I wonder how substantial that extra power becomes with the extra weight your carrying around in the front?

Where exactly do you plan on driving this car? My S320 gets up to 80+mph effortlessly and has plenty of power. Unless your planning on drag racing or doing a Ronin style chase on the highway or are taking it to the track the S500 badge on the back of the car is just snob factor. Personally I did not buy my car to make up for ego shortcomings.

While im sure the S500 is faster is it really worth the extra expense? Your going to pay extra to get the car, fuel the car and service and repair the car. The initial purpose of this post was to indicate "how bad are they". I think S320's are great cars. S500's adds many layers of complexity that I would not be willing to deal with. From the $6000+ in parts in the useless hydropneumatic suspension down to paying double when you need a top end overhaul its just not worth it to me.

If the extra power is worth it to you I certainly hope you enjoy it. You certainly will be paying a premium for it. I hope its really worth it for you in the long run.

Good luck

Their new Ebay slogan should be.

"Ebay a place where a fool and their money quickly part"

With the amount of these cars available locally its just simply stupid to purchase one on Ebay. Essentially your committing to buy a vehicle without being able to test drive it based on some digital photos. A car is a lot more complicated than beany babies or a furby. Lets say your seller is having issues out of their 722.6 transmission that are intermittant and their mechanic has indicated a failure is in the future. The owner has the car detailed snaps some really good photos and slaps it on ebay to sell the car for top dollar. With the extra money he gets he buys another car and has money left over. The buyer on the other hand gets to have an expensive and painful transmission overhaul after paying top dollar for their car. Ooops!

The nice thing about the larger engines is the effortless way they push the car. The M104 is a grand motor, but it isn't an M119. It doesn't sing like an M119 when its on its cams, and it doesn't pull like one either. Not that the M104 doesn't have its own charm.

Mpg difference isn't that much, if it was a lot more then 5-8 I'd be surprised. If that much of a difference bothers you then honestly you really shouldn't be looking at these cars. These are not Honda's, they are very expensive $80k sedans, remember that. Even if you buy it cheap its still an $80k+ car.

Each W140 model offers something for different people and tastes. As much as I like the power the V8's offer I really don't feel like fueling one. But come next year when I will probably be looking, I won't turn down a nice S420 either.

In the end maintaince costs are about a wash, fuel costs as well. Buy whatever one you like, and is in the best shap. There are a ton of beat trashed W140's out there, dig up a good one.

Of course the S600 is a different animal, I don't group it with the other W140's because it shouldn't be. S600's are great cars, just don't buy one unless you can afford it. If you can afford one, enjoy.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Robert, I have heard it said in a number of places that the quality of MB's has improved considerably in the last year or two. I wonder what you, or anyone else who would care to comment, think about this. This capitalization upon a brand name happens all the time. Smart CEO's don't try to ride that for too long.

Personally, I like the <1994 models better than then 1994-2000 models just in terms of appearance. The last few model years have been very appealing aesthetically.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

They have. I'd go out an buy a W221, S550 right now if I had the money.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

By what measure? That they haven't broken down in their first year or two of life? This sounds like J.D. Power first year owner satifaction stuff which is a poor meausure of real quality. If it's Mercedes saying this it is perhaps wishful thinking and certainly a lowering of standards - that they would be pleased that their cars are lasting for a year or two.

To me the car to get is a 420, an early one without a 722.6 which started in 1996. Plus if you get an earlier one you get metal oil tubes - an engine for which it's hard to think of a single congentital flaw, unlike the 104 which has several significant ones. You must stay away from ASR - the single most important thing you can do in looking for any MB.

I'm just posting this because I feel like taking a break.

When I read things that just make no sense, I must respond.

Hatteras Guy, wrote, "In the end maintaince costs are about a wash."

Huh? The S500 has pneumatic rear suspension with 1,000 dollar a pop
dampers in the rear and nitogen spheres that go bad. A V-8 is significantly more complex than a IL6. There are two heads, more valves, harder to get to components, more complex chain path (rail guide failure thing). The S420 and S500 cars are more expensive, and logically will cost more to maintain on average. Emphasis on the words "on average". We can all drown in the statistical river that averages 3 feet deep, but has 50 foot deep valley in the center of the river."

So exactly what is the logic behind this statement?

Steve

No one has internal problems with engines anymore. In fact if you want to compare the M104, which is known to blow head gaskets once in awhile, with the M119 which is known to blow oil tubes to, its about a wash. Maybe even give the edge to the M119, because either way you cut it a head gasket is a pricey thing to change.


Shocks are shocks, if you have to change them oh well. I'm not going to, not buy an S500, because one day I may have to change a rear shock out.

Dollar for dollar its all a wash when you crunch the numbers. So you spend a grand to change a rear shock on an S500, you could spend that same money doing a head gasket on an S320. A grand spent on a car is still a grand spent on a car, regardless of where its spent.

__________________
2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Just my 0.02 cents on all the above subjects:

- Based on extensive experience with BOTH models (S500 and S 320): The M119 is definitely smoother, torquier and more satisfying than the M104 on a W140. Most drivers will not notice the difference on daily driving, but when pressed or at highway speeds, the difference shines through.

- The S 500 is less fuel efficient than the S 320 on town, BUT at long distance highway cruising it is actually marginally more economic.

- It has been proven that the M119 will easily triple the mileage of any M104 before any work has to be done inside the engine (in cases of similarly maintained units).

- Of all the M.B.s that I have owned for the last 21 years, my S 500 L has been the most reliable and cheaper to mantain, no contest!

- The evaporator issue persisted thorughtout the ENTIRE W140 production life. The issue was simple: the evaps were made of a combination of cooper and alluminun (two materials which do not mix) and M.B. did never fixed the problem by switching to a full cooper evap.

- The speaker behind the center rearview mirror is actually just one tweeter, which is used to fill high notes for ambiance purposes (since the main speakers are mounted low at each door). The Bose Soundsystem in the W140s did not have 5-channel sorround sound, just plain stereo with the addition of the rear shelf woofers (at the most you could call it a 2.1 system [L + R + subwoofer signal]). The central tweeter carries L and R signals slighty time delayed.

- For most markets the W140 was made from early 1991 to the middle of 1998. Only in the U.S. the life of the W140 was extended for the 1999 model year as production of the W220 picked up.

- Later production (lets say facelifted units) models tend to be more reliable than early production, as many problems were fixed by redesigning the culprits.

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A. Rosich
CL 500, 1998
S 500 L, 1998
E 320 T, 1995 [Sadly sold ]

is one I stumbled across at this link. It won't look like anyone else's 140!

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_id=204360822&dealer_id=58036750&car_year=1997&model=S320&num_records=&bkms=1153791958559&lang=en&isp=y&start_year=1996&mod_bookmark_id=null&certified=&search_type=both&distance=300&make=MB&min_price=&address=49546&advanced=&end_year=1998&max_price=&cardist=111

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Craig Bethune

'97 SL500, 40th anniversary edition

'04 Olds Bravada (SWMBO's)
'06 Lexus ES330
'89 560SL (sold)


SL--Anything else is just a Mercedes.
(Kudos to whoever said it first)

As usual, well stated Mr. Rosich. Can't argue with a thing you said, except..

It has been proven that the M119 will easily triple the mileage of any M104 before any work has to be done inside the engine (in cases of similarly maintained units).

I think that is the rub. There are lots of ill maintained units out there. As a practical matter it's one thing to find target cars on the internet and then try to research them. Do you believe the seller? A lot of this is simply that people can't or chose not to maintain these cars. Just check out the number of luxury cars running around in the summer with the windows down.

So if you are correct and the V8's will last 3 times longer the 6 before any necessary internal repairs then one must find a nicely maintained example at a suitable price in a location that is close enough to inspect the thing. The location also needs to be close enough so that the travel costs aren't too bad. Then you have to buy it before someone snatches it out from under you. A guy came on the lot just as I putting down my deposit. He was also ready to buy and had driven 50 miles to buy the car.

The S320 I bought just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
If it had been a V8 I would have bought it.

Honestly though, part of driving these cars is tinkering with them. If I drive the M104 for the useful life of the engine, say another 200,000 miles, I'll probably be bored, and changing cars anyway.

Enjoyed the discussion and learned several more tidbits.

I did wonder about Robert's statement on the Evaporator failure rate going down with the later cars. I had read before, that the design didn't change.
So perhaps it's simply that the later models are just newer and will fail in due time.

Steve

The funny thing in reading this thread is how 5 or 6 years ago (and I'm sure the threads still exist) everyone was saying the 126 chassis was the LAST TRUE MERCEDES and the 140 is junk. I KNEW this day would come and I think you can even find me quoting this on the boards here somewhere. Then, as now, I like to quote Billy Joels' "Keeping the Faith": "The good old days weren't always good and tomorrows not as bad as it seems." Maybe MB should drop "Green Onions" and substitute it with this instead!
The 140, to put it bluntly, can tear your heart and wallet out. Who was that actress that said "when I'm good I'm really good and when I'm bad I'm even better"? The 140 is more like when it's good it's really good and when it'd bad it's REALLY bad. Your broke, unless you're really loaded. I agree with sticking with an S500 M119, that was a really good motor/tranny combo. Watch for leaks, not just the evaporator but the steering gear box too. The later in the run the better, which is true with ANY Mercedes though.
The speaker discussion, I don't know everything, but I don't remember tweeters on the inside mirror, I thought they were on top of the dash on the sides, don't remember a center one, BUT make sure you're not looking at the hands-free microphone (cell phone). Remember these were built when cell phone technology was just barely chugging along (ANALOG! all we had was analog!) and MB really was trying to stay ahead. But it was hard to keep up with the changes back then when you wanted to just do the one major model change a year.
Gilly

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Oh just read the message on the evaporator, hey I think originally they put a coating on the evaporators to help fight the mold problems, and they found that the coating held in some moisture and that's what caused all the evaporators to rot out (corrosion at the joints).
Gilly

__________________
Click here to see the items I have up for auction at EBay

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Hmmmm

And trade OBDII and a number of production quality improvements in for crumbling wiring harnesses outdated zebrano wood interior with outdated A/C controls? Your wiring harness replacement and special code reading tool (or $100 a pop trips to the dealership for use of their Star diagnostic system) would easily outcost a 722.6 overhaul?

To each their own I guess.

The Tweeter is "behind" the rear view mirror. You can only see it while cleaning your windshield. You can get a bluetooth adapter for the old vehicle wiring system and use the external antenna and speakersystem for any bluetooth phone. Much more trouble than a $25 bluetooth headset that you can seamlessly switch from car to outside with.