I'm not david, but being an E55 owner I wanted to respond to your questions ...
THe car handles extremely well. It definitely feels glued to the road. THe larger sway bars definitely help in terms of body roll. RUmble and roll? Well the bigger engine with the AMG exhaust is a bit louder but the car is so well insulated ...
Have had the car for 6 months now and have 5700 miles on it. I have loved every minute.
Unfortunately I think I"m taking a job with my company in Taiwan and I don't know if ill take this car over there. I'm not happy about paying another 65% in taxes.

Good luck on your job in Taiwan. As I posted before, there is one, and only, yellow E55T with black/yellow interior, 18" 2-piece AMG wheel, and wide-fendered. Maybe you would come across it.

Good luck....
Andy Kuo

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• 1992 Mercedes-Benz 400SE
  
• Moonstone Grey/Black Leather
  
• Blue/Red Headlights
  
• Xenon-Look Foglights
  

ICQ#26950002
http://drive.to/akry

My car arrives on Tuesday, so I will give an update of it then.

I ordered the GPS Nav system, but was told by someone with the new S class that they had to have their's replaced three times and someone else twice. Hmm... not great reliability.

I saw the new M5, which looks very agressive, but rather small interior.

Being the owner of a 94 500E I was quite curious regarding the relative performance of the E-55 in comparison. I drove my friends neww E-55 last night.Only one word describes the acceleration "unbelieveable". The transmission seems to be in the perfect gear with the slightest amount of throttle increase, unlike my 94 500E. By the seat of the pants feel the E-55 will be showing its taillights to the 500E. We will be doing an actual comparison at some time in the future.

mrem,

I've also driven an E55 and frankly aren't that confident that it would beat my beloved 500E...it was very smooth and quiet, which may have thrown off my "butt dyno". Wonderful car, though; I'm looking forward to see if anyone manages to face an E55 off against a 500E.

BTW, this month's The Star just arrived, and at tri-o-rama a '92 500E turned 13.607 in the 1/4 in the stock class. Pretty fast, eh? And that same car also won the autocross on what appears to be the OE wheels.



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Best regards, Michael
'92 500E
'88 300TE

I've been in both cars. The transmission in the E55 is so far ahead of the one in the E500 it isn't even in the same league. You can't really catch the 5-speed "flat footed". The E500/500E is a different story; let's say you accelerate slowly to 25mph then want to kick down to 1st all you get is 2800rpm in 2nd and a lesson in patience. The E55 (as is the nature of the newer engine/tranny/chassis) very consistent. The M119/W124 combo can be ungodly fast and frustratingly slow (comparatively speaking of course) depending on how you catch it. However, with the power/temp variance on the M119's it is more than likely that on a sub 40 degree F ambient temp that a stock or nearly stock 500E could kill a E55. Do the same test at 95+ F and the E55 will slaughter the 500E. I'd say it would be more of a "fair fight" if the 500E had similar sized rubber, ASR defeat, etc but that gets into grey areas of what is "stock". Aside from the immunity to high temp power loss and tranny flexibility, the E55 has some other advantages from the factory. When it comes down to it both are damn impressive cars. The driver debate also comes in here but that has already been discussed at length in the C36 posting. Oh BTW, the 92 500E's are stronger than any of their later year siblings (93 500E, 94 E500). The times in the Star that Michael mentioned are no problem whatsoever if the temp is cool. The downside is that if the engine temp is over 100C and the ambient temp around 90+ F then you will see that same 500E's 1/4 mile times fall closer to 14.607. Ouch!

Just my impressions....Lee

PS Wonder if 6.3 and 6.9 people had a similar debate years ago???

Maybe driving a 16v has influenced my driving habits...but when I need to downshift in a hurry (e.g., passing lanes, watching some poor driver eat dust), I manually shift my 500E to a lower gear (within the rev limits, of course). The accelerative effect is just about instantaneous (and additionally encourages any passangers to grab for the rafters, eyes big as quarters). I don't leave the car the opportunity to leave me flat footed when the situation demands fleet feet...

John

[This message has been edited by revbond (edited 01-19-2000).]

I know EXACTLY what you mean John. Lord knows I've done the same thing myself on many an occasion. Unfortunately the way the tranny is setup if you are past 50% of 1st gear's range you can't get the gear back without slowing down--Even with a manual shift. To test, accelerate slowly to about 27-30mph then manually shift into 1st. Since your redline in 1st is approx 40mph. The flat-footed trait only seems to rear its ugly head badly on the kickdown/downshift to 1st. Even after fiddling with the bowden cable such that any pedal contact beyond a whisper would provoke a downshift in the higher gears it still didn't touch the 1st gear inaccessability issue. Oh, kickdown to/within the other 3 gears was right up to redline - right now, but 1st still had its annoying behavior.

Hope this helps...Lee