Just a testament to the E300
 

I recently re-acquired my 99 E300 that's been in my family for about 12 years now. It has lots of sentimental value. My father bought the car when it was 4 years old with 122k miles. It was sold to my neighbor a few years ago, about five and I reacquired it from him for an excellent price. It's a fully optioned model. It has everything from the Xenon lignting package with headlight washers, very rare #199 Obsidian Black metallic with black leather interior, heated seats and the very first Mercedes Benz navigation system. Only ootions it's missing is the rear window shade and parktronic.

Hands down this is probably my favorite Mercedes I've owned. I got 32.5 mpg recently going up past Wilkes-Barre and back down the turnpike to Philly onthe same tank I left with. Great torque and highway power, and still rides excellent on its almost 20-years-old shocks and springs at 173k miles (very low mileage as well). I've put about 3k miles on it in less than a month.

Here's some pictures of the beast as well. In my opinion, this is the last Mercedes that was well-designed besides the w211. I'll probably buy another one this winter I'm thinking.
http://i67.tinypic.com/2je1e2p.jpg
http://i66.tinypic.com/izrw36.jpg

really, I am trying to be nice.... this era of cars from MB look like a bunch of fkd up easter eggs mated and laid their eggs on the w124's face..

eating its flesh and causing a large portion of the w124 to morph into this strange foreign creature with no form of its own.

sorry. I will probably never drive one. I will, however, testify to the om606. great engine.



no offense. I really couldn't think of anything nicer to say and didn't want to leave you hanging.

I will agree that styling has kept me away from the W210, that and rust issues, but otherwise I feel that these cars are excellent drivers and Mercedes did a fine job. The 606 turbo and overdrive alone are great improvements.

I had a very good friend who owned a '99 from almost new, black over black leather and well optioned also, never let him down and was a joy to drive and ride in.

Congrats on the return of this car, given the history, colors, and options I'd be very tempted to own this one also.

Hanging? What, your opinion means the world to him so you didn't want to leave him a second too long in anticipation of your breathless critique?

The w210 came out just after I got my first Mercedes, a w116 300sd. The w116 also elicited varying comments from people as the design aged, so I got used to nasty comments when I had mine.

In any case, I could not disagree more on the w210. I was initially taken aback by the front end, but it grew on me almost instantly. I remember scoring a prestige brochure from the local dealer, a 55-page tome. It was THE Mercedes I aspired to own after my w116. It actually took me some time to warm up to the w126.

Well times changed and a w210 wasn't anywhere near my reach when that time came. I may still end up with one now, who knows.

The worst thing I can say about the looks is that I find that, unlike most Mercedes, they look better in lighter colours.

They look better with AMG wheels. Look at the cute little Daimler sticker, still on the windshield. Keeper.

I have always loved the look of the w210's front end, the Quad oval lights and the grill just always looked extravagant. I remember when I was younger looking at them and wanting one.

That being said, I own one, my e290 wagon, and I will probably no own another. They are pretty poorly made. They drive wonderfully, and are decent to work on, but crap for quality. When my wagon finished rusting out in a couple years I plan on taking the entire drive-train and transplanting it into a late model w124 wagon.

Never the less, you look to have a very nice example there!

Don't knock em till you try em folks.

I'm with jt20 on this one. I love the w123, w126 and w116/5 cars growing up. The w124 took a little longer to love, but it's firmly in my heart now. However, the w210 had be sworn off from believing that MB could produce anything worth looking at again. It's 2016 and only a year or two ago I liked the w212 and they slowly had me looking back to the w211 with some fondness.

The w210 nearly killed my appreciation for modern MBs. It is so unbelievably bad looking, especially compared to the glorious final versions of the w124. No joke, the w210 reminds me more of the 96-99 Ford Taurus than any MB.

To each his own. I love my 98 E300, those Little Orphan Annie eyes notwithstanding. Only downside is susceptibility to rust, in my view.

that is a very narcissist view of the world. I am sorry you have to live like that.

I don't like seeing threads fall off the front page with '0' replies, so I responded with whatever I had and tried to keep it humorous. My intentions were good, but you've reminded me of why I don't come here anymore.


Regarding the w210 - I think it was just a weird time for automotive styling in general, perhaps. I recall when these cars were new, I thought they looked elegant.

Now, it really hasnt been that long but, to me, this style has not proved to be as timeless as its predecessors. W123 and W124 still look good to this day.

I have to agree, W210 looks like a goofy obese bastard son of VW beetle....but I can't deny it's comfortable as hell.

I'll keep my W210 E300TD for a very long time, goofy look or no. Reliability and comfort matters more than looks.

... and the 126. Maybe we should have a poll to see what everyone likes to look at, maybe limit it to 116/123/124/126/140/201/210/211? I'd have to say that to me, the 116/123 is my classic favorite look of these, 140 my favorite M-B beast look (like a 124 that works out), ... maybe the E500 should have its own category as this and the Hammer are timeless musclebenzes.

For fugly, I vote the early ML, was it a Honda or Mercedes, ... hard to tell.

Best classic look = W126 SEC, W124 AMG Hammer

W140 S600 looks different than regular S500. I can't pin down the difference, but it's apparent to me. And it looks beastly. And deceptively quick...kinda like a sumo wrestler wearing a fitted 3 piece suit.

Best sporty look = W201 190E 2.5-16v with the funky oversized spoiler and rolled fenders. I would kill to have that car as a daily driver. Failing that, the AMG hammer is a very close second.

Modern look = W211 facelift. The angular look makes it look very sharp. W212 facelift looks even better.

Well, I owned one from new, and let me tell you - they're definitely NOT trouble-free cars to keep in-repair. I found them to be very costly and a continuing headache to keep up with all the malfunctions mine presented as the years and miles clicked by. FWIW - the turbo /FAILING on mine was the first thing to go. That was a big ol bad surprise to encounter.
In retrospect, I don't think they're much of a value as contrasted with what else out there is extremely affordable too. I'd advise a jump to a very well-priced CDI, for anyone considering the W210 diesel.

Regards looks, style?
W210, although smallish, is among the best of the best of all time Daimler-Benz design. The retro/throwback, early 1950s facelift recharged the mid-size Daimler-Benz brand.
Worst? Hands down the Army-tank styled W124. Darkest style ever made in the mid-size category.
W140 - Ugh.
W212 - save your money and buy a used Cadillac DeVille of the same vintage. Drives exactly as a Caddy.
W123 - so homely, they grow on you.
W126 - another best of the best Daimler-Benz ever created.
W116 - another best of the best Daimler-Benz ever created in modern times, 1960s on forward........
Almost ANY model SL- terrific, timeless styling.

I agree that the 210 channels the old Ponton fender's look.

I am in the "210 is beautiful" camp.

Not sure why you think obsidian black on black was a rare color. I thought every E300 imported to the US was that color. Among the reasons why I bought the E320 station wagon was that the dealer couldn't find an E300 in anything other than obsidian black.

For racking up the miles it is hard to beat a good, properly maintained 98/99 E300. That is what the wife daily drives and she averages around 3k/month. I do like the W211 cars a lot and am in the market for either an 05/06 CDI or 05-09 E class with the bluetec. With the exception of the high priced motor oil and the occasional seal replacement there is nothing wrong with the bluetec engines in my opinion. It is just a little more cumbersome to deal with under the hood but a big positive is not having the SBC.

I had a customer bring a 99 E300 (~250k miles) to the shop the other night that he was considering purchasing. It was a little low on power but the asking price was only $2000. Found the boost signal tube from the intake to the solenoid off, replaced the rubber hose with a new piece, hooked it back up and poof, he had power like it should have. He ended up purchasing it for $1800 and the a/c worked great in the car too:). It was a steal if you ask me.

I always thought they (W210) were kind of cute, and a low mileage, turbodiesel was among the candidates when we got the S430. I knew my wife would pick the big, comfy one, but I would have been fine with the little diesel. Don

Obsidian black, was an upgraded cost color.

The #199 Obsidian Black was rare. I've seen few with that color. 85% ofw210s I saw were 040 gloss black.

I think Beetles look great, so I'm going to take this as a complement. I'm in the "210 is beautiful" camp, even the non-turbos.

Yeah, I believe that the W210 was the most luxurious model they released, even more so than the W124. A lot more refined, softer ride, more comfortable on longer trips (I have back issues, even at my young age), overall a better car. The rust hasn't been an issue, never driven in salt. It has two small spots, with a flawless undercarriage.

I can't understand the hate for the W210, it's crazy. They're phenomenal cars. I've had a W123, W124, and now a W210 that were all diesels. Hands down my favorite MB. The W123 is just a timeless classic though, and if there were more examples out there that were clean and well-kept, I'd buy another. The W210 is a better car though.

Skid Row Joe, I'm surprised that you have had as many issues with your E300 that you mentioned. Very rare that this car has needed anything besides routine maintenance in 12 years since it's been in the family. From my previous service records from the original owner, nothing was done as well besides routine maintenance.

The issues mounted in $$$ quickly on my bought-new E300, since I put nearly 100K miles on it inside 4-years. I bought the car as a business tool, and didn't do any research before buying. The only research I did was in whether buying new or used. A '97 E300 with 75K miles on it was at $35K asking, and a new one, ('99 E300TD) was $42,500.00 out-the-door. I went with new. I've since decided not to buy MBs new, so, I've got the time to assess whether I want to be "in" for this or that model. The beauty of this Internet age is that doing your homework on any given model is a lot easier to do before buying. I'm glad I bought mine, It was light-years ahead of what MB had been making in their diesel cars, but it came at a cost.:eek: My brother now owns the car and it's now his to work through the issues that develop on it. I warned him beforehand, but he still wanted the car.

The Obsidian black is a stunning color, btw.

I remember the launch, and the Engineering work pre-launch, and many of us were very disappointed that Mercedes was working so hard to keep costs down, in an attempt to move from their high-cost highly engineered cars to something that could compete in the marketplace with re-badged Toyotas (aka: Lexus, my brother was Product Planner, All New Vehicles for Lexus at that time, I remember that side of the story also). The W210 was definitely a change in direction for Mercedes-Benz cars. Unfortunately however, the W210, W202, and my favorite whipping-boy the new ML series needed to move into a competitive price position and shed costs to remain profitable.

Anyhoo, I never loved the front of the W210, certainly one that leaves strong opinions. However, I was on the road this week, was passed by a BMW 850, ... and was reminded of this thread. Who in the BMW world doesn't know what their "Bangle-Butt" era was? Those big butt cars that looked like someone put a pickup-truck capper on the back of a sedan (or coupe), and took them from a company that made cars as beautiful as the 635CSi or the M-coupe, and this was their answer to styling?

I guess that we can say (or I will anyway) that this wasn't a strong era for German styling. They were no longer going to Gregario, Pinninfarina, Bertone, et al for styling and trying to do more in-house, and certainly had some ... interesting designs.

So can you answer these questions for me:
Was the W210 the first MB to be completely CAD modeled? If so what CAD platform did they use? CATIA?
And was it the first production MB to be fully CAN bus for body as well as engine (as opposed to the last 124s that just used it for engine management?)

Or was the W140 the first for these now common place attributes?

I don't know what car was completely CAD modeled first, but they were Dassault/Catia at the time. Also used for the first aircraft completely modeled on CAD, Dassault's own FalconJet, ... and then Boeing, both Catia. I loved Catia over other solid modelers, but haven't been on a tube since V5, ... would probably love to have a seat of Solid Works at home (now also owned by Dassault/Catia).

As far as CANbus, again not my area, sorry! I'd be guessing W140, but it (my '93) still has discrete components that don't share data (at least mine does), so I would still call it a hybrid application not total CABbus.

You sound like a guy who remembers SCO.

After all these years of owning my w123 wagon, I still look back at her after I park and walk away...

My 99 210 wagon... great ride, good mpg, mine had it's issues... lots of them. never caught me as a "good" looking car.

My 124 sedan... got better as I owned it... took a lot of changes to get it to where I thought it was a good looking car. (face lift for one)

Cant see not owning a w123. Just bought wife a Xc90 Volvo 2.5 AWD. I still like driving the w123 wagon more.

W210s do drive nice and I don't mind how they look, they are still everywhere here so unless its an E55 I don't really think about it beyond oh, I have one of those too. Mine is probably going to be off the road for at least 6 months while I try to figure out how to get the transmission to shift again or decide a replacement car would be preferable, so I don't think I could recomend one as a reliable daily driver. I do think they are probably the last reasoonably modern diesel that a normal person could maintain without having to pay someone else to do a lot of the work.

Well, in 12 years the car hasn't broken down or had any major issues. I'm beyond happy with it. It's a comfortable ride, soft & smooth. I'd love to pick up an E55 as my second car. The only thing that is a problem with these cars is rust. I'd love to know why I find more rusty W210s than I do W124s. What is the difference?

The water-based paint they started to use with the W210.

The 124 sedan was full zink/zinc dipped (at least through MY-1993), I don't believe that the 210 was. Maybe different spec. body steel, maybe different primer/paint, ... a lot was changing at that time with the VOC reductions in paint also.

I have looked at the assembly plant videos on YT and based on what I have seen and my experience with the industry at that time...

I think the 124 was assembled from mild steel and then the entire body was dipped in zinc primer. The first gen 124s were painted with traditional "wet" solvent based enamel without clear coat. I think they added clear coat to the later 124s since I have seen later 124s with clear coat that is totally shot.

I think the 210 was assembled from steel that was galvanized at the mill and then welded. Then they did a primer dip and then powder painted the body. The clear coat was wet but low VOC. Also they probably changed the formula for the undercoating to lower VOCs as well. I think all these things conspired to decrease the rust resistance of the 210s.

BTW my 210 is totally rust free except where there was a big rock chip in the hood. I got hit in a parking lot and part of the repair involved replacing the hood so now I am rust free again...and this car lived its first 15 years in Maryland.

Reason I suspect this is that in the mid 90s the steel industry figured out how to do continuous galvanizing of steel strip coming off the mill. It is a very complex process. Basically the strip is reheated and then plunged through a vat of molten zinc at around 800 degrees. Then air knives (think a Dyson AirBlade restroom dryer on steroids) blew off the excess coating before it was rolled to a finish thickness.

The problem was that sensor technology at the time would not allow the thickness of the coating to be measured until it was below a couple hundred degrees. This meant that the strip had traveled several hundred feet down line between the vat and sensor. The feedback control algorithms required processing power that was just becoming available in the early 90s. They used a special PLC with 6 CPUs performing parallel processing if I recall correctly.

Unfortunately I did not get to mess with that part of it, my job was to make sure the system got its power source.

You are correct on coatings, Mercedes went to water-based paint in '92 IIRC, and clearcoat was not used on these cars unless metallic or black. Early ones only metallic / not on black.

The zinc (zink in German) dip was after all of the welding, entire 124 sedan (and coupe I believe) went through the zinc bath, the wagons for some reason did not get the same treatment.

The early 124 process was (excluding wagons):

Assembly/welding
Zinc phosphating with chromate rinse
Cathodic electrodip primer
primer
color-matched primer
color coat/top-coat
(metallic only) clear coat

The fenders and trunk lid were installed prior to step 2, doors and hood not added until after primer.

One big difference between pre-plated and dipping is that the zinc is breached at welds and the steel is more susceptible to corrosion at those points, the surface must be converted and sealed. Much of the rust issues that I saw on '90s Mercedes cars (mainly W202 and W210 but also my '94/'95 E320s suffered) are cosmetic at first, starting at areas like the body holes for the side-cladding clips, and when neglected enough become serious. The W210 spring-perch issue is of course different, and I don't believe completely related to rust (a good friend had his '99 fail, the car was never rusty, never driven in corrosive environment, never near a coast or driven in winter/salt, never even in an auto-car wash) but it is often attributed to rust and is perhaps accelerated by rust.

Oh, and the 124 used HSLA extensively in the body, IIRC it had over 30% high-tensile steel in the structure which is what led to its 54hz chassis resonance (extremely stiff for its time).

I've been an AutoCAD 2-d guy my whole career drawing electrical schematics. From AutoCAD 10 on DOS6.22 to the present. But at the various places I've worked I have seen the mechanical folks using the high powered 3D stuff.

I guessed Catia based on the time frame, and I saw a documentary from the mid 90s on the Boeing 777 being 100% modeled on Catia.

Now CAN bus is still very much a part of my world. Woodward uses it for all kinds of communications between modules for power system control. And we use SAE J1939 to get parameters from the generator engine ECU for display on our operator interface.

Back to the 210 and the 140, the CAN bus was very limited. They did neat tricks like push the window switch and send a CAN message to the door to roll the window down. They did not have the full OBD II implementation especially for the body controls. They still had the 38 pin connector where a diagnosis pin was brought from each major module. Modern MBs only have the 16 pin connector and Xentry probably can tell the tech someone farted in the passenger seat last Tuesday.

Looking at the W140 brochure, it says that there are up to 8 control modules in the (forced-air cooled) area ahead of the windshield!

Never did 2-D, my first CAD seat was 3-D/color (Computervision, 1983-ish) and I used it for PC board design, after which I created 3-D models of all of the (SMD) components so that the plastic guys could work around my components. Pretty primitive stuff, wireframe with surfacing capabilities, we had to create any surface other than planar and fillets with calculations and hand-entered formulas.

IIRC around the late '80s we went to Catia, partially because of the capabilities, and partially because 70% of our (automakers) customer base was CATIA.

The absence of zinc coat dipping, would then explain the front spring perches rusting through to failure as well?

It's tragic that Mercedes chose to cheapen the cars in this way. :o. The car-series has so many good things going for it, that the weak points drag it down at times.

I'd like to know what the failure is, whether there are some cars that were not adequately welded and suffered metal fatigue, whether this is an all cars issue or only those without correct welds. I don't think that rust is the whole issue here.

Agreed, the w210 is a wonderful driving car and is well designed, just not built well.....

I think it affect all cars, it was bad enough that there was a Canada only recall on the spring perches. I believe the dealer would scrap off the sealant, inspect and reseal or replace the spring perch as was necessary

I'm pretty sure it does not effect the cars that live down south. I see a many of 250k+ mile 98/99 E300s that don't have a bit of issue in this regard.

I can confirm there are lots of W210s still running around Houston and they appear rust-free.

There are nasty rusty ones running around here that aren't worth repairing, ... that seem to be fine. If it were just exposure to salt / corrosion they would likely be gone. I've also seen rusty ones in the boneyards that have the spring perches intact. My friend's nice southern no-salt car did have a failure, inconsistent with the rust theory, thus my doubt.

I had a friend text me yesterday inquiring who to use for transmission rebuild on his 98 E300. It is starting to slip at 325k miles and it has had routine servicing about every 50k miles.

I did like driving mine, although its likely to get sold as a parts car because I can't get the transmission out of limp mode. A very expensive way to travel the 15k or so miles I have put on it while I had it.