Will never lease a car...ever. The Honda/Toyota route does make good sense. But, they are just transportation appliances...no soul. If the MB can continue to come in at an average of $2,000 a year or so, we're fine. But thank you for your concern. :)

"Soul" costs money. I drive old Mbz for a whole lot of different reasons. I want to see how cheap can it go. So far it is unexpectedly low to maintain my fleet.

Happy motoring.

To be clear: if one's goal is cheap, reliable transportation, avoid MB at all costs! But they have character....they are fun to drive. That's worth a premium to me. My W124 has cost about $9000 to maintain over the last ten years and 50,000 miles. Wouldn't trade it for the world....worth every penny.

I'll let you know in five years or so...but I really expect the W211 to be relatively inexpensive to maintain over the years...at least by MB standards. The reports I hear from folks with CDI's up in the 300-400k range are very encouraging.

Mercedes aren't necessarily cheap, these aren't Saturn SL2's or Chevy S10 pickups, but they're reasonable when DIY'ed.

If DIY'ed they're cheaper to own that letting a shop work on an econobox.
Brake jobs in the south are $350ish, up north even more because rust.

I DIY'ed my 300SDL's front brakes for $120 or $130 using oem equivalent parts. I couldn't imagine going to a shop for anything other than a flat repair or new tires.

Missfire? Can you feel it?

I'd love to go down the rabbit hole on this one.

Mmmm Saturn SL2 with that LS4.
https://i1.wp.com/ls1tech.com/wp-con...aturn_Swap.jpg

And bet it gets the same mpg as an E320 with a M112 V6!

I wouldn't be surprised. Modern pushrod EFI V8s are pretty efficient.

W210 (gas) misfire - since several have asked
 

I have forgotten the codes, something like 140 & 141, been a while since I messed with it. The gas V6 is significantly more fuel efficient and has more torque than the straight 6's in W124's but does not seem anywhere nearly as refined.

I replaced all plugs, coil packs on the two OBDII indicated cylinders and (almost) all engine vacuum lines chasing the CEL so that the car would pass NC emissions, but the dreaded light keeps coming back after some miles. Finally gave up and gave the car to my Dad (SC resident, no inspections!)

The wagon does run "fine". It seems to have more power than the 1998 w210 sedan my dad had until recently when it was totaled by someone else. But the engine does not idle as smoothly as the 1998 180Kmi engine did. Also, the wagon "sounds" better, more throaty than the 1998 sedan, but does not sound as good as W124 engines!

I would hop in and take off to the left coast in the wagon without a care, but she is gonna blow someday!

I've told the story many times. I bought an E320 new off the showroom floor in 1999. It was not a happy story. Rust everywhere, oddball electrical problems, rattles, exploding balancer, oil sludging, A/C never worked right. And that was the little stuff. Fortunately, my wife insisted on the extended warranty (I thought, it's a Mercedes, why waste money?) It spent the better part of it's first two years on the back of a flatbed, the rest of the warranty period in and out of the dealer and its final years with me underneath fixing stuff. An accident relieved me of the white elephant. Friends don't let friends drive W210's.

I bought a Subaru to replace it. The Subaru is faultless at 100K miles, but has no personality. But then maybe "personality" would mean "it's trouble".

Inb4jake12tech

While I think the W211 is better than the W210 in every respect, I will reiterate, in defense of the W210, that virtually all of my issues were to be expected given age, miles, and location. The cracked exhaust manifold is the only glaring exception.

I diagnosed a W210 M112 with a loping idle situation. it was a combination of a worn timing chain and a bad camshaft on the driver side bank. The car would do its weird dance at idle and would misfire if revved beyond 5000 rpm while driving. Removed the valve cover to identify the problem.

it also had solid deposits of sludge in nooks and crannies - and the oil filter literally broke apart in my hands. We put in a replacement motor in the car - it was cheap too and surprisingly easy to do.

M112s and m113s have no oil pressure sensor or pressure switch. There is no way for the driver to know if they have an oil pressure problem. There's an O ring between the oil pickup to be and pump which is known to fail. Fortunately there is an easy retrofit.

Yes - that was the problem that I found when I removed the pan just to take a look to why the engine just decided to die - It was headed to the scrapyard anyway.

Benz should have put atleast a low pressure switch on the test port in front of the engine. Never would know why they didnt.