I still have the 300SE.

I'd like to attend the ACS DIY, but I have front suspension repairs to do, I also want to replace the coolant hoses, it couid use a new serp belt tensioner and pulleys (probably could do the tensioner there). I have the spring compressor and all the parts.

Not to mention valve seals. CIS rubber bits.

I just replaced the exhaust.

It's a money pit. I haven't been driving it. The CVPI is so much fun. It actually has power!

I want to attend the picnic the next day.

I'd better get cracking!

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Regards

Warren

Currently 1965 220Sb, 2002 FORD Crown Vic Police Interceptor

Had 1965 220SEb, 1967 230S, 280SE 4.5, 300SE (W126), 420SEL

ENTER > = (HP RPN)

Not part of the in-crowd since 1952.

I've noticed that on the freeway, especially in rush hour, the number of cars in the fast lane is at least 10 fold the numbers of cars in other lanes. Every single one of them tailgating the other, but in the slower lanes there's plenty of more space in between cars.

Luckily for me, the rush hour commute that I through is on Interstate 280 from San Francisco to Standford and for the most part has an average speed of around 70mph. I make my 35 mile commute in around 30 minutes.

Due to this high average speed I use my cruise control and set it a 70mph. On 280 it's 4 lanes in each direction and I stay in the middle two lanes. What I've noticed that really irritates me is that for some reason people just love to drive right on my ass, even when there's no other cars around and they could easily go to the right or left to pass. I don't get it? It takes at least 5 minutes for them to finally pull around. Now, I don't know if I'm wrong here, but since I'm not in the fast lane I don't feel that I should get over for them. I doesn't make sense to me.

Oh well...

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1992 Mercedes-Benz 400E
2002 Mercedes-Benz ML500

I had to check my road rage today. On the way home I was driving in the right lane. A Civic passes me and then we hit a red light. He floors it when the light changes, only to pull in front of me and slow down to make a right turn 50 yards ahead. I didn't slow down - I went around him at the last moment, keeping as much in the right lane as possible - hopefully scared the 5hit out of him. I'm normally pretty tolerant of bad road manners, but for some reason this really irked me.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Don't be too quick to criticize slow left lane drivers in the US.

I stay right as much as possible since I drive the speed limit, but what often happens, is that there will be traffic merging and entering the freeway. I have no choice but to move to the left lane to let the merging traffic in (they have the yield sign, yet would rather sideswipe you than yield), or I could hit my brakes (turning off the cruise) and slow as not to inconvenience those who are suppose to yield in the first place.

So as soon as I get over to the left lane, the merging traffic matches my speed, and a car will come speeding (breaking the speed limit and the law) up from behind and wonder what in the he11 I'm doing in the left lane going the so slow (speed limit), waving arms, swerving, or flashing lights cussing that I should learn to drive or get off the road.


[sarcasm]I really should not be allowed to drive, since I drive the speed limit. All the poor drivers out there who are deprived of their right to break the law and drive above the speed limit when they get behind me.[/sarcasm]

I find myself telling other drivers (to myself); "It's not my fault the speed limit is so low, I'm just obeying it!"

I'll get over as soon as I can, be patient.

Think about this, if one was driving the max speed allowed by law (speed limit) in the left lane, then there is no way for that person to impede the progress of any other driver, UNLESS that other driver is breaking the law by speeding.


BTW: I've spent a total of 6 years driving in Germany at max speeds on autobahns, and know the 'stay-right' rule very well. I've driven on several race tracks, and road raced motorcycles, so I’m familiar with speed. There's no reason to speed on the highway (I don't agree with the low speed limit though, but obey them) and and then criticize those who choose to obey the laws.

MarkC

Brabus,

I had to check your location to be sure you were not a Californian. There is no other state in the union that has more ahole discourteous drivers than here. I don't care how much testing you do, it will never correct the ME NOW attitudes of Americans. This country has got to get its act together or be buried by the EU. We can not continue acting like spoiled children. We have been here 200 years while the rest of the world goes back thousands of years. I love driving in Europe, because of the courteous drivers. Christine and I are going to Hawaii next year, because she has never been. The following year we want to go back to Europe. This time I would like to spend time in Eastern Europe. I have always wanted to go to Krakow.

Warren,
I have actually given alot of thought to your idea. I hate American cars, because they are pieces of junk and haven't owned one for decades, but the thought of an old highway patrol cruiser with a luggage rack that looks like a light bar and a broomstick that looks like a shotgun would certainly clear the left lane of aholes. I drive fast and have not had an accident or citation in 30 years. I don't think that people driving fast in the left lane cause accidents. I spend alot of time on the road and to me, people weaving in and out at speeds higher than traffic flow and people sweeping across several lanes of traffic in the last instant to take an offramp cause the accidents.

Zeronero,

I don't know about Mark C, because he is keeping a secret identity, but you live in California which is known for ROAD RAGE. You keep driving in that left lane and pissin off other drivers. You just need to reflect on one thing and ask youself one question. Which one of these drivers is a tweeker high on crystal met with a loaded 45 automatic. In that state of mind there is no thought given to firing a shot through the passenger window and splattering your brains all over the windshield. It has happened you know. HAVE A NICE DAY


Peter

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Auto Zentral Ltd.

I also drive Highway 280 going N&S from San Francisco to San Jose as zeronero. This is a beautiful 4 lane wide open road. Daily, drivers move right over to the fast lane and hang there at about 62-64 MPH (the limit is 65MPG). No matter what any body does, they just stay there.

Traffic slows and bunches up behind them and they gradually has to work its way around to the right. Often there are near misses. I was told that the CHP is now ticketing slow drivers in the fast lanes regardless of their relative speeds just because of the problems they cause.

BTW, my favorite horrible driver situation was coming down from the Sierra Mountains with my family in the 300e. We were in the right lane headed west and came upon a lady driving in the left lane. I will rarely ever try to past on the right.

I changed lanes and waited for her to move over. She did not and instead slowed down! I flashed my lights and she slowed down to 50 MPH. I decided to carefully pass on her right and she repeatedly and aggressively swerve at me, close to forcing me and my family off the road! We were horrified.

Now I must admit I was pissed and wanted to take some dramatic action, but instead hung back and watched her increase her speed back to just below the posted limit of 65 MPH.

Several other cars tried the same to pass her on the right. Same response: She owned the road and she was not going to let ANYONE past her.

Haasman

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'03 E320 Wagon-Sold
'95 E320 Wagon-Went to Ex
'93 190E 2.6-Wrecked
'91 300E-Went to Ex
'65 911 Coupe (#302580)

Hassman,
If I were a juror, I would have to vote for justifiable homicide while trying the defendant. There are two other reasons I don't drive in the #1 lane. First of all and not that important, I have noticed that the RGs will ticket drivers in that lane before the #2 lane. The major reason I don't drive in the #1 lane is , because if someone looses control on the other side, the first car they will take out is in the #1 lane. I always play for position. I naver drive with the knats. Knats consist of a group of drivers who don't know each other, but for some reason must drive in a group. If one loses a wheel or swerves while reaching for a soda, they are all involved. I tought my 2 girls many years ago to pretend they were invisible while driving, and to this day they have never been in accidents.

__________________
Auto Zentral Ltd.

The problem you see on the roads today is partly due to the fact that the entire US uses the driver's license as an ID card. A driver's license is as easy to get today as a business card, it only takes more standing in line.

Amen.
I rarely drive my '86 420 anywhere I might have to park it among the beasts.
It's been keyed twice since I've owned it (about 1.5 years). And it's 20 years old! Some people are so stupid, jealous, ignorant, mean, criminal...
I'm getting started.
And I live in a relatively rural area, where the adjacent suburbs are relatively conservative. Can't imagine what it's like to live in a city and drive a new Mercedes-Benz or other high-profile car.
I wish I had time; I would park it and sit and watch it, just to catch one beast keying my car, and whip his ass right there. It would be so delicious. I would pour whup-ass all over him.
People are getting more selfish, arrogant, "lovers of self, rather than lovers of God" Read Romans Ch. 2 int he Bible; Paul has people and modern times figured out pretty good (with God's inspiration, of course).

I live in the Barossa Valley in South Australia and road manners are no more common here than anywhere else in the world it seems.
You would think out here that life goes a little slower than in downtown New York. Maybe it does but the drivers don't.................

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Tony
76 W116 280SE
74 W107 450SLC
88 W124 300E
82 W123 280TE

Well, it's been said, it is not that we are not capable of driving sensibly. We just don't.

I'll tell you something. Every other day, I rollerblade out along Rt. 1A(coastal road), and not a day goes by where at least one person(some juvie) screams out the window "Dork", "****head", "Moron", "**tch",...!?

I am really disgusted. I am thinking of packing some microtech, and recording their vehicle's plate and sound recording. Then I will report it.

Americans are capable of driving well. But this nation, as a whole, even grown, is still at it's mother's dugs.

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1987 300SDL (324000)

1986 Porsche 951 (944 Turbo) (166000)

1978 Porsche 924 (99000)

1996 Nissan Pathfinder R50 (201000)

I was in Reno this weekend and it was the first time I've ever seen a yield sign on a freeway on-ramp. It doesn't make any sense to me why that sign would be there. I always thought that your suppose to stop and wait for the cars your yielding to pass, so if there would be traffic then stopping would be mandatory if there was a yield sign until there's no cars around. Besides Reno, I've only seen yield signs in situations where the speed limit is low, or where there would be a stop sign but instead is a yield sign. Since your suppose to speed up to get onto the freeway doesn't that make things more difficult and dangerous. Reno does have the most massive freeway construction project that I've seen going on at the moment so that could be why they have the yield signs, but as a permanent feature, I can't see it.

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1992 Mercedes-Benz 400E
2002 Mercedes-Benz ML500

But I'm not driving in the left lane. There are fours lanes in each direction, I don't go in the left lane because I'm not going fast enough. I keep out of the right lane due to merging traffic. So, I stay in the two middle lanes since they are the easiest to be in. It seems that no matter what I do, pissin off other drivers is my thing.

I bet you if I tryed driving on the shoulder someone would be right on my ass.

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1992 Mercedes-Benz 400E
2002 Mercedes-Benz ML500

If I were a giant and I had a huge fly swatter, I would sit by the side of the freeway all day and enjoy myself swatting cars driven by aholes. They would be flattened to the ground and everyone else would drive over them. Once a week the highway patrol would scrape off the swatted cars and send them to a recycler. Most of the cars would probably be Handas and Mustangs.

Whatever happened to the notion, clearly printed in my driver's license study materials in 1976, that drivers on the roadway (esp. an interstate or other higher-speed road) *share the responsibility* for making sure merging traffic gets into the flow safely? The merging drivers themselves have primary responsibility, of course; and nobody says you should dive unsafely into the center lane just to let somebody in from the right. But the idea of adjusting your speed so that merging traffic can either get in safely ahead of you, or can fall in behind you, seems to have vanished . . .

. . . Oh. Right.

I used the horrible terms "responsibility" and "safely," and had the unmitigated gall to suggest an American driver should let someone onto the highway *ahead* of him. Question answered. My bad.

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* *
-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino