My 300SE has a fresh, clean smell, but the E320 I recently acquired has a much less pleasant, gas-like (I believe) smell. I am interested in others' experiences, diagnoses and solutions. Here are my thoughts so far:

* I noticed that when I use the windshield fluid in the E320 I can smell the alcohol in the cabin, which is not the case with the 300SE. So is the E320's cabin just less well insulated, and also letting the engine (e.g. gas) odors in?

* The 300SE has leather seats whereas the E320 has MB-Tex: Could this make any type of difference?

* I also noticed during my initial thorough cabin clean-up that the front bottom rugs, i.e. the ones with the shaped, thick foam padding, had that same strong gas smell. So changing them would help, but only if the source of the smell can be, and has been or is, addressed, e.g. a leaky Electro-Hydraulic Actuator (which I needed to change on the 300SE). However if the smell is, unfortunately, normal for this model (due to the mentioned lack of insulation, or else) then the almost $500 required to change those rugs would only be an expensive temporary fix...

Thanks for any ideas!

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1991 W126 300SE (M103)
1995 W124 E320 Wagon (M104)