buck? And at what mileage does one begin to incur significant risk in terms of maintenance costs going forward?

I suspect I'd be willing to spend a bit more to get something in, say, the 150k mile range. But I wouldn't be averse to buying one with 250k miles for the right price.

There is a well-maintained one where I made some inquiries with 260k miles asking $8000. Sounds fair but not a GREAT deal.

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14 E250 Bluetec 4Matic "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 159k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 179k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver on Tan, 145k mi, wastegate conversion, ALDA delete

19 Honda CR-V EX 77k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

Hmmm....Here was my rough way of thinking about it.

I came up with a approximate value for a well maintained example with say 100k miles using KBB and NADA. I also monitored sites to get an idea what they were actually trading for.

I was then using a quick back of envelope calculation of adding/subtracting $1k for each 10k miles a vehicle had above or below 100k miles. Perhaps 100k is a sweet spot. Banks don't like to make loans on cars above that level and it is a psychological point where many people would not consider purchasing a car. That said, I would not hesitate to buy one of these vehicles with 200, 300 or perhaps even 400k given it is priced accordingly. There have a been several high mileage ones that have sold and it indicates that they have mileage longevity in their genes.

For my search, I also added or subtracted some for maintenance. If a vehicle had the SBS pump replaced, I might add X or if tires were 50%, I might subtract Y. You might be able to eliminate a vehicle from consideration if maintenace history is missing. I strongly recommend doing this or at least subtracting a lot. These cars do not seem to tolerate missed maintenance.

I also added a value for options. When buying a used car, options are not valued to heavily but.....I wanted a car with specific options and was willing to pay a bit more for one.

Add some for Southern or West Coast car. Don't necessarily eliminate a Norther car though. Mine was owned by a surgeon and not driven very much in winter as he had a SUV for snow.

Add some for MB Dealer....yes you will pay more when buying from a dealer....but in long run, you get benefit of a vehicle that should have been checked out and maintenance can be easily verified. When negotiating, go through the maintenance history and make sure everything has been done or will be done. Had I followed this carefully, I might have been able to get a brake flush thrown in. An MB Dealer will have the Service department go over the vehicle, as the sales person or service manager what the service department recommended. All this being said, you may actually get a good price from a dealer......some MB dealers don't specialize or sell many diesel vehicles. They want to turn inventory.

Lastly, pay yourself....convenience and your time should be factored in. If it is easy for you to go see a car, that is worth something.

To start, go to the MB web site: There are always 6-12 vehicles nationwide at various dealers. They turn over fairly quickly so if one catches your eye, call and talk to someone.

__________________
-- Chris

'95 E300, 216k miles, Silver Surfer
'05 E320 CDI, 138k miles
'07 S550 4matic, 69k miles

Gone but not forgotten:

'76 300D, 350k miles?, SOLD in 1995
'75 240D, 300k miles, SOLD in 1991

When I search the inventory at mbusa.com, nothing comes up. Is there another site to check?

__________________
14 E250 Bluetec 4Matic "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 159k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 179k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver on Tan, 145k mi, wastegate conversion, ALDA delete

19 Honda CR-V EX 77k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

Car shopping:

I set up a spread sheet. With the following columns:

Year / State / asking price / miles / years to 300k ( for us it is 25k / year ) / purchase price divided by the number of years / a column for each available option / VIN / link to the ad

The purchase price per year of service to 300k gives me a relative cost comparison between different mileage cars. When they get to 300k, they will all have about the same relative salvage value.

For example:
2005 320 CDI / Texas / $10900 / 173,000 miles / 5.08 years to 300k / $2145 per year of service
2006 320 CDI / Arizona / $18995 / 80,000 miles / 8.8 years to 300k / $2158 per year of service
2005 320 CDI / Texas / $10998 / 113,000 miles / 7.47 year to 300k / $1473 per year of service

The first 2 cost about the same per year of service and were at the high end of cost/yr when I did this spread sheet in Jan. 2014.
The 3rd one was the lowest cost per year of service at that time.

That is just a starting point. Then I look at:
My budget for this purchase. I pay cash, so the $19,000 car was more than I wanted to tie up in a car.
The options on the car, including color in and out.
After I have decided what cars interest me, I look at the car itself, it's service history, carfax, PPI.

When I did this in Jan. of 2014, I had 32 cars listed. Doing this gave me a good sense of what was out there.
Of the 32 cars, here are the numbers that had the following options
873 heated seats - 26
530 Sat Nav - 21
819 CD changer - 19
540 rear screen - 23
297 side screens -14
433/4 dynamic seats - 6
443 heated steering - 1
889 keyless go - 3
413 panoramic roof - 2
220 parktronic - 2

The result of this shopping event was a 2007 ML 320CDI because my wife wanted AWD.

So, this Feb, when I came across a local 320CDI in Titanite Red, with leather heated dynamic seats, panoramic roof, Sat Nav, CD changer, Active Bi-Xenon head lights, new tires, 2014 Navigation disk, 196k, for $6995, I bought it.
If it was white, silver, or black, non-heated regular seats, standard sunroof, I would not have given it a second look because I didn't need it, but at that price, I could want it. That's just my opinion, it has no bearing on what you should do.

__________________
Greg
2012 S350 BlueTEC 4Matic
2007 ML 320 CDI
2007 Leisure Travel Serenity
2006 Sprinter 432k
2005 E320 CDI
1998 SLK230 (teal)
1998 SLK230 (silver)
1996 E300D 99k, 30k on WVO
Previous:
1983 240D, on WVO
1982 300D, on WVO
1983 300CD, on WVO
1986 300SDL 237k, 25k on WVO (Deerslayer)
1991 350SDL 249k, 56k on WVO - Retired to a car spa in Phoenix
1983 380 SEC w/603 diesel, 8k on WVO
1996 E300D 351k, 177k on WVO

Greg -- Sounds like a great price! How many miles did yours have? What maintenance/repairs had been done on it prior to you buying it? Have you done any maintenance/repairs? Are you going to run WVO with it?

__________________
-- Chris

'95 E300, 216k miles, Silver Surfer
'05 E320 CDI, 138k miles
'07 S550 4matic, 69k miles

Gone but not forgotten:

'76 300D, 350k miles?, SOLD in 1995
'75 240D, 300k miles, SOLD in 1991

I'll add my data point

2005 E320CDI purchased July 2010 for $17,100 on ebay. 130,000 miles at the time, vehicle was in NC, and I have evidence that it spent it's life near Duke Univ. It was considered a steal for that priice, even with the "high" miles. I have run it since that time on almost stricly homemade BD, with the only exception being blending of various proportions of D2 in subzero winter months to keep from gelling.

I now have 245,000 and still going strong.

What I have added:
- Bully Dog fuel rail chip
- Universal heated seat ($100 Amazon IIRC)
- Trailer hitch

What I have replaced:
- Dealer replaced faulty SRS airbag wiring...$700
- Front left wheel bearing fused itself to the spindle. Replaced spindle with used part.
- T'stat stuck open. Easy to replace.
- I think only one glow plug so far.
- In-tank fuel pump at 167,000 (dealer-only part...$600)
- Turbo grenaded itself at 235,000 ($700 online)
- AT fluid and filter replacement at 200k
- Lost one "bank" of third brake light (it has about 5 "banks" of LEDs). Resoldered to get most of 5th bank recovered.
- Water pump

I do all my own work, except for the airbag wiring. SBC brakes are no problem if you disconnect the connector before working on them. I run Rotella T6 5-40 synthetic, changing at the 13k interval. I use a harbor freight vacuum pump to change my oil from the dipstick tube. The oil pan plug has never been removed.

While the list above may look long, over the course of 115k miles it has had very little go wrong. The only AAA tow was when the fuel pump died (while wife had it...which took some "damage control") This car is awesome. I'd buy another in a heartbeat.

I get about 32 MPG on average of city/hwy, running creative fuel.

__________________
Mark in MA
05 MB E320CDI 402k Granite Grey Metallic
05 MB E320CDI 267k Black
05 MB E320CDI 232k White
05 MB E320CDI 209k Tectite Grey
99 Dodge 2500 Cummins 5sp 148k
62 Jeep CJ-6 120k

I test drove an 06 model about a week ago at local MB dealer. 151k miles with asking price of $13,100. I am sticking with my 98 E300 (118000 miles) for the time being. My daily driver remains one of the 95 E300 for right now.

__________________
Jim

Plug your maximum dollars into finding the most car you're shopping for. There's what your dollars will buy. That's what most around here seem to do.

The sub-$4,995.00 E320 CDI was the best deal I've seen here. Miles don't hurt these cars.

__________________
'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert