That they did... this is a 1994 W140 S280:

http://www.classiccarshop.co.uk/Cars/mercedes_s280.htm

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Steven Harrison

1993 300E2.8 - 196K
2001 E320 4MATIC - 86K

Did a pull in my friends S320 to 105 or so, whips my SDL's but big time. They lack the punch the V12 has but it only has 1/2 the engine. The V12 will push you into the back of your seat at 100, the S320 will not. I think the 130ish top end is about right, although don't expect the punch that the larger V8 and V12 will give you. Under 100 they all pull real well, for sustained speeds in the 130-150 range the V12 is the way to go, just in case some of you guys live by an autobahn.

As far as leather quality, its thicker then my W126. Nicer more comfortable seats to, dash is nice thick leather and doesn't seem to crack.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

My W126 300SE is geared really short, to overcome the lack of torque...I have to imagine the W140 320's are the same way...I really find the torque of a large V8 reassuring.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

The 320's have a 5spd, which helps a lot.

But the M104 that is fitted into them has 228hp, vs 275 for the small 4.2L M119 and 315 for the 5L M119. The M120 is 6L or course, and produces 400hp.

The 228hp M104 puts out about that in torque and moves these big cars right along. They are about as smooth as a gas turbine and love to rev. 3k-4k rpm and they move right along.

The M120 of course is just above idle at 70 and has all the low end grunt you could want, but it will sing to over 6krpm with ease.
The M103 in your W126 puts out 180ish?

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

.........if I could only have that in a 1991 W126..............

.........one of these diesels would be gone in a heartbeat.........

Brian,
I'm afraid I don't have access to a large enough data base to come up with any numbers for maintenance costs on anything. Sorry.

To the rest of you kids out there who think MBs should be hot rods, you are still too young to appreciate the finer points of an S class. In my opinion the only reasons MB and AMG make a small group of extremely fast cars is to appeal to young fofks with no sense of mortality, machismo types who have a need to kick ass, and guys in my age group attempting to recapture their youth. It is also a fallacy that you need a belch fire V8 to drive on the Autobahn. I've had no problem driving all over Germany in a little 4 door Renault I rented in Paris. Also I was not the A hole doing 102 kms in the fast lane. They don't let you do that on the Autobahn or the Autostrada in Italy.

I appreciate the S class for what it is. It is a marvelous machine with fit and finish, braking, handling, and a car I feel comfortable driving at speeds over 100mph.

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Auto Zentral Ltd.

OK, thanks anyway, Peter.


I agree completely, but I've never gone 100mph in one.

Not always. If a car is involved in an accident and they don't go through an insurance company for repairs nothing happens to the title. Additionally a vehicles that are reposessed and destroyed by previous owners sometimes are auctioned "as is" and don't get salvage titles. There are many loopholes in the system and the autorebuilding industry know's how to work every last one of them.

A clean carfax means nothing as much as a salvage title could mean nothing. Take for example an early model w-140 sedan. If the car were vandalized and all the $1000 a pane argon filled windows smashed its likely it would be totalled by an insurance company and have a salvage title while still being a perfectly good car. Another example would be the owner that in a drunken stupor smashes their late model w-140 into a telephone pole and quietly tows or drives it to a repair shop and pays for the repairs in cash. They of course then don't want a wrecked car and put it in the paper shiny new paint job, clean title and all.

In regards to the fraud issues your absolutely right about that, however do keep in mind that you would have to hire an Attorney sucessfully serve the defendant papers, sue them and then go about collecting your judgement assuming you were able to prove your case. You would have to pay court filing fees out of pocket and pay an Attorney to represent your case as most won't take small civil cases without cash upfront. Many rebuilders and sleazy car dealers will go out of business and reopen the business using a relative's or business partner's information and do it all over again when they get sued the next time. So you could easily be several thousand out of pocket above and beyond the value you have lost in your car and still end up empty handed.

Do you have documentation to support your claim about the non washing in all 50 states? I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm merely interested in whether this a fact or not.

Robert,
You give many good examples of how an unsuspecting buyer can get screwed which is why I highly recommend having a car checked out by a professional MB mechanic. I don't mean take it to a general car repair shop where they might be dazzled by the shiny MB. A good MB mechanic should be able to tell if the car has been pieced together. For one thing the VIN is plastered all over the front and back end components on a non removable sticker. If say the hood has been replaced from a wrecking yard the VIN won't match or it will be painted over. If the hood is new from MB, it will have a sticker that says, "MB DOT". Also odometers should have neat rows of #s. If the #s don't quite line up, the mileage has been turned back. We have one good law here in Ca. If an insurance company totals a car, and the insured wants to pay the difference and keep the car, a new salvage title will be issued. That is state law.

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Auto Zentral Ltd.

Where there are laws there are loopholes. Its always good to look over a preowned vehicle before buying it. While prepurchase inspections can be somewhat troublesome to schedule they can save some surprises in your ownership of a vehicle. While most people use insurance companies there are some people who have the money to either self insure or pay cash for major repairs. Some of these people with deep pockets tend to like MB's. For the wealth of information that a car fax can give you and a title can give you those documents are only as good as the system which has loopholes. There are a lot of autorebuilders that spend all day figuring out how to cheat the system and the system is slow to adapt to these scams.

Agree, the process by which salvage titles are issues lacks consistency from state to state and even within a state. My comments related to cars that had already been issued a salvage title.

No written documentation from all 50 states - only conversation with state officials and with an individual who had tried exhaustively to reverse one and failed. Interestingly the place to wash a salvage title is Germany. They apparently have no such distinction - a car is either roadworthy or it is not. If a car is damaged and then properly repaired and inspected it goes back on the road with no damaged stigma. I have German friends who buy U.S. classics and they are unconcerned with the type of title.

At the shop level, some shops do sell info. GM is notorius for selling info to car fax. Me and my wife 2 summers ago took her car for a little getaway. While there I thought might as well get this thing a tune up, probobly same price as hometown and right now the car's not really needed.

We got the tune up, now her car fax report says, car serviced and the town where it was serviced. Recently I tried selling this car, and customers noticed that on the car fax, and told me I was trying to sell them an out of province car! Since the service took place in another province during a vacation, this car has become a hard sell, and people have been low balling me.

Car fax is over rated. I beleive in the good old way of keeping records more then an internet company that tells us "the truth" about our car's.

To me the question is not whether they are overrated but whether they are even a legitimate business. The silliest thing about CarFax is the accident records. Sellers, especially on Ebay, represent their cars as being accident free because CarFax shows no accident history. CarFax has access to such a small fraction of the total accident data for them to say anything on the subject is effectively fraud.

Like even my car i have 2 vandalism claims over $2000 dollars, ones for $4500..and another for around $2500... These repairs were paid for by the insurance company and I have to declare both claims when I sell the car. According to Car fax the car is free of accidents and claims....I think car fax is good, but people have to stop putting so much faith into them. I recommend anyone that buys a car and the owner claims to have it dealer serviced from day one...well call the dealer and have the history pulled on it. If the person has no records and no shop has any proof of repairs or maintinace...i would never touch the car. A couple years is alot of oil changes and maintinace let alone if there's been break downs....

p.s. my car has many files of records...