I've got a 2003 S430 with a little over 107,000 miles on it I am looking to sell. Nothing wrong with the car at all, in fact, it's what in my opinion I would consider a very nice example. I've mentioned this previously, so it's no surprise, but I really don't like all the electronics and such on these.

With that in mind I'm looking to revert back to a W126, ideally a diesel, or possibly another W140 (I have two W140s in the stable right now along with an R129 and this car.)

Here is a Flicker album with lots of photos:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskhhSVQE

I'm the second owner, the original owner took delivery of the car from a dealer in Maryland and drove it to their home in Houston, where it lived until I purchased it in May of 2015. Maintained by the local dealer and trusted independent, I have all of the service records for the car since it was purchased. Lots of the typical stuff was been addressed such as the AirMatic during the time the original owner had the car. When I bought it nothing was needed.

Issues?

The only ones I know of are:

The parking brake release cable is either broken or unhooked in the parking brake mechanism. I haven't been able to identify the actual issue, mainly because I can't lay on my back for extended periods of time, which is a requirement to work in this area. The pawl doesn't engage, so you can push on the parking brake pedal and it won't engage. I have determined the issue is in the mechanism and not the usual "cable unhooked at the handle" which seems to be endemic on a lot of MBs of this vintage. I have a new release spring and locking pawl just in case they're needed.

Right rear door release handle is weird in that you have to pull it out more than the others to release. Never sitting in the back of the car, I didn't discover this until I had some passengers recently. The door does release and the handle works fine, but it seems like the cable jacket may not be anchored, allowing the cable to move around when operated. A nuisance sort of thing, but I'm frighteningly detail oriented about my cars, so I consider this an issue.

Cosmetically, the body and paint are very good but do have a few parking lot dings and some small paint chips on the hood. The original owner apparently didn't realize you can use the AIRMatic to lift the car off of parking curbs, so the bottom edge of the front air dam has two spots where they scraped some paint off. I have a can of custom mixed paint from Tower that will go with the car as I haven't had time to tackle this. The perforated leather on the driver's seat back has a place where it's separated, which you can see in the album pictures. Otherwise the interior is very clean and has no damage.

With the help of a cell phone guru I retrofitted the Mercedes hands free Bluetooth phone system along with Voice Control. A nice option and something that's not particularly easy to do. An extra bonus is the presence of an auxiliary input for the Bose sound system that Mercedes only put in the 2003 model.

I just put a Bosch crank position sensor in the car Tuesday, as on Monday it did a no-start after hot soaking for about five minutes in a parking lot. After cooling off for 15-20 minutes it started up and was fine for the drive home. It's performed perfectly since the new Bosch CPS was installed.

I just noticed the outer edge of the front tires are starting to wear a bit, so it went to my alignment specialist today. Toe was off slightly, everything else was in spec. Tires are good, but I don't want to send it off to a new owner if it's not right.

I will also include a set of HID D3S/D1S Bi-xenon projector lamp assemblies for retrofitting the low beam headlights to xenon lamps. This is a relatively simple DIY job and boosts the light output significantly for the low beam headlights. I purchased these with the intent of installing them but just haven't had the time. They do not include lamps or ballasts.

There's nothing particularly unique or unusual about this car, and for that matter, being a W220 that's probably a good thing. This car is a pleasure to drive and has been extremely reliable and economical for what it is. I drive an almost exactly 50-50 mix of highway and surface streets, and gas mileage averages in the very low 20s. I got in the high 20s on long trips. All this is substantiated in the detailed records I keep which will accompany the car.

I'm looking for $6500, or I'll take a nice W126 or W140 diesel in trade.

Drop me a PM if you're interested.

Thanks,

Dan